(Lana Bastašić, "Catch the rabbit", Kontrast publishing house, Belgrade, 2018) In literature, how it was written is more important than what it was written about - it is probably the most widespread instruction when making value judgments about a work. It is based on the fact that literature is "artificial" like any other art, i.e. that the weight of the story itself should be left to factual forms. There are always several possibilities in play. A theme can be great, but it's useless if it's handled poorly. There are also situations when the quality of the processing exceeds the material and thus increases its value. And in these years, when I can already boast that I have met dozens of different styles and thematic frameworks, I appreciate more and more the combination in which "how to write" and "what to write about" go hand in hand with each other. This is what gives rise to a complete reading experience: you are not haunted by the impression that it could have been better, that somewhere it turned into nothing.
In the novel "Catch the Rabbit" by Lana Bastašić, this duality is reconciled in the best possible way. First, an attractive central motif is chosen, with which the peripheral motifs intertwine in a justified order, giving the rhythm a new impulse just when you think it will subside and dissolve in the details. Second, the style and approach to the narrative reveal talent (which must be emphasized, bearing in mind that this is a debut novel), as well as the acquired ability to shape a voluminous material so effectively that there is hardly any room for subsequent revisions. In Leibnizian terms - what is written is written in the best possible way. Or at least it leaves such an effect that the possibility of a better one is not taken into account. And thirdly, which inevitably follows from the previous two theses: at no point does it happen that one overshadows the other, that is, it feels like the writer is not in control of the situation. These are, in fact, those moments when you become aware of the writer, his strenuous presence, which defeats the purpose of reading. It is the noticing of the flaw in the construction, which brings awareness, stifles the magic.
Bastašić opted for a plot that starts from the very beginning. Thus, it was hinted at the beginning that, if nothing else, there could be plenty of vicissitudes and entanglements waiting for us until the end, which calls for constant reader vigilance, so as not to miss an important link. And all of them are important, starting with the initial ones, the most important ones, which break the route. It is one call and one path that flows from it. After more than a decade of silence, Sara is called by Lejla, a friend from their early, shared youth in Bosnia, to inform her that Armin is in Vienna and asks her to take her to him. Armin is Leila's brother, whom Sara was in love with in that secret, not very clearly defined childish way. He disappeared during the war, as they usually disappeared then - due to belonging to an unsuitable identity in an identity-divided environment - and after so many years word arrives that he is still alive. Without any hasty explanation, the author immediately sends her heroine on her way, and this sudden decision hints at the turbulent prehistory that brought her to Ireland, in a relationship with a stranger, far from her homeland and everything that once meant to her. And which must be untangled.
The narration continues in two streams, which alternate and give us an insight into both the past and the present life of the two main protagonists. The first one follows the actual moment in which the narrator Sara leaves for Bosnia, meets Lejla, and then together they leave for Austria, on a journey that is far from one-way - aimed exclusively at fulfilling the mission of finding Armin. Through a reunion in the center of Mostar, a short stay in his native Banja Luka, and a mutual emotional opening that takes place as in a complicated game of chess, we get to know the complexity of the relationship between Sara and Lejla. He is only framed by the present; it seems that all the content of that framework emerges from the shared past, transforming into something completely new, which needs to be interpreted if, after twelve years of separation, it would not breathe new meaning into it. The basic meaning is the search, but as time goes by, it becomes clear that many other, silent searches are taking place under it. However, what he encounters there are only scattered and congealed remains of the past, which are not capable of awakening any more joyful impression.
The second narrative stream is a kind of reconstruction of Sarah and Leila's togetherness from the earliest days until the moment of parting. We learn how the two of them met in elementary school, how they coped together with the hormonal, love, psychosocial and other miseries of adolescence, how a bond developed between them that exceeded the friendship fostered by physical and age closeness. And as the years went by, they realized that they couldn't live without each other because their mutual differences made them mutually dependent. This, at least, becomes clear to us from Sarah's testimony, since she points out in several places how much some of Leila's traits that were more difficult to accept in her character scared and attracted her at the same time: licentiousness, sudden changes of mood, disgusting rejection of all conventions. They were a kind of symbiotic help to each other in the period when the personality matures by absorbing influences from outside. Later, when the personality is oversaturated, this fusion will reveal the irreconcilability of the two formed temperaments. Then there will be an inevitable breakup, so the new meeting, whether it was in their plan or not, will smell like a new attempt. Because old truths find their origin in the present: "But she always reminded me of something essential in me, of some center that cannot be reduced to four regular corners. She reminded me that disorder is the natural state of this world, and that our lives, organized around efforts to bring order to all that chaos, are actually nothing but a reflection of unfathomable arrogance."
Lana Bastašić wrote a novel with a convincing characterization of the characters, with clearly motivated solutions in terms of structuring the plot and connecting motives, with a theme that will hardly lose its topicality anytime soon. Here it is possible to find everything that bothers the modern man: the question of the limits to which the connection of diversity (multiple) can go, the question of mastering identity - shaping it according to one's own discretion, the question of the relationship of different time plans that refract on the same individual. And perhaps most importantly, we should mention that omnipresent pleasure of reading. Regardless of the not at all easy content. This is perhaps the surest indicator that we are dealing with something that, to put it mildly, came very close to the ideal of a complete novel
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