The Cartier Project

by Miha Mazzini

Tragedy nearly befalls a dismal Yugoslavian foundry town when Egon, romance writer extraordinaire and tireless bon vivant, discovers he’s used up his last drop of Cartier perfume. A man will do anything for his perfume, even if it means cheating a young Gypsy girl of her Playboy, blackmailing a lascivious preacher, publishing an atrocious poet, and conspiring with a band of uncouth cowboys. Meanwhile, he must somehow juggle past and present lovers and save a friend from an obsession with Nastassja Kinski.

Genres: Fiction, Modern, Novels

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

* 32 books published in 12 languages
* Short stories selected for many anthologies including Pushcart Prize 2011
* Screenwriter of 2 award-winning feature films (Golden Palm for the best film of the XXII Mostra de Valencia, European CIRCOM Award for the Best TV Film of 1992)
* Writer and director of 5 short films (Best director award at the Highgate Film Festival in London, best short film of 2011 at the Slovenian film festival)
* MA in Creative Writing for Film and Television, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
* PhD in Anthropology of Everyday Life, Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Slovenia

Reviews

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Slovenian story tells of a guy, quite a character, and what he comes up with to get another bottle of his trademark perfume (no, not cologne). Set in a bleak, industrial Yugoslavian town, the story mirrors the dissolution of Yugoslavia and resulting search for identity. This would be a good book club read, analyzing all Egon's good and bad deeds. One of Slovenia's best-selling books of all time! I love how the author describes, in the introduction, the realities of writing this book:

"So I decided to write a novel instead; a prequel to a future script. I was working part time as a night watch where I had a lot of time to think about the story and the characters, and I had an hour or two for typing during the days and after I put my baby daughter to sleep. It seems to me today that a good part of "The Cartier Project" is typical male baby-sitting stuff--I was writing about the things I was without at the time (booze, sex, poetry readings...). The style of writing was definitely born out of baby-sitting circumstances: short sentences meant that I didn't have to press so many keys on the typewriter and make so much noise; short paragraphs because I had to constantly check if my daughter was still sleeping." (p ii)

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

an alcoholic writer of very successful romance novels is running out of perfume in a backwater Slovenian industrial town. plays it a little fast and loose at the end, but highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys O'Hara, Fante, etc.. there's a character called Poet and another called Hippie.

[Tamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

feels like listening to a favorite old album.

[Abe · Rating 2 out of 5]

my dad lent me this book, and i now kind of think hes a bit of a perv

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nisem pričakovala, da mi bo ta knjiga tako všeč, kot mi je bila. Mogoče je k temu pripomoglo tudi to, da v branje nisem šla z velikimi pričakovanji. Kakorkoli, uživala sem. Malo me je stil pisanja in zgodba sama spomnila na Bukowskega in nekatere njegove zgodbe. V Bukowskem nisem pretirano uživala, v Drobtinicah pa sem. Drobtinice pripovedujejo o mladem pisatelju poceni ljubezenskih romanov iz manjšega industrijskega kraja in prikazuje življenje z dna družbene lestvice. Zgodba je zelo odkritosrčna, brez obsojanja ali pridiganja, in hkrati tudi polna ironičnega humorja. Priporočam v branje.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Slovenian novel which I read whilst in Slovenia - ‘a ribald, dirty realist satire’ it says on the cover. It is brutal, disturbing and confusing and I can see no connection with the Slovenia I am encountering on my travels. But it comes from a different era which many Slovenians alive today lived through and I suppose is a metaphor for that era. And in these uncertain times that is very scary.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I read any Bukowski, but it's good that this book mentions him by name early on, because the style is clearly an homage to his alcohol-soaked tales. This kind of writing has a different appeal to me in middle age than it did as a teenager - it's easier now to absorb cynicism than to romanticize fighting and boozing. It still serves to highlight the toughness and paradox inherent in life, and illustrate the strange contrasts between desire and self-abuse, or a bottle of perfume and a rough, stinky life. That life, set in a decaying Yugoslavia, is also interesting as a historical portrayal.

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book on vacation in Radovljica Slovenia, right next to author Mazzini’s Jesenice which today is a beautiful tourist destination full of helpful and friendly, hard-working Slovenian residents. It’s quite a stretch to imagine this same area during main character Egon’s time, in Tito’s broken and grimy Yugoslavia. The story is bleak yet somehow comic, the writing strong even while describing a spiral into chaos.

[Urh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Preprosta zgodba, filmična, enostavna in resnična. Meni se zdi še posebej pohvalno, kako dobro je pripovedovalec in na nek način junak te zgodbe potopljen v vse žalostne stvari iz knjige. Nikoli dolgočasna knjiga. Nikoli.
Zanimivo je tudi kako popisuje neko obdobje, po katerem nekateri hlepijo, drugi pa ne.

[Ann Kuhn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally! A book that doesn't glamorize alcoholism. What a spin. Crass. Nasty. Erotic. Philosophical. Ends with the narrator looking out at the blue sky from the bottom of a dumpster. Not an upper, but much less of a downer than you'd imagine from my comments.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really appreciates the characters and the setting, which I found recognisable from the time I spent in Yugoslavia in the late 70s and early 80s. This book really captured a part of the spirit that was alive then.

[Vvvvv · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh, it's really what the author says it is - his wish fulfillment novel. I didn't find it funny, the way the author exploits stereotypes for cheap laughs (workers from the south, old hippies, etc.) And of course, aaaallll the women just loooove the main character. Yeah, right.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, dark and sweet.
Thanks for the loan, Alenka.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great humor, insightful.

[M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hilarious and wonderful book. I picked it up after a recommendation from a friend. There is something enticing and racy that makes me love it.

