Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Stuff, Let's See Some More!, 21 April 2004
A year ago, I found myself rather unexpectedly in Slovenia, and passed avery enjoyable few days in Llubljana. So, when I stumbled across this slimcollection of sixteen short stories (originally published in 1990) by aSlovene, I let serendipity guide me again, and took it home. Most of thestories are quite short (one is a mere sentence), lasting only a fewpages, and five of them appeared previously in the anthology The Day TitoDied. Although one expects writing from Central Europe to be at leastsomewhat political (especially when published as part of a series called"Writings From An Unbound Europe"), these stories are Carveresque piecesabout people and relationships. In that sense, they are trulyinternational, telling the reader next to nothing about Slovenia or thethe nature of its national character.
The shorter stories are quick sketches, showing a band the moment beforeit starts playing, a child who's fright at a horror movie itself turnsinto a horror movie, a Jew attempting to escape a Nazi cattle car, and anumber of conversations and interactions between lovers. Some of these areexcellent, others easily forgottenóand the brevity is reminicient of oneof the modern. More interesting are the three longer pieces. "Kyoto" tellsof a group of Americans in Kyoto at a school to learn how to drink tea,and of what happens when one of them challenges the validity of theteacher's methods. "The Taste of Blood" finds a young woman watching whena body is pulled from the river, and turns very creepy as a policemantakes her home to seduce her. "Scratches on the Back" is the story of aself-absorbed architect who finds the wife of a former colleague on hisdoorstep one day, and of what happens when she moves in. The writing (andtranslation) is nicely honed throughout, and the style displays promisingtalent. It would be nice to see if Blatnik could sustain it over a wholenovel, and introduce a little more narrative structure, but none of hisnovels has been translated into English yet.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Passion and tension in Central Europe!, 23 Oct 1998
By A Customer
I've read this in Croatian translation and really enjoyed it, especially the story about the death of Tito, the former Yugoslav dictator, which perfectly captures the feelings of my generation at the Yugoslav breakup, the one about tea-drinking ceremony and the "Billie Holiday" which manages to express the sad passion of Ms Holiday in a story of a contemporary couple. The other stories are also excellent, funny and tense at the same time.
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