There are books that, with their structure, dynamics and, above all, energy, simply swirl us around and engulf us in a whirlwind of polyphony that throws us in different directions. One of them is the collection of short stories "The day after". Kemal Musić (Nova knjiga, Podgorica) which, not only with its name of the same name, is associated with an American film from the early eighties that deals with the fate of people after a nuclear disaster. Although Musić does not deal with this kind of outcome, the actors in his stories have bad fates and unhappy destinies. Although apparently apocalyptic tones are incompatible with this writer whose eternal smile captivates with goodness and optimism, his imagination, phantasmagoria and the realm of words that translate him into the magic of creation bring us a dynamic prose unit composed of antipodes, of things that are completely opposite to their initial foundations .
Composed as a collection of fourteen short stories divided into four parts, this book could easily have grown into a novel due to its structure, conceptual and thematic background and overall direction. Not only because, as he notes in the afterword Sead Husic that the largest number of characters in these stories are marked by silence as unavoidable categories, but also because of Musić's relationship to reality and existential space. This is, after all, hinted at in the opening story "This is our teacher playing the violin", where after the one from whom one learns the first letters and realizes the first learned aspects of life, we expect a chronological opening of the narrative, but instead we have a kind of selective family album in which the father is arranged , mother, brother, sister so that their evil destinies would be rounded off by death as an eternal human constant or destination. Each of these stories has its extreme opposites. On one side, there is a cheerful base, a beautiful initiation, and then strong, unexpected twists follow where joy and optimism grow into apocalyptic images. Although, judging by some topographical indications, these skaskas are located in the native milieu, their overall characteristics take on a universal character and refer to the eternal human polarity between good and evil, that is, happiness and unhappiness. The writer tells us that one cannot do without the other and that the world is structured in such a way that suffering is an integral part of every life.
In his short narratives, among other things, Musić deals with unexpected mystifications, superstitions ("The Egg"), the invisible and otherworldly. Many things are manifested here as strange and unusual phenomena and their secrecy is reflected in what is considered impossible. There, the places of personal fascination with the world are rapidly shifting. With him, almost surreal images are quickly lined up and the subconscious, the dreamy or imaginative, has a special power. It is one of the most important determinants with which he records his work and it reminds us of the statement Georges Bataille that the human spirit is in the power of the most unusual urges. He is constantly in fear of himself.
The way the world is organized is not a true reflection of its potential. That is why the writer refines and changes it according to his creation. He mixes reality and fiction in a dense network of different meanings. He has memories of his childhood, of hundreds of images that alternate as if on a film strip and overwhelm him with feelings that only hint at the fact that the ties to his childhood and homeland are strong and special. Detail is a matter of both creation and interpretation, but here it seems to want to skip a series of details that permeate the world of suffering, as if it is better to keep them silent in the narrative space where many elements intertwine. It is a vicious circle from which it is almost impossible to get out, although sometimes an outlaw attitude would be desirable. Here, language is the only corrective factor, so in the story of the same name, the writer says: "In that silence, it would become clear to me that the language and the people are really bound by fate and that everything that happens to the people, also happens to their language." And vice versa."
In the end of the book, motifs of the homeland and nature or what seems to encompass personal memories, something that is kept deep in one's memory, also run through. Of course, memories are always more intimate and they can serve as good arguments for exposing, one might say, one's own depth. But, although at first glance it seems like a collection of memories formed from different constructive elements, its narrative space is also related to the irrational, the strange. These fragmentary narratives (fragmentation is the basic feature of all knowledge) seem to be stuck in the cracks of time, in the center of which people are burdened with various life inconveniences. And the future here seems like something buried in painful memories and half-attempts to revive at least something from the past better days.
It is worth mentioning how Music parodies certain stereotypes in his writing, which is constantly torn apart and reassembled, so sometimes we have the feeling that his hand is too slow for his thought. Each book is in some way an imitation of life and each one carries something mysterious and ineffable. Here is another confirmation of that.
Bonus video:
