We need slow reads. It is not worth quickly and impatiently reading the four books about Fritz, Dobrila expecting, among other things, that we will books find the same one Srdjan Valjarevic who wrote Komo: both the writer and his heroes are about twenty years older. It is true that we find Fritz and Dobrila in the same apartment where Valjarević left them in 2002, but their dilapidation and listlessness in the meantime have ripened nicely and yielded generous fruits that the narrator began to collect in 2021 with variable success.
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It was a great joy to read Srđan Valjarević again - before he bound the texts, Valjarević published them in the weekly Weekly - to recognize the writer's hand, his style and his wit, but, truth be told, we read those texts with some anxiety because, we couldn't help but see, the master's hand had detached itself from the pen. She knew how to lose the point sometimes, she knew how to slip the wit, how to get out of control in a sentence, and Fritz and Dobrila to perish in complex relationships with roommates, her son Mata (who mostly does nothing), the Chinese Lee (chef and artist), and the professor of philosophy who, with a successful mixture of common sense and metaphysics, manages to maintain balance in that not very balanced society (not to mention the postman in a wheelchair). However, even if we were not completely satisfied with the texts, a more experienced and patient eye could see how the alchemist's workshop of Srđan Valjarević was filled with smoke from the retorts, how the manuscript began to spark like the sparks fly when metal is cut, and the inscriptions on the heroes' T-shirts - for those who haven't read: the inscriptions on the heroes' T-shirts or clothes inexplicably appear while they sleep - become more convincing and functional. Therefore, the reader faces these dilemmas in the first two books about Fritz, Dobrila and their roommates, so that in the third part, The narrator finally spoke, everything started to change almost dramatically, precisely because, along with all the characters, the narrator appears on the scene.
SLOW READING
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Valjarević's characters are ironic and self-deprecating (except for the Chinese Li, an excellent characterization gesture), which means that they are self-reflexive. This is precisely why the writer does not need an instance from the side (like the Greek chorus) to explain what is happening on stage. The characters are well placed and, let's say, self-sufficient: they write the script, direct and act, and the narrator only records what happens on the stage (as in Theater in the house). It is, of course, a winning combination. But in the cramped (claustrophobic) space of the apartment where the characters, for the most part, hated each other because they are immobile, listless and lazy, and yes, at the same time, they depend on each other - the mutual indifference of Fritz and Dobrila is frightening, and we will welcome the departure of one of them (we will not say who leaves and for what reason) with a certain relief - in such and such a setting, therefore, over time, saturation comes: repetition to which Valjarević is prone it ceases, at some point, to produce difference and reproduce sameness. However, at one point it shows itself deus ex machina, a force that unannounced, out of nowhere, invades the space of events: therefore, the narrator himself appears. At the time when the narrator becomes a character, Valjarević again finds a measure that speaks convincingly in the fourth book, in A novel about agony and serenity.
It is details like these that make us need slow and patient readings. This, of course, does not mean that a discount should be given to the writer now. If it is not good enough, there is no apology. If it's not good enough now, as opposed to the great one it was - it's perfectly fine not to read it. That's how it is in literature (and not only in it). But that's not what we're talking about (because it goes without saying). Writers enter bad phases, write a few bad texts, then come back, or, more often, don't come back. We've seen it all. But the stake here is higher and more interesting: the writer's courage and persistence, exposure to the view even when what is seen is not at its best, and then a self-reflexive transformation before the eyes of the readers. If there were more courage in the literature departments here (and courage and confidence of professors is obtained by reading contemporary literature, and not by killing students in the concept of the same things that have been chewed over thousands of times), we would have doctorates in which students examine different phases in the writing of Mirko Kovac (you know, children, that Serbian writer who is actually a Yugoslav writer and who, children, imagine that he crossed over to hostile Croatia when the local fascists, sorry, patriots, threatened with death) and we could already hope for doctorates in which curious doctoral students in literature will examine, on solid material, the transformations in Srđan Valjarević's text. Therefore, the stake is the writer's self-reflection in the manner of literature (and not philosophy).
THE NARRATOR ENTERS THE STAGE
The difference between philosophical and literary reflection is that in philosophy the philosopher reflects (thinks), while in good literature the character reflects. There is nothing for the writer to think, the characters do. But the narrator is not the same as the writer, regardless of the fact that he wears the first person singular. He interferes in the lives of others - to paraphrase the title of Donnersmark's great film - as a character, as one who, it is true, has the power to manipulate characters, but if he is smart enough, he does not do that, but enters the game as an equal player. In this way, the possibility of arbitrariness is reduced. Although it seems omnipotent, it is not so at all, because the (smart) narrator is, at the same time, both on and off the stage. His story is not addressed, simply, to the readers, but also to the characters who are already on the stage: the narrator first appears in the form of a voice that only Fritz can hear, so we are not entirely sure if it is Fritz starting to go crazy, or if it is something else (after all, even Fritz himself does not know what is happening to him, he knows that he hears a voice and it will take him some time to get used to that voice). The reversal is complete (though not abrupt) because now the characters on stage begin to shape the character of the narrator. Traditional roles are changing. Other characters respond to the narrator by interfering in his life, commenting on what he had to say, entering into a discussion with him, and instead of a one-line unfolding of events, we now see how the reflection (narrator) changes under the pressure of the characters.
The idea of introducing a narrator is, to put it mildly, excellent. It is far from the fact that no one before Valjarević remembered that "trick" - Dante still pushed his narrator before Virgil - but there are not too many texts in which the descent of the narrator among the characters is justified to such an extent and changes the structure of the narration to such an extent that, strictly speaking, the continuity with the previous parts is broken, especially since the descent of the narrator among the people occurs only in the third volume of the four books. At the same time, Valjarević's sentence also changes, becoming more relaxed and elegant, and the repetitions produce a difference again. The narrator, therefore, appeared as a crack in a solid edifice, appeared as self-awareness in the storehouse of the subconscious, and, in short, broke it open. Everything still continues to work, the spouse who left the apartment is back, the Chinese Li and the philosophy professor are back (before they definitely leave), the days continue to flow seemingly as before, but nothing is the same because all the characters, as well as the narrator himself, are changing before our eyes. And that is exactly the core of Valjarević's fourth book, that metamorphosis before the eyes of the readers, when firmly established characters lose the ground under their feet, and the narration, like a torrent, buys them and takes them out of the story.
