Croatia Archives - A Geography of Reading

Kira Salak and Adventures in Travel (Writing) with The White Mary

June 10, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

I read The White Mary by Kira Salak on a flight from Seattle to Paris at the start of my first trip abroad in four years. The story of a journalist on a quest for her idol who the world thinks is dead but she thinks might be alive in the deep jungles of Papua New Guinea seemed like an auspicious start to my own (much tamer) adventure: a family trip to Croatia.

I used to be a citizen of the world. I’ve visited twenty-four countries, lived on three continents, and can converse in five languages. Except that most of that was before I graduated high school. Though I have done a lot since then to become the person I want to be, I have neglected my wanderlust and let my language skills fester. I had become someone who only travels in the company of a tour director and I became afraid to step outside that bubble.

Contemplating the rigors of travel with a coffee in the ruins of Roman Emperor Diocletian's palace — Contemplating the rigors of travel with a coffee in the ruins of Roman Emperor Diocletian’s palace

In contrast, Kira Salak is a travel writer by training and it’s evident in her lush descriptions of foreign people and places. Her protagonist, Marika Vecera, is determined, culturally aware (mostly), and savvy. Things I used to believe about myself. As I read about Marika’s kidnapping in the Congo, I was worrying I wouldn’t be able to communicate well enough to order breakfast. When she was coordinating her trip to the deep interior of Papua New Guinea, I was trying to figure out if I was capable of getting bus tickets from Dubrovnik to Split. I realized how fearful I had become.

The White Mary is engaging overall and I liked reading it. The love story is a little empty—it feels like Salak was as uninvested in it as Vecera was—but I am glad I read this book and even more glad that I passed it along to a fellow traveler.

Croatia, though a fantastic trip, turned out to be much more mundane than the wilds of the South Pacific. I managed to communicate in very basic Serbo-Croatian, German and Slovenian, though most people spoke English. We were never more lost than a missed freeway exit, and I even got to take a train. I was mistaken for a local (my favorite!) once and very briefly. I don’t think I’ll become a travel writer in the near future (unless…), but at least I now remember that the world is full of people, not scary monsters, and I can navigate the globe if I only try.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The White Mary from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

How I (Almost) Fell in Love with Hemingway

April 20, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

I’ve always hated Hemingway—as controversial as that sounds to my generation of writers. I thought his women were insipid—I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it—and he so often wrote of hunting and fishing where I usually read about war and oppression. Most of all, Hemingway is my father’s favorite author.

A Father’s Influence

I was read to as a child by both of my parents and then I learned to read by reading aloud to myself, but it is my father’s voice I hear when I read. Over the years as I’ve impugned Hemingway, my father often responded by quoting Papa’s short, declarative sentences. I hear my father give weight to the proper word. I feel the emotion behind his voice as he imbues the masculine writing with all the feelings boys are taught not to openly express. Perhaps that’s what is really meant by clean prose—a holding back of what is just beneath the surface. I love my father’s voice, but even he could not make me hear the beauty in Catherine’s fear of the rain.

As I learned to become a writer, I was surrounded by Papa—starting with the Nick Adams stories and their brilliant setting. Someone wrote an imitation of “The Hills Like White Elephants” and I pretended to get it. My father continued to quote Hemingway. I read and fell for authors like Calvino who themselves loved Hemingway. I loved them for their clean prose—the very thing they were imitating from Hemingway—and I started to see I would have to face Papa someday, but I wanted to do it on my own terms. I worried my father would have to die before I could do that.

Midnight in Paris

When I watched Midnight in Paris, I fell in love with Woody Allen’s Hemingway and with his manner of speech. I wanted to listen all night to his trailing tangents. My father argued that he was merely a caricature, but there was a glimmer of self-awareness in the actor or the portrayal that made me love what I had considered to be cheese.

