Четенето забранено

by Dubravka Ugrešić, Дубравка Угрешич, Людмила Миндова (Translator)

Днес колонизатор е Пазарът. Пазарът всмуква всеки отпор, взема си белега от всяка критика и нещо повече - предвижда я далеч преди да се е появила и така я обръща в своя полза. Пазарът ни колонизира, без дори да се усетим, колонизира ни със собствените ни ценности, независимо дали се наричат идентичност, етническа принадлежност, право на различие или нещо друго. Срещу парите, медийните магнати, конгломератите, срещу монопола на дистрибуторските мрежи, или, казано по-общо, срещу „пазарния фундаментализъм", включващ в себе си и културата, едва ли съществува ефикасен отпор.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Books About Books, Literary Criticism, Literature, Writing, Criticism

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Dubravka Ugrešić was a Yugoslav, Croatian and Dutch writer. She left Croatia in 1993 and was based in Amsterdam since 1996. She described herself as "post-Yugoslav, transnational, or, even more precisely, postnational writer".

Dubravka Ugrešić earned her degrees in Comparative Literature, Russian Language and Literature at the University of Zagreb, and worked for twenty years at the Institute for Theory of Literature at Zagreb University, successfully pursuing parallel careers as a writer and a literary scholar.

She started writing professionally with screenplays for children’s television programs, as an undergraduate. In 1971 she published her first book for children Mali plamen, which was awarded a prestigious Croatian literary prize for children’s literature. Ugresic published two more books (Filip i Srecica, 1976; Kucni duhovi, 1988), and then gave up writing for children.

As a literary scholar Dubravka Ugrešić was particularly interested in Russian avant-garde culture. She was a co-editor of the international scholarly project Pojmovnik ruske avangarde, (A Glossary of the Russian Avangarde) for many years. She rediscovered forgotten Russian writers such as Konstantin Vaginov and Leonid Dobychin, and published a book on Russian contemporary fiction (Nova ruska proza, 1980). She translated fiction into Croatian from Russian (Boris Pilnyak, Gola godina; Daniil Kharms, Nule i nistice), and edited anthologies of both Russian contemporary and avant-garde writing (Pljuska u ruci, 1989).

Dubravka Ugrešić was best known in the former Yugoslavia for her fiction, novels and short stories: Poza za prozu, 1978; Stefica Cvek u raljama zivota, 1981; Zivot je bajka, 1983; Forsiranje romana reke, 1988.

Her novel Forsiranje romana reke was given the coveted NIN-award for the best novel of the year: Ugrešić was the first woman to receive this honor.
Croatian film director Rajko Grlic made a film U raljama zivota (1984) based on Ugrešić’s short novel Stefica Cvek u raljama zivota. Ugrešić co-authored the screenplay, as she did with screenplays for two other movies and a TV drama.

In 1991, when the war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Ugrešić took a firm anti-nationalistic stand and consequently an anti-war stand. She started to write critically about nationalism (both Croatian and Serbian), the stupidity and criminality of war, and soon became a target of the nationalistically charged media, officials, politicians, fellow writers and anonymous citizens. She was proclaimed a “traitor”, a “public enemy” and a “witch” in Croatia, ostracized and exposed to harsh and persistent media harassment. She left her country of origin in 1993.

Dubravka Ugrešić continued writing since she began living abroad. She published novels (Muzej bezuvjetne predaje, Ministarstvo boli) and books of essays (Americki fikcionar, Kultura lazi, Zabranjeno citanje, Nikog nema doma).

Her books have been translated into more then twenty languages. Dubravka Ugrešić has received several major European literary awards. In 2016, Ugrešić won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

On March 17th of 2023, one of Europe's most distinctive essayists, Dubravka Ugrešić, died in Amsterdam at the age of 73.

Reviews

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 3 out of 5]

“At a time when books are written, published and read more than ever before, the writer and the reader are the loneliest and most threatened species.”

Witty, acerbic, cynical, thought-provoking, darkly funny, important. Those were the words that came to mind as I read this collection of essays by Dubravka Ugresic, in which she mercilessly takes down the book publishing industry, the way modern literature is sold and consumed, and the reality for writers and readers of books that don’t end up with an Oprah’s Book Club sticker on them.

Of course, Ugresic is a snob (and oh boy, does she hate writers’ how-to-books!). But let’s be honest here: so am I. At least when it comes to books. It’s hard to avoid when you read more than a hundred books in a year, but I’ve always been that way; I was raised by readers who scoffed at best-sellers held the heavy-weight classics in the highest regards. So I found myself nodding in agreement with Ugresic, and was often brought back to conversation I had with my colleagues back in the days when I worked in a bookstore that shoved more interesting and challenging books to the side and made huge displays of recipe books for slow-cookers and endless copies of “The Secret”.

She is from a former Yugoslavia, and having been raised in that environment clearly affected her vision of writing as more than a simple vanity project, - as often seems to be the case today, where many celebrities have ghost-written books published before they turn thirty. To her, writing is art, sure, but it’s also serious work that deserves to be treated as such. And also as someone born and raised in such a politically charged time and place, she bemoans the hyper-commercialism and crass-consumerist transformation of the literary market, where the mark of success is not longer a quality stamp awarded by academics and intellectual, but rather, the amount of copies sold and whether or not it was adapted into a blockbuster movie.

That writers are now seen as content providers (who have to look good enough to sell their “product”) and simple cogs in the great publishing machine is, indeed, upsetting, as is the idea that reality must now be “fictionalized” and dramatized in order to make the new or seem interesting and relevant. Many of the essays were written in the 90s, and it’s appalling to think that things haven’t really evolved all that much since.

A lot of her reflections are also strongly colored by her life as a expatriate/voluntary exile, and the dichotomy between Western and Eastern European… well, everything! I found that perspective truly fascinating, sometimes contradictory and frustrating, but she is self-aware enough to take her own thought process apart and show the readers where the different pieces come from.

I enjoyed Ms. Ugresic’s writing and opinions, but sometimes, I found myself a little irritated by her puritanism. She is very smart and she makes lots of good points, but she is kind of a