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Катализатор 33
When her life starts to lose any point, when her days are filled with fear, sadness, inability, and helplessness she chooses an unconventional medicine - a drug that will make her feel complete satisfaction and happiness, but any other feeling that does not include love, serenity and pleasure, will disappear forever … she will be human who can not cry or be afraid, she will be a woman without compassion, she will not know what fear or pain is.
- Genres21st Century
103 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
1 person is currently reading
23 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 10, 2021
So hear me out cause something happened to me. Today, it's a beautiful Spring day. Today is mother's day as well. Next week my mother is going to have spinal surgery, she had an accident, she fell and broke a bone. She'll be right but she is afraid and in pain and now it's my turn to comfort her and give her courage the same way she had always done for me in the past.
And I'm here, I've just finished this book, the most beautiful book and I think this book found me just in time, like a rare astronomical alignment. Ever since I created my amazon account, I keep getting book recommendations and it seems like there is an algorithm that can read my mind and there is a virtual ecosystem of ideas that try to reach me. And when this book found me, when I got a sample and decided I had to read it, I thought its writer, Irena Jordanova, was Russian. But she is not. And I found out only after finishing it. I found out that she is one of the Others. From the Other Side. The ones I should distrust and avoid and ignore. Too late for that. This book is already too important to me and It's impossible to pretend otherwise.
Nietzsche, Simone de Beauvoir and Marquis de Sade. If these three philosophers could meet and collaborate wouldn't they produce something similar? I think so.
The main character is an ailing human. She resembles a young woman but she is more like a being with detached womanhood:
When I was young all I wanted to be was a mermaid. It seems that this was a sign that generally I defy the human life. All girls wanted to become doctors, ballerinas, hairdressers, or teachers. Me? I just wanted to be a fish. Well, all right then—half fish. My teacher said that it certainly wasn’t a vocation. I was staggered. To swim and dive into the deep blue sea is not even a calling? No, she said, maybe you want to be a swimmer or a diver, an athlete? No . . . not at all, I don’t like competing. I mean, I am not really a sportsperson. Then my teacher had a very bad impression of me. I was thought to be a student who failed the essay. I represented a student who does not make a difference between dreams and reality.
She receives medications, antidepressants among others, but nothing seems to work. Until she finds a mysterious Doctor who can provide a drug, an elixir of life that can turn her into a supreme being and lift her above and beyond her miserable life. A cure that is also a lethal poison:
There are no contraindications. Unfortunately there is only an expiry date. The subjects are dying at 33 years of age. I do not know what is happening, but all subjects who took the medicine, whether they were eighteen, twenty-seven, or thirty-two years old, passed away at 33 years old.
This number, 33, is like a dividing line. For those who have already made it through, it seems that there is no need for the drug. It's for the younger people that this remedy is needed. A coming of age drag for those unable to complete their own rite of passage. The Rig Veda lists 33 deities, there are 33 vertebrae in our body, 33 is the age Jesus died. It's like a celestial ladder with 33 steps and the final step is the limit. The Catalyst 33 releases its vital elements and then consumes its subjects.
After the 27-year-old wannabe mermaid takes the drug, her time is divided into 3 seasons. And her existence is also divided into 3 kinds of contradicting relationships, the abused, the abuser and the witness. The sexual acts described in the book are symbols of every human act in the history of mankind. Like every living being, we too, have to provoke fear when we are afraid. And it takes superhuman capabilities to embrace that fear and navigate through a sea of pain, hatred, guilt, regret, unharmed.
Life seems to have unifying properties, it creates bonds and heals what's broken, in order to go beyond the number 3, in order to reach the fourth season, where the abused, the abuser and the witness becomes the deliverer. That's my personal interpretation, of course, and I wouldn't change it for the world. After all, I approached it like a portmanteau text and I combined all the bits and pieces into a deeply personal narrative, where womanhood meets motherhood, overcoming pain.
And all that thanks to a writer from the Other Side. And since I, a Greek reader, crossed unknowingly the border of name dispute, I should call it for what it is: A Macedonian writer.
And I'm here, I've just finished this book, the most beautiful book and I think this book found me just in time, like a rare astronomical alignment. Ever since I created my amazon account, I keep getting book recommendations and it seems like there is an algorithm that can read my mind and there is a virtual ecosystem of ideas that try to reach me. And when this book found me, when I got a sample and decided I had to read it, I thought its writer, Irena Jordanova, was Russian. But she is not. And I found out only after finishing it. I found out that she is one of the Others. From the Other Side. The ones I should distrust and avoid and ignore. Too late for that. This book is already too important to me and It's impossible to pretend otherwise.
