[icyfreshy]

I just finished L'elephant du vizir by Ivo Andric (converstion with Goya is the English title)

It was not bad,just pointless.Exactly what my father said when i asked to borrow it.(Or we both missed something crucial !)
Still i don't think Bosniac literature is excactly flourishing so it was good to explore a bit.
Don't think i'll continue digging this way though

[alanamosteller]

saliotthomas,
Bosniac literature is definitely not flourishing. And, since Ivo Andric won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961, he's definitely worth a read. I own the novel he won the Nobel for, The Bridge on the Drina, though I haven't yet read it. Have you, Thomas? It wasn't clear from your postings on Andric whether Conversation with Goya was the first work of his you've read or not. Is it Andric's style of writing you don't care for or the plot/theme of the book (Conversation with Goya) itself?

titania

PS Next time you'll probably think twice before disregarding your father's advice about a book . Of course, parents and children do disagree. My mum and I are having a continual debate over Andrei Bely's Petersburg. When I finally persuaded her to read it--after recommending it continually for 10+ years--she said to me, "You didn't really like this, did you?"

"....it is a well-known thing that you can never
get from bad to good through what is better,
but always through a worse state of transition..."
~Ivan Turgenev, Smoke

[icyfreshy]

Titania7
Yes it was the first i read from Ivo Andric and to be honest,i don't think i shall read anymore soon.The writting is not bad,i just can't see any purpose in the tales.
They were short stories,and in the foreword,said to be metaphorical. But ether i'm i complete idiot(which might very well be the case) or the cultural gap is to big ,i just could not get anything out of them.
Most of all the writing is very flat,nothing to create an atmosphere.

The first-the elephant of the vizir-tells us of a cruel vizir who has an elephant brought from Africa.The animal represent the power of the hated monarch and terrorize the town,just by been playful.The vizir dies and the people poisoned the elephant(i did not like that part !).The only thing that got me wandering is that they burried the elephant,not a small feat,but even that was not exploited as a funny side in the story.

The other stories suffer from the same blandness.To be honest the best was the cover.

PS-I think my father was wandering if i could find the thing that escaped him in Andric,i did not.
We have very similar taste in books.

Thomas

[downtowndude]

Not flourishing? Judging not just an author but a culture on the basis of one book?

Andrić's Bridge is certainly a different matter:
Stochastic Bookmark: Disquiet on the Drina
even though I like Meša Selimović's best even more as does Complete-Review:
Death and the Dervish - Mesa Selimovic

Not to mention the best emigre author currently writing in English, Aleksandar Hemon.

For more recent developments, cf About Bosnia: Literature

[icyfreshy]

Not flourishing? Judging not just an author but a culture on the basis of one book?

Sorry about this ! surely every country in the world,even tiny or in war, have flourishing literature.And by the way i don't see where i was judging the culture of the country?Quotes?
Having met many Bosniacs during the war,i was interested when i found a book of easy access.That's all.

[downtowndude]

Sorry about this ! surely every country in the world,even tiny or in war, have flourishing literature.And by the way i don't see where i was judging the culture of the country?Quotes?
Having met many Bosniacs during the war,i was interested when i found a book of easy access.That's all.

Literature, culture, same difference.

On your pre-edit question: I don't specialise in any national literature, or even regional; I try to select the best of each, and on this basis Bosnia punches above its weight, and not just within the former Yugoslavia.