"The magic of chess unites us all. We are all one genus..."
"Chess belongs to everyone..."
(And as for the division into "left" and "right"...)
"This is chess and everything is according to the law. End of story."
(Aurora, 85, 92, 253)
In medias res!
The polysemy of these words is fascinating. The idea can be imagined without limits.
From time to time, almost at regular intervals (which is to say - most often in pre-election campaigns), we hear about the need for "national reconciliation", about programs in which this is outlined as a goal. The story sounds good and many people like it. After all, people have long been tired of traumatic, senseless, destructive divisions, which, in the end, did not serve anything good.
To avoid redundant rhetoric: "Only chess can reconcile us!"
In other words: respect for the law and clear rules.
You can be as creative as you want within the set rules on 64 fields. (Okay... let's just say that not everyone can replicate the glory of the Dadaist concept of the party Marcel Duchamp - John Cage, with all the musical effects and multi-layered artistic connotations, but an infinite number of possibilities remain.) Play, dance, be a virtuoso, create a masterpiece! No two chess games are the same. But the rules must be followed.
We started with a dominant idea Aurore. The one that somehow contains all the others.
A wide space opens up for the reader for a finer contemplation, a long consideration of the ancient game as an endless field of meaning.
Polis Podgorica
In previous books from the Podgorica cycle Balša Brković we got to know this novelistic urban space through narrative fiction that refers to modernity.
As he knew how to underline prof. Dr. Dragan Koprivica, speaking at one time about the significance and value of the book Private gallery, the first in the mentioned series (I will paraphrase, and the famous title phrase Edgar Moreno will serve nicely): that text represented something fundamentally new in our literature, because, after always the same, classic and traditional, already somewhat tiresome narratives - we finally had a novel that expresses spirit of the times, of this, our time and space. A different literary manner and poetics were on the horizon. In that sense, indeed, it was a pioneering, even programmatic text. Coincidentally or not - at the same time millennial. It symbolically marked the end of an era at the end of the second millennium, and announced something new. And that "something" is recent, in the context of the conversation about Auroras, accurately described Bozo Koprivica (by the way, one of my favorite authors, especially when he talks about football, white roses and It's raining) - emphasizing at the same time how important a role that generation of writers played on the local literary scene. Balsha's generation. (Yes, they are remembered - for a long time they were labeled "young Montenegrin writers", and we all know what those names are.)
If we look at Balša Brković's works in which this city is the starting point and meeting place of events as a whole, then Aurora marked by the process of retrospection, travel to the past (but let's see how it was or could have been in nineteen thirty-two), which resulted in a successful and very interesting reconstruction of the era. Because, as the author Aurore wrote in one of his verses:
"Literature has the power to play with the Calendar."
(Professor K.'s death, Black Playground)
Narrative fiction continues - or starts from the beginning, depending on whether you read the book as part of the Podgorica tetralogy or as a separate, separate entity - with a new constellation of literary characters, with whom the narrator divergently draws some new plots and trajectories through space and time ; and in the end, everything again gravitates to the central space, which in the works of the same author is already recognized as Polis Podgorica.
Let's continue a little more the associative series, inevitable after a walk through the text(s) of Balša Brković, but this time primarily inspired Aurora... which is irresistibly reminiscent of the "sleeper story", as described in Private gallery. And there, the idea is the following:
"All stories contain other stories."
"Stories can sleep for several centuries. (...) You sleeper story are the most interesting part of the world.”
That's how the story of Aurora slept for almost an entire century. Wake up "according to the law of inevitable needs" (rilke) to describe an epochal "meeting of worlds". In the "seventh story" (Private gallery, 101) they met the one who knew "everything about herself, and nothing about the World", because she never left the same room, and "every imprisonment implies endless introspection" - and the one "who knew everything about the World..." (because he was "condemned to wander forever", and "endless movement implies the absence of self-awareness"). And so... until the end of time. In Brković's new novel, everything is full of newly awakened sleeping beauties who get to know first of all themselves and their strength, gaining new self-awareness, and "wanderers" whose stories are full of truths and "truths" about the world. It is not easy to read the year 1932!
Meetings in Auroras they represent the essence of the narrative world. Of crucial importance are those that happen on the chess field.
Here we are, therefore, at another circle of creation that begins with the whiteness of the paper, or a new constellation (... "When something flashes where there was nothing/In the middle of the sky, the black playground"; B. Brković, Black playground).
Polis is once again inhabited by characters.
The narrator presents them to the reader in the opening chapters in a way reminiscent of the opening of a chess game, which is completely in line with the central event thematized in the novel: the opening of the Aurora chess club in Podgorica. The idea of founding came from Podgorica's "bourgeois", declared liberal, engineer Nester, and was strongly supported by white Russians, as Nester himself wanted. It brings together all colors, religions and nations, and the women's section promises a feminist crescendo. In the meantime, some are waiting for a "revolution" - both on the historical stage and in the Montenegrin mentality (Beckettian moments bring a special charm), and the revolution is really happening with Aurora, as Engineer Nester lucidly points out.
"What should we do?"
"Let's wait. What else are we going to do." (78)
The action, therefore, takes place in between of waiting (on the emancipation of Montenegrin society) i undertaking (with the same goal). In the context of the already mentioned numerous changes on the global stage, in a world that is moving forward with giant steps, where is the name Vere Menčik, world champion in chess, already written in history - there is also Montenegro somewhere, which, traditional and self-sufficient, resists changes ("...everything good that happens in the world will come to Montenegro last", said Dara from Podgorica Tijović). And what is really happening is named after the mythical dawn goddess. Already by definition (linguistic), the name is a convention, and this was chosen precisely democratically. As a counterpoint, a thought from Romeo and Juliet o a rose that would smell the same... Interesting intertextuality is one of the striking features of this novel and is a natural, in a certain sense, expected presence Shakespeare - the author's favorite writer Aurore. This key one sema (dawn, daybreak) in the text is additionally highlighted by a series of lexemes from the same semantic or associative field. Aurora is the Montenegrin answer to the weather a step of seven miles.
Suspicion, suspicion, great resistance and a kind of "paranoia" (another well-known motif in the novels of the same writer) accompany the story of Aurora, in which the women's section is particularly "problematic".
Why would the bourgeois invest their money in something from which they will have no income? It must be something "ideological". Such is the logic of those who do not understand that people are motivated by something other than concrete material gain. The authorities suspect the "anointed Nester" of having made Aurora a "pro-Soviet point" (335), a "mask for action". Communist and renegade Toko thinks in the opposite direction:
"These are the rich people who make fun out of everything, including chess. He won't run into my haircut..."
There is also the magic of football, the intoxication of "advanced ideas" - but also music Rachmaninoff, the launch of new magazines, the inevitable book cult (this time - a bookstore as a "collecting center of Russian illusions"... "because what are books if not monuments to our most beautiful illusions"), an interest in linguistics, languages of the world in whose honor glasses are raised, Podgorica, which is reflected in the steel blue eyes of the old man Radovan Zogović, the slightly ironic sense of humor of the convinced orator Djilas, the magic of art, the "gravity of blue" with Milunović's picture (can affect concentration and make you lose a game of chess). Rich events and a whole gallery of colorful characters.
A novelist must have an enviable education and be widely informed, that much is clear. Considering the amount of details, particulars, facts contained in the work - writing Aurore it had to be preceded by long-term, serious work on the collection of factual material, which in the creative process will be combined with imagination, fiction, and in general that "non-factual" that is more and more often included in contemporary theories counterfactuality. The persuasiveness of the artistic text cannot be achieved without it. Special skill, concentration, effort and perseverance are needed to be able to master all this structure. Aurora it testifies to the top quality and mastery in all stages of that process.
As elements of the text structure, we recognize different forms of telling (poetry, epistolary form, sermon), which makes the telling more meaningful and interesting, and the reading experience more exciting.
The persuasiveness of the characters is contributed by the dialogue - lively, witty, sparkling, with jokes and witticisms - sometimes in verses (only the Russians "did not get into all the nuances of Podgorica's humor"), but also intellectual, thoughtful, meaningful, with the weight and seriousness of the ideas they contain - either implicitly, as a hidden hint of something, or explicitly, as a discovery or idea, as a revelation, as - Aurora. The dialogic form often prevails over the classic narrative discourse, which in a certain sense irresistibly resembles some pages of American prose by the leading writers of the 20th century (Steinbeck, Hemingway, Capote...). In this way, the rhythm of telling becomes more dynamic, more receptive.
Podgorica from Balša Brković's "quartet" is that "gathering center", a magical unifying field. And it is that "gathering place of love" (let the anti-communists and anti-Yugnostalgics not begrudge me this memory of the immortal Sarajlićeva verses), and love is not explained. Or, as the author Aurore he says - "it is not loved because something, but love despite everything". That's exactly how Balšina Podgorica is loved.
We can follow the path of the characters through the novel's space and time as we would follow the movement of pieces on a chessboard, and in the end realize that everything is meaningfully rounded, not a single (piece) has been lost sight of or "wandered away", "simply forgotten". True, this possibility existed on a theoretical level in Abram's conception of chess in all colors, which is more like life than war (Paranoia in Podgorica)... but it was just an interesting idea that can be presented in an appealing way, listened to carefully, probably not accepted. At least not under the name of the good old game. Omen nomen. You know what chess is!
Scenicness
By all accounts, we have a kind of consensus when it comes to the scenic/filmic nature of this text. This quality has been noticed in previous expert and critical reviews, reviews and comments from competent readers of this book. And it was one of the most important impressions that came to the author of this text when she first read the pages, and was irrevocably confirmed after the striking recognition scenes between the teacher Kosara Jovović and the outlaw, ex-committee and then communist Tok Koprivica.
(Let us note here that the procedure which Aristotel in his Poetic explained in the context of the tragedy - recognition, anagnorize, as a literary term, it has long since surpassed its original, narrower (Aristotelian) meaning, and today it is associated with any literary genre in which we find a moment discoveries, knowledge that illuminates a literary character or situation in a new way.)
The narrator is in charge of uncertainty management, which also implies moments of certainty, those that contain the mentioned "cognitive component", when the reader learns more and when a certain turn occurs. This procedure was skillfully used in Auroras, and in a particularly suggestive way in the scene of the kidnapping, with elements of drama that make it as serious as it is comical, in some moments even hilarious, and which points to exclusively serious thoughts and conclusions - about values without which a decent society and order cannot be built .
(Toko is a character to be forgiven. He evokes the sympathy of even white Russians, even though he is "red". He is convinced that he is fighting for justice. In one of the last chapters, we read these lines: "When a man goes rogue, he gets a little disturbed by his identity and constant hiding .The wolf becomes your brother who understands you best."
The terrible kidnapper, before the teacher's stern call and rebuke, is once again just a student, the unruly rebel and hajduk becomes meek like a child, an obedient student: the transformation is complete, the authority of the teacher is unquestioned, and the tense scene in the bus of Krilo Kontić's imprisoned "hateful bourgeoisie" turns into the repentance of the ashamed outlaws and cheering going to lunch at the "hajduk", with luxurious connotations of warm Montenegrin hospitality and the cult of the mother. In addition to the classic convention of the plot of coincidence and the mentioned moment of recall, "cognition" - the scene contains a lot of local color that makes it incomparable, authentic; in addition, in the proverbial patriarchal matrix of Montenegrin society - it emphasizes women as an authority, places her on a pedestal (Teacher, Mother) - and before she will be placed on the throne in the continuation of the story as a chess player who defeats a fascist and overturns theories/prejudices about women's abilities and predestination only for a limited, traditionally defined number of roles in the family and society.
In fact, here is a sort of introduction to one of the most important topics that this text deals with, which is emancipation, the liberation of women as human beings with the right to dignity and self-realization, to manage their own lives.
"Chess Amazons"
The lady is the most powerful figure, and the lady who plays chess is the most significant among literary characters Aurore. And although the concepts - both of the (post) Nietzschean "superman" as an improved human creature (whereby mainly referring to the male part of the human population), and of the emancipated woman as a liberated and also improved human being (while often forgetting that she is also a woman is a human being, a being "encompassed by humanity", and that women's rights are only an integral part of human rights) - often very different, even irreconcilable in people's minds, moments of chess truth reconcile all divisions and opposites, erase prejudices and intolerances, hide many answers, even those who will contribute to solving the plot in the detective part of the story, in the later chapters of the book. This latter brings the other side of the coin to the fore at one point: the intellectual abilities of women are unquestionable and proven, but misdirected intelligence, on the path of destruction and crime, is also not a male exclusivity. Man and woman as human beings are equal in both rights and responsibilities. And that is the only true equality.
Aurora chess players, sometimes without even knowing it, help justice and make an immeasurable contribution to progress.
Srđa Stević will describe them as "chess amazons" (Aurora.
The beauty of that "new Montenegrin", her strength, self-awareness, wisdom and fighting spirit, radiates symbolically in the text and with Portrait of a woman with a hat of the celebrated painter Milo Milunović, who - with I'm ticking, Ujević, Zogović, Đilas, Bor Kostić... and many others who walked from reality into fiction and this postmodern "experimental narrative" - one of the many characters of the novel.
(End in next issue)
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