A Farewell to Arms

I’ve been feeling Papa draw closer as I exhausted my supply of Calvino and Pavese. My husband and I planned a trip to Croatia and Slovenia—places that from the American travel blogs you would think had never existed before Hemingway—even if his presence there was greatly exaggerated. So I picked up A Farewell to Arms and I danced around it for weeks. But then I read McMurtry’s treatment of Ernest Hemingway’s letters in Harper’s and I saw the human. I wanted to be near Papa.

How can I describe those opening paragraphs without using the words “there were.” The cadence was there—my father’s and Woody Allen’s and Hemingway’s. The reportage of scenery in simple language. I felt its weight. I brought meaning to his simple, clean sentences. I came to love that style and by page three I was crying at their beauty. I was afraid to turn each page because I didn’t want to lose my awe. I wanted to call my father and read to him, but I also wanted Papa all to myself.

And then came Catherine. And the rain. I know from his letters that Hemingway truly loved the real-life Catherine and maybe he respected her more than I am giving him credit for. I dreaded every mention of the rain. The simple sentences that had carried so much import became cloying with their symbolism. The war sections were still beautiful and strong, and I know from friends that I’m not the only one who loves the war and hates the romance, but I am left deeply divided. He was capable of so much and then it feels like he simply phoned it in.

I know now that I have a lot to learn from Hemingway. I also know that he is not a god. I am not ready to read the complete works and who knows what I will find when I do. I respect my father’s love for Papa. I wish I could devote myself as fully.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of A Farewell to Arms from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

War and Meta Whimsy from Saša Stanišić

April 20, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

I picked up How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić when I had just finished reading A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka because the crazy cover graphic promised this book was part of a trend toward accessible whimsy in Eastern European lit.

Eastern European Humor

I love Eastern European literature, and often it is the gravitas that I gravitate toward. Still I recognize that there is often an undercurrent of humor that I often miss. I loved The Master and Margarita, but I didn’t find it funny, and I’ve felt that same tickling of “this is funny to other people.” I lived in Poland for a year and I can see the love of irony and when something is supposed to be funny, but, well, maybe I’m not very good at laughing at myself or life in general.

Back to Saša. This book contains hilarious and charming views of life from the eyes of a child. It’s playful and fun. And then suddenly the war happens. It’s a weird juxtaposition, but I’m sure it’s true to life, especially for a child who wouldn’t see the same factors leading up to conflict that an adult might. I can see the point of having this jump in subject matter, but from a narrative point of view it is jarring.

Jarring Change in Direction

Speaking of jarring. Mid-way through the book, the point of view changes or the author, kind of. That sentence is as confusing and not confusing as the narrative shift, because, though this is a work of fiction, the general arc is not dissimilar to the author’s life, and as a result, I never felt Saša was that far from Aleksandar to begin with. By switching narrators and re-starting the story, Mr. Stanišić is playing with metafiction—emphasizing his own relation to the story. For me it was unnecessary.

I enjoyed the tangential essay quality of the chapters, they helped me learn more about an unfamiliar culture, but I would have liked them stitched together in a different way. I firmly believe that an author’s work is intentional and purposeful. So the fact that I would have made other choices is maybe instructive to no one but me, but recognizing the choices he did make helps me understand what he might have been trying to say with this book. Here’s what I have come up with:

Life is random. That is not a profound statement, but it is a statement of worldview that not everyone would agree with.
Life contains great joy and great suffering, but we should focus on the joy.
People are resilient.
Everyone is affected by war, even those too innocent to see it coming.

I think sometimes I like Eastern European literature because it is a part of the world that has seen a wider breadth of human experience than I hope to live through and, somehow, retained an optimistic view. Reading How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone, I encountered many city names familiar from planning an upcoming trip to Croatia. Because we aren’t going to Bosnia, I may not run into Saša Stanišić’s clever cornball relatives, but I am glad to have a richer view of the Yugoslavian cultures and I hope to experience all whimsy and no war.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.