You don't have to be Neil Armstrong to walk on the moon. It is enough just to read Obrad Nenezić's new novel, which was promoted the night before last in Nikšić, and to go on a "tour" of the moon. Unlike Armstrong, you have to be ready, as literary critic Goran Radojičić wrote, to wander through hell, because Nenezić's "Walkers" is a ballad about losers, a black chronicle of a youth.
Moderator of the evening, prof. Jelena Krsmanović said that "Walkers" is Nenezić's second novel, but that the author is not only a novelist but also a playwright, screenwriter, director, and poet.
Nenezić reminded that the novel, which he said is postmodernist and explores the street, politics and ideology, was created based on the script for a feature TV series for which he received an award from the Television of Montenegro in 2000, and is dedicated to young people from the past and this century.
"The fighters in the novel do not consider street life to be anything bad, but chivalrous because they had no role models from whom they could learn other value systems. 'Walkers' is a story about the collapse of the value system, about a new time in which the middle class has irretrievably disappeared", said Nenezić and added that everywhere there are neighborhoods like Maidan and a wall of silence around it. In the novel, as the author said, the main stars are dubious businessmen, "silicone" girls, corrupt politicians, and all this is "seasoned" by a difficult transition period that creates drama and in which the writer can enjoy, but not literature.
According to him, watching the movie "Once Upon a Time in America", and later reading the novel "The Catcher in the Rye", he wished to "give" Montenegro such a movie. He wrote a screenplay for a feature TV series, received an award, but it was not screened, so he decided to "revive" the script. This is how "Walkers" was created, in which the main character, Ivo Žada, who is a storyteller, writer and journalist, guides the readers through the novel. He admitted that he likes neorealism and that in the novel he deliberately "mixed" the narrator and the narrator, but also introduced a column, a journalistic-literary genre that awaits us in the future. He believes that with the emergence of new media and their commercialization, criticism has lost its purpose, especially if one takes into account, as he said, that some critics work on the foundations of the XNUMXth century.
The cover of the novel, which presents a bound "exploration of the ecstasy of the street that will attract the attention of everyone who likes criminal themes", was made by Mićo Kadović, who, according to his confession, "bought Nenezić for life" with the proposed solution.
Since the author chose to engage in an unprofitable business and to make a living from writing, he published this novel, as well as the previous one, "A Smile for Marija Mihailović", by himself. Perhaps also because, as he pointed out, he loves his freedom, and this is also the only way to fight against amateurism and the entire infestation of writers.
The evening could not pass without talking about the theater and Nenezić's current play "The Saints and the Damned", which is inspired by the love of Kosara and Vladimir, but also about the play about Jelena Savoy, which will premiere on July 13. Both plays are dramas in verse, and that will be the case, said Nenezić, in the future with all historical themes.
The promotion of a novel in which the time was "revived" when it was known that "the street belongs to everyone and that it awaits everyone, sooner or later." She is devoted to culture, politics and ideology", organized by former students of Elementary School "Luka Simonović" generation 78/79", to which Nenezić also belongs. The evening was completed by the current students of the school, the young pianist Marko Lazović and Lucija Perović, on the trumpet.
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