Nietzsche, Simone de Beauvoir and Marquis de Sade. If these three philosophers could meet and collaborate wouldn't they produce something similar? I think so.
The main character is an ailing human. She resembles a young woman but she is more like a being with detached womanhood:
When I was young all I wanted to be was a mermaid. It seems that this was a sign that generally I defy the human life. All girls wanted to become doctors, ballerinas, hairdressers, or teachers. Me? I just wanted to be a fish. Well, all right then—half fish. My teacher said that it certainly wasn’t a vocation. I was staggered. To swim and dive into the deep blue sea is not even a calling? No, she said, maybe you want to be a swimmer or a diver, an athlete? No . . . not at all, I don’t like competing. I mean, I am not really a sportsperson. Then my teacher had a very bad impression of me. I was thought to be a student who failed the essay. I represented a student who does not make a difference between dreams and reality.
She receives medications, antidepressants among others, but nothing seems to work. Until she finds a mysterious Doctor who can provide a drug, an elixir of life that can turn her into a supreme being and lift her above and beyond her miserable life. A cure that is also a lethal poison:
There are no contraindications. Unfortunately there is only an expiry date. The subjects are dying at 33 years of age. I do not know what is happening, but all subjects who took the medicine, whether they were eighteen, twenty-seven, or thirty-two years old, passed away at 33 years old.
This number, 33, is like a dividing line. For those who have already made it through, it seems that there is no need for the drug. It's for the younger people that this remedy is needed. A coming of age drag for those unable to complete their own rite of passage. The Rig Veda lists 33 deities, there are 33 vertebrae in our body, 33 is the age Jesus died. It's like a celestial ladder with 33 steps and the final step is the limit. The Catalyst 33 releases its vital elements and then consumes its subjects.
After the 27-year-old wannabe mermaid takes the drug, her time is divided into 3 seasons. And her existence is also divided into 3 kinds of contradicting relationships, the abused, the abuser and the witness. The sexual acts described in the book are symbols of every human act in the history of mankind. Like every living being, we too, have to provoke fear when we are afraid. And it takes superhuman capabilities to embrace that fear and navigate through a sea of pain, hatred, guilt, regret, unharmed.
Life seems to have unifying properties, it creates bonds and heals what's broken, in order to go beyond the number 3, in order to reach the fourth season, where the abused, the abuser and the witness becomes the deliverer. That's my personal interpretation, of course, and I wouldn't change it for the world. After all, I approached it like a portmanteau text and I combined all the bits and pieces into a deeply personal narrative, where womanhood meets motherhood, overcoming pain.
And all that thanks to a writer from the Other Side. And since I, a Greek reader, crossed unknowingly the border of name dispute, I should call it for what it is: A Macedonian writer.
June 20, 2020
Убаво четиво, убава проза, сé убаво спакувано, ама кратко, прекратко и не до крај разјаснето. Да не се повторувам околу содржината, околу Доктор Х и лекот од кој сетилата ви затапуваат за сé освен за среќа и љубов... А сепак многу болка, тага, бепомошност и депресија од површината....
January 4, 2016
Love, happiness and pleasure. Imagine as if you could feel these emotions in every single second of your existence.
Now, imagine there is simple way to make that happen. A chemical compound, a drug that takes all the negative vibes around you and turns them into positive ones...
But is there?
Can one change the world? Or the world changes when one does?
One must read this amazingly great piece of art.
Now, imagine there is simple way to make that happen. A chemical compound, a drug that takes all the negative vibes around you and turns them into positive ones...
But is there?
Can one change the world? Or the world changes when one does?
One must read this amazingly great piece of art.
March 11, 2022
Interesting read from Macedonia. A young woman is offered a medicine making her able only to feel good things, no pain or fear. What happens after is a kaleidoscope of more or less strange and not always coherent storylines of living with a bit of a circus, having more or less abusive relationships with a CEO and a Policeman. Lunches, hotels and a revolution and a (re)birth.
It's a strange but interesting experiment in storytelling - I'm not sure if it's to be allegorical, symbolic or science fiction-y but I liked it as it is also very funny - and exposure of humans and their behaviour is revealing, when not met with the expected emotions.
It's a strange but interesting experiment in storytelling - I'm not sure if it's to be allegorical, symbolic or science fiction-y but I liked it as it is also very funny - and exposure of humans and their behaviour is revealing, when not met with the expected emotions.
December 15, 2012
Sex and revolution and melancholy and happy pills!
ETA 12/15: Free for the next several days" from Amazon!
ETA 12/15: Free for the next several days" from Amazon!
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September 25, 2012Rec from my friend, the author!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews