Last novel published during his lifetime Mirko Kovača, The city in the mirror (2008), we will label it as a family novel-chronicle, in addition to the indication left by the author himself as a “family nocturne”.
Creatively successful, Kovač, through the prism of observing the tradition of living, customs, moral and ethical values, now three countries - Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, through life in three cities: Dubrovnik, Trebinje and Nikšić, offers the reader an insight into the past, into memories, into experiences. The novel The city in the mirror, can also be viewed as the writer's autobiography, therefore its semantic layer in terms of traditional culture is multi-layered and multi-meaningful.
In the structure of the novel, two worlds are clearly discernible, the author's world, the real world, and the imaginary, artistic world of the novel itself, which are depicted through a series of smaller fragments from life.
Seemingly written as a novella, The city in the mirror consists of fragments, or parts from the narrator's life, united in one form. The instability in determining the place of events, given through the retrospective narration of the author's narrator, contributes to the dynamism of the novel's atmosphere, but also to the dispersion of the plot itself. There is no hierarchy of novelistic material. In addition to the above, through the novel, through the stories, images of the social, existential and psychological state of the time and state of that time, a post-socialist period in the environments defined by the novel, are also discernible.
It is noticeable that in the division of characters who are the protagonists of the novel, male characters dominate. We can say that Kovač, who is the author of the first novel with the theme of homosexuality, a lesbian novel in this region, chose male figures as the main characters, because the novel The city in the mirror, in fact a family chronology, and the geographical space covered by the novel is recognized by its patriarchal order, its norms and codes.
Turning to traditional plots that he skillfully incorporates into his work, Kovač plays with traditional motifs in a certain way. That is why certain archetypal images and concepts are present in a transformed form, ironic, complex, individualized...
Certainly, social and family relationships, which are connected to the personal and psychological states of individuals, also contribute to this. This gift "from father to son" became a tradition, and it carried the symbolism of creating a solid family nucleus as a support for rulers and a guarantee for the rule of powerful families, no matter what that rule was. The ceremony had its own rules. The donor would wear elegant clothes and sit at the head of a table that would be set up in a public place, under a mulberry tree when its fruits were ripening. The table was covered with a white tablecloth, rich in diaconia. Anyone could drop by and take as much from the table as they could put in their mouths and carry in their hands. Guests of all faiths would be invited. (City in the mirror. Belgrade: Samizdat, B92. 2008, 15)
Family as a symbol of gathering, unity, stability, as a metaphor for a peaceful and happy life, is the backbone of the novel. City in the mirror. The opinion is that the novel clearly distinguishes two groups of characters: male characters and female characters. And although the female characters are, among other things, cowardly, vain, and jealous, these characters are the bearers of good in the novel. In contrast to them are the male characters, as prototypes of the social, societal, and psychological state of the time that the novel presents.
However, since we are interpreting the framework of tradition, let us return to the very title of the novel. The metaphorical title of the novel city in the mirror, the city that reflects itself, raises the question, is a mirror a reflection of reality? In this case, is everything that is seemingly beautiful or ugly really beautiful or ugly? This question, again, metaphorically and allusively refers to the genealogy of a family, which is again contained in the subtitle of the novel - a family nocturne. A mirror, a mirror has a special meaning. It is believed that a mirror and its reflection They stand in a magical connection.
Mirrors in that sense, he writes Hans Biderman, can retain the soul and life force of the person being reflected. In folk customs, mirrors are therefore covered upon the death of a person, so that the soul of the deceased would not be tied to the afterlife and to enable it to pass to the other world. Demons and supernatural beings are recognized by the fact that they do not have a reflection in the mirror, while devilish incarnations cannot bear their own reflection and die when looking at themselves. Mirrors are therefore also amulets that protect against satanic beings and forces. (…) According to an unverifiable tradition, the mirror bears the inscription of the Jewish revelation of God 'I am that I am'. (…) The entire creation is considered a reflection of the divine being. The view into the apparent other world has often been poetically treated throughout history (L. Kerol, ՀAlice through the looking glass՚; J. Cocteau, ՙOrfej՚).
In a certain way, this novel can be interpreted as a provocation, a rebellion against all the norms and principles that society imposes on a family and leaves as a burden on its heirs. Kovač simply tells the story, occasionally addressing the reader, interrupting chapters at the most interesting points and continuing them with new chapters, writing about his homeland sometimes with love, and often with contempt for that place. Through all this, Kovač also presents a critical picture of social reality, which from his perspective is often depicted in a brutally realistic, but also grotesque way. So, the time period is after World War II and the social events of that time are depicted. Kovač creates a work from a temporal and geographical distance that allows the “actors” of the plot to be easily “recognized”. Therefore, the use of the title phrase is important because it indicates that one city, one family will be reflected, found in this novel. In the novel The city in the mirror, all the characters are happy and unhappy in their own way. Nothing in this novel is hidden, not even the most sensitive places, not even the most banal situations (…) With this novel, Kovač closes his opus of themes about the homeland, metaphorically giving a picture of both the homeland and childhood, but also his poetics.
Let's not forget the nouns degree The title of the novel contains symbolism. Because the city is a microcosmic reflection of cosmic structures, so it does not arise without a plan, but is built according to certain coordinates, with the earthly counterpart of the celestial pivot point at the center (omphalos, mundus, axis of the world). (The city in the mirror, 104).
Alen Gerbran it says how it is In modern analysis, the city is a symbol of the mother who protects and limits. The city is associated with the feminine principle. Just as a city has its inhabitants, a woman carries her children within her. Goddesses are therefore depicted with a crown in the form of walls.
Kovač set the symbolism of the novel's title, its poetic dimension, in the 22nd chapter of the novel, in which the narrator, hinting at the further course of the plot, says that the mirror remembers everything, and only offers glimpses of it, it is a vast collection of trapped reflections. I wanted to see that fleeting glimpse of Dubrovnik, so I stared into the mirror for hours, waiting for the sun to touch the horizon, and then excitement and a slight shiver would arise, the rays would blind me and a fire would break out in the mirror, but at that moment I saw the outlines of the famous city...
(…) Now I see a piece of the city in your eyes.
Roman The city in the mirror consists of 65 units. Kovač arranged the units into a family chronicle, as we have already said, narrated in the 1st and 3rd person singular and with partial autobiographical elements. The narrator of the novel is a writer, who writes an unfinished manuscript, a manuscript that he will constantly work on, return to and correct (Mirko Kovač “corrected” his works and republished them). Isn't it the archetypal actualization of a nightmare, it says Lidija Vukcevic, when the dreamer dreams of himself becoming voiceless and unable to utter a single word, which is not without repercussions on the main instrument and medium of literature, language itself, also appears object figure of a scattered work, not systematically united by a single binder. Isn't the metaphor of an open, unfinished Work too obvious to need special proof?
Bearing in mind the fact that with this novel Kovač returns to his homeland, providing in a certain way a kind of family tree, he still remains silent about the name, the name of his homeland, giving it only the designation L. - without the full name.
In the genealogy he offers us, Kovač presented the heroes (heroines) and their life stories in such a way that the readers remained impressed by these characters and their fates, but also likable to the extent that they continue to think about them even after reading the novel. And although critics have emphasized that the novel is dominated by the characterization of male characters, the relationship between father and son, we still believe that in this regard, the advantage is given to female characters. Through various socio-cultural and psychological variations and through the external portrayal of the characters, Kovač presented several essentially opposing female characters, representatives of a time, society or even deviations from that same society. Thus, the novel alternates between the characters of modest and loyal women, beautiful and ugly, educated and less educated women, women whose behavior and understanding of love and life went beyond the framework established by the social and moral codes of the environment and time to which they belonged, debauched women...
The novel can also be understood as a dedication to the father. The figure of the father, important for every family, for mother, sister, wife, son, brother, with the ease of the writer's words, remained magnificent from the beginning to the end of the novel. From the perspective of today, from the position of feminist principles, there would be something to object to about the male characters. However, woven in the time in which it was created, the figure of the father, through psychological portrayal, has outgrown the framework set for male characters, determined by traditional principles.
