Trougao, Kvadrat

Any political comments will be deleted immediately.

A land within the hell pit of war, blood, hatred, lamentation, exhaustion. A land where similarities between nations are more evident than any differences and yet, the latter always seem to lead to mindless conflicts. A city, beautiful and harsh, a beehive surviving violence because what else is there for all of us? A Serbian psychiatrist who has left the White City for Athens, while the war of ‘92 is in full swing, and who tries to understand how can anyone continue living in such a world, how can anyone communicate with the people around him. His best friend, Banê the poet, is travelling in search of some meaning that cannot be found. Marina, the woman who occupies his thoughts, closes her eyes, stuck in the faded memories of the rock generation that has lost its footing. Lynn, an Irish doctor, believes she has the right to point the finger, comfortably naming perpetrators and victims without taking a look at the mirror. The strong bond between two cities, Athens and Beograd. A beautiful, moving novel with autobiographical elements by Goran Milašinović, one of the most celebrated Serbian writers.

The writer takes the reader on a journey in the stormy, troubled, wounded soul of the narrator who tries to explain why there is always a war somewhere with countless victims. The science he serves asks him to help others understand and heal their souls but he cannot comprehend his own self. Life is an unanswered riddle. The people close to him are no less troubled. His elegant, educated, demanding and stoic mother, his worthless father, his on-off partner who believes that all problems must be solved by the ‘'others''. For her, sex, drugs and rock is the only form of revolution. All of them are rich, complex, fascinating characters, likable and unlikable, escorting us to a journey through the past, the present and the future, a route that is honest, raw and tender, nostalgic and wounded but above all, troubled.

Milašinović writes an ode to Beograd (or Belgrade for those who don't know Serbian...), a city I often visit, a city that I love very much because of personal reasons. I could picture is so vividly through his descriptions, the vividness of his writing. The beautiful monuments, the churches and the parks, the narrow streets of the old city, the spots where the wounds are still open, the night lights by the Sava river. There is something haunting in this beautiful capital, the feeling you get while you're walking in its heart during the blue hour cannot be described by any adjective. So, the heart of our narrator is fully given to his birthplace but a small part of it is reserved for another capital, Athens. Athens with the cement neighbourhoods and its summer heat, the strange terraces and taverns, but above all, the Parthenon, standing as a lighthouse of peace and unity. However, peace within one's self is non-existent for him, even in an environment of safety, appreciation and friendship.

Apart from the beautiful use of the urban scenery, Milašinović masterfully draws a sketch of his generation. The children of rock and punk, the change in a plethora of right and wrong ways, the wild living while his world is heading towards a course that was fated to be the darkest period after the Second World War. Throughout the story, cultural tidbits create a direct, fully drawn background. The brief comment on the symbolism of the unforgettable chariot-race sequence in the 1959 masterpiece Ben Hur. The stunning musical Hair that changed the theatrical and social commentary in the United States forever. The references to Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter and MASH, all films connected to PTSD and the nightmare of war, the ordeal of the simple soldier and the twisted pleasure of the sadist criminal. Scientists and artists are forced to become refugees, to work as waiters, babysitters, strippers, builders in order to survive because of a conflict that was not caused by them but by the barbarity of the ones in power. How can you create a second life through the ruins, a life that doesn't express your own soul? How free are we, as citizens of the world, when the powerful dictate our future behind closed doors? When military organization of dubious nature aim their missiles towards a capital at the heart of Europe in the year of our Lord 1998? Who gave these men the right to govern anyone's fate? I think the answer is plain to all if we open our eyes for a second...

Our beautiful planet is a work of togetherness, we are all parts of an enormous community. In this book, we look at the Balkan region, a beautiful, fascinating, difficult neighborhood where similarities are so much more than any differences when we don't allow the two Big Ones to meddle and turn everything to bloodshed. The younger generations understood this and now we finally live in (fragile, let us not be mistaken...) togetherness, peace and creativity. The past should stay where it lays, dead and buried, because more often than not, it can only do harm. Τrougao, Kvadrat is one of the strongest, most open, sincere novels you'll ever read...

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com