[Cats 274 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dejansko sem razočarana. OK napisano v redu, ampak nisem uživala v branju, predvsem zato, ker mi liki in situacije, v katerih se najdejo, (z izjemo ubogega Ibrota) niso bili niti najmanj simpatični.

[Sue Kozlowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book as part of my quest to read a book written by an author from each of the 196 countries in the world. The author of this book grew up in Jesenice, Slovenia, a town that borders Austria.

I did not really like this book. I found it to be similar to many other books I have read from this area of the world. The people are very unhappy, living in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Everyone seems to be poor, working in dead end factory jobs. The people drink and smoke a lot and spend a lot of time in seedy bars. I hope that it was just because of the time period.

This book is set in the 1970's in a town similar to where the author grew up. It is during the time before the country of Yugoslavia was broken up into smaller countries. Jesenice has always been home to many mining and iron making industries. There is a large foundry in the story that plays a central role.

The main character is Egon, a young unemployed man whose only source of income is writing cheap novels under a pseudonym. He constantly smokes and drinks, often picking up women to have sex with them. All of his friends work at the foundry. Many of the characters have dreams of going somewhere and doing something else, but they never make the move.

[Tanja Šterman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knjižna uspešnica iz osemdesetih, po kateri je bil posnet film Operacija Cartier. Dogaja se na Jesenicah, kjer je v tistih časih delovala železarna, v katero so prihajali delat delavci z vseh koncev Jugoslavije.

Glavni protagonist je Egon, mlad moški, ki se preživlja s pisanjem ljubičev pod psevdonimom. Sicer je pa njegova glavna zaposlitev zapijanje, bluzenje, pretepanje in obiskovanje treh, štirih različnih deklet, kadar rabi seks, hrano ali zašite cunje. ("Ni štapom ga ne bi dirala", smo včasih rekle punce)
Kadar pride do večje količine denarja, si nabavi parfum Cartier in s tem sam pred sabo še poudari razliko med seboj in delavci z juga, ki se ne znajo obleči, uporabljajo cenene parfume in imajo pri delavki z Jesenic ravno toliko šans kot pri Nastasji Kinski. Se pravi - nobenih.

Prebrala sem že nekaj podobnih 'moških' oziroma 'fantovskih' romanov in niso ravno moja šalca čaja. Preveč enega frajerišenja v tri krasne, nasilja kar tako, brezčutnega seksa in ... hja, scanja. Kot ženska res ne razumem fascinacije z opisovanjem tega, kje, kako in v kateri smeri je kdo scal.

A za razliko od Dolenčevega Vampirja z Gorjancev (ok, tam verjetno nisem dojela fantastike), Čatrovega Ata je spet pijan in Möderndorferjevega 1980 me je pri Drobtinicah prepričal zadnji del romana.
"Premalo možganov, da bi se potegnil iz dreka in preveč za to, kar sem. Ravno dovolj za nezadovoljstvo. Nalagam koks in ne najdem smisla," pravi Selim v Drobtinicah. Pa seveda zadnji prizor ...

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb.

Our not-so reliable narrator is constantly hunting for sex, free beer, and of course, some imported Cartier aftershave. The life. In between, he helps/scams his friends, gets free lunch at the factory he doesn't work at, experiences psychoses, writes romance novels under a pseudonym and gets into trouble with the police. All in the most convoluted (but well-told) order possible.

The characters are hilarious, the setting is easy to understand with and the language isn't too complex. There's literally nothing wrong with this story. It's funny yet serious, simple yet deep...and also not contradictory at all.

My version had a lot of typos. I'll blame the editor or translator, not the author, I guess.

[Maja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zanimivo je prebrati prvo Mazzinijevo leposlovno delo, ko enkrat ze poznas njegove poznejse romane. Slog pisanja je malce neobrusen, v opisih namenoma izzivalen in pogosto na meji dobrega okusa (opisov vseh moznih telesnih tekocin v vseh moznih agregatnih stanjih ne manjka), ampak pod plastjo tega odlocno punk vzdusja se ze cuti prav tista ironija, igrivost in humor, ki me pri njem vedno navdusijo. Marsikdo omenja primerjave z Bukowskim, mene pa tole spominja na en tak slovenski Trainspotting - okolje je ze pravo, industrijska puscoba med zadnjimi izdihi umirajocega rezima, nasa omiljena droga pa je bil itak vedno alkohol.

[Nina]

woah. this book made me sad. it was a sad book, but i don't think it was supposed to make me as sad as it did. but alas. i used to want to go to slovenia, but after reading two books by slovenian authors, i kind of don't want to go anymore. (joke.)

[Matt Micucci · Rating 2 out of 5]

Best-selling Slovenian book of all time but I have so little good to say about it. I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt -- maybe the translation was a bit rubbish. Even then, it's way, way, way too influenced by Bukowski but lacking the same level of self-deprecating honesty.

[Luiza Benatti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Senti que foi um livro sobre solidão e absurdo. Interessante, mas não me convenceu...

[Jenni Falanga · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been such an incredible read. I enjoyed the bleak industrial Yugoslavian backdrop and every character. It is full of heart, entertaining, enticing, funny and a bit racy.

[Nicole Kroger Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

#readtheworld Slovenia

[Grimread · Rating 3 out of 5]

Presenetljivo dobro napisana knjiga, ki se bere, kot da bi bila napisana pred tremi leti ne pa tridesetimi. Lahkotno brajne z malo erotike in dosti alkohola brez nekega zateženega izlivanja avtorejeve literarne superiornosti, kot se to ponavadi pojavlja v slovenski moderni literaturi.