It is noted that the father is nameless. In fact, we get to know him through the syntagms: my father, that father, such a father etc. It is the same with the image of the mother. The mother is my motherWithout intending to take a positivist view of the novel, family, family nocturne, a kind of autobiography, as the author himself states, we will set out several possibilities for the above. Kovač did not want to “desecrate” his parents by giving them different or different names in the novel, one of the assumptions. The other is that Kovač knew the mentality of the region he came from very well, so he did not want the novel to be interpreted and any segment of the novel to be identified with real events. And finally, in tradition, father and mother are ambiguous symbols. The symbol of the mother in modern psychoanalysis is identified with an archetype. As is the symbol of the father. The father is a symbol of the sun and the spirit. It is in contrast to intuitive, instinctive female powers. While the symbol of the mother is ambivalent to the symbols of the sea and the earth, because the act of birth is the coming out of the mother’s womb, and death is the return to the earth. The mother is the personification of refuge, warmth, tenderness.
The relationship between father and son is also interesting, and is also archetypal. This relationship is ambivalent because it is connected to the role of the father in socio-social circumstances.
Furthermore, it is important to point out the role of the oppositions in the following: origin-heritage-hero, but also the ambivalence in the mother-son-father relationship. All in all, it is in a completely confused and chaotic state, from which at the end of the novel, the figure of the father emerges. From the bus door I looked back and said to him, "You're my double," if being my double is even commendable. My father stood by the railing as long as I could see him through the window of the bus as it descended the gravel road to the asphalt road. (The city in the mirror, 340.)
The novel abounds in motifs, sentences, and allusions taken from traditional culture, from oral heritage. In this novel, perhaps more than in any other work by Kovač, the Montenegrin identity is highlighted. It is easy to notice, to recognize. We find it in Kovač's sentence, we recognize it in his thought. Finally, towards the end of the war, my father arrived in Cetinje, where he stayed for almost two months, and he only intended to spend the night. He was accepted as if he had grown up in that city, and a certain Martinović, a cadet of the Non-Commissioned Officers' School in Cetinje, was like a brother to him, he lived and ate with him, although there was scarcity; his parents accepted my father as their own, and on top of everything, they found a connection to kinship, because both families traced their female lineage back to Vuković, so I traced my great-grandmother's lineage while I was friends with the Martinović brothers in Belgrade. Montenegro, the "glorious slave of myths", as a Montenegrin poet called it, under whose influence I wrote poetry of which not a single verse of value remains, attracted me as much as my father, until we moved to the town of N., in Montenegro, in 1948... (The city in the mirror, 37 – 38).
From the position of a researcher, a recipient of the novel The city in the mirror, as we mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, one can notice and recognize numerous symbols whose roots are in the culture of all nations, known to us from mythology, fairy tales, fables, legends, anecdotes. In addition, there are symbols such as departures, arrivals, journeys, railways, trains, distances between certain places, which metaphorically represent the author's regret and desire for certain times that have passed and are evidence of the vulnerability of the author himself, Mirko Kovač.
At the beginning of the novel, in the second chapter, the motif is “family initiation” which has the character of ritual tortures that had to happen to all family members. Namely, one part of the family estate was a place of temptation for the family members. Thus, that part of the estate was associated with devils and witches, supernatural beings who punish anyone who tries to enter their space. To test himself, a man must measure his strength with someone who is a nasty opponent. And there is nothing worse or nastier than the devil. (The city in the mirror.
Furthermore, Kovač introduced the Devil-God opposition into the novel through postmodernist methods of reinterpretation and citation (The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, 14). Overall, no motif is given at random. This story within a story hints at what will follow in the course of the novel's plot and refers to the depiction of the family lineage. The devil here serves to evoke fear, just as his symbols, snakes and witches, evoke it. Therefore, for the narrator, who is also the main character, the act of passing through the "grove", is a kind of "initiation", although the ritual did not help the boy become stronger. On the contrary, it aroused even those hidden and deepest fears.
(End in next issue)
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