He talks about people with incomplete and even traumatic upbringing Boris Vukotić in the novel "Mjesečar" which was recently published in Nova Knjiga. The promotion is planned for November 29 at the Cultural and Information Center "Budo Tomović" in Podgorica, announced Vukotić.
"The novel 'Moonlighter' by Boris Vukotić moves in a wonderful direction when the main character - already then it is clear that he is nervously very tense and thinking about ending some torment - receives a blow to the head, so his life starts to be unraveled and narrated, all in a shifted, hallucinatory register. The weather in the novel changes abruptly, which is also outlined meteorologically, and the space is a mixture of locations from the narrator's life. But there is also another narrator's voice, his adopted sister Marta. Those two voices, intertwining, will tell a story with biblical and ancient elements, about an abandoned child, about social incest, about a boy who fell permanently in love with a girl, about traumas that defined his clumsy and incomplete relationship with women, about romantic and passionate about loves and longings, about forbidden love and social hypocrisy, about fatal delusion and murder", says the editor in the review Crown Lokotar.
The work was created in less than a year, says Vukotić, and follows "Mjesečar", the main character, and the only one who does not have a first and last name...
"His story is told in the first person singular. I'm using the past tense, because after receiving a blow to the head and being half-conscious, the entire life of the Sleepwalker unfolds before his eyes. The sleepwalker is a complex character, a psychologically incomplete person with a questionable attitude towards women. However, he knows what the real values are in life, he is intelligent and fatally emotional", says Vukotić
He says that in the novel two narrations take place in parallel in the first person singular, both in the past tense.
"It is Mjesečar's story and the story of his adopted sister Marta. In the book's epilogue, a third voice appears in the first person singular of the past tense, their son Martin. It was technically very demanding, because it was necessary to make a clear distinction between the narrator, the different characters, without jeopardizing the whole, and to show that it is really about different characters, and not that their stories are told from one head," he explains. Vukotić also reveals that at one point Mjesečar, driven by fatal emotions, will commit an act of murder.
"Lokotar once said: 'The sleepwalker has all the characteristics of a borderline clinical case. It is functional, so it is not clinical, but its hypertrophied inner life is dominant. He lives in his head and that life is often stronger than the real one'. I think that people should dream, but also try to turn their dreams into reality. There is not much use in dreaming itself. Mjesečar is not a person who only dreamed, on the contrary, he tried very hard to change the major direction of his life", emphasizes Vukotić.
Kruno Lokotar notes that "space is a mixture of locations from the storyteller's life," and the author says that he thinks that the writer cannot exclude himself from what he writes about.
"Actually, it's always about what he experienced, experienced, saw or heard, or someone told him. Of course, the names are made up, the dialogues are mocked, the events are skillfully hidden, but underneath all that, you as the author and your life are peeking out," says Vukotić.
Lokotar, further, describing the novel, says that Vukotić focuses more on feeling than on realism, just like in a film by an insolent director. However, Vukotić believes that a book, a novel always says more than a movie.
"The characters in the novel are impulsive, temperamental, and that's why they often 'fall into the fire', make unreasonable, sometimes unappreciative decisions. They surrender to instinct and use it in their relationships more than reason. The pictures are blurred by fog, rain, wind, because emotional storms unfold in the characters. In fact, their lives are stormy in themselves. When writing, I did not take into account the "filmic" nature of the novel. I think that a novel is an art form that can be expressed and shown much more than a film," he points out.
Love was an unavoidable topic that triggered a series of others, says Vukotić.
"There is forbidden love, love in itself, but also murder for love. We should not lose sight of the fact that it is the basis of our existence. The novel also discusses the topics of social incest, social hypocrisy, pathological jealousy, passion and lust, and prejudice. All these are elements and topics that occupy human attention and make us think since the time when man learned to express himself in writing".
He also talked about love in his previous novel, "Heart of Islam" in which, he says, he tried to make a difference between religion and faith; religion as a passive component of the relationship with God and faith as an active component, which he equated with love in the novel and in his life.
Although he opened up more questions and themes, the leitmotif of the novel remains people trying to find their "place under the sun" after a traumatic upbringing.
"Such people later have a problem fitting into a normal life, and when I say 'normal life' I actually mean the usual living standards of an average person, because it is not easy to define, especially not in the modern moment, what a normal life is," says Vukotić for "Vijesti" presenting his third book.
Unprofitable, but does not stop writing
During the interview for "Vijesti", Boris Vukotić points out that it was never possible to make a living from writing in these areas, especially not today. Aware of this, he says that material satisfaction is not a relevant measure of the great work and effort that must be invested in order to write a literary work. Nevertheless, it announces the next novel.
"And satisfaction can also be found in encouraging people to read. If we succeeded in this with this interview - we did a good job. Also, I would like to announce that my latest novel 'Nepoželjna osoba', written a year after 'Mjesečar', will see the light of day very soon, published by the Zagreb publisher 'Jesenski i Turk'. I hope that I will be able to present it to the audience in Montenegro. For now, I'm rooting for 'Msiečar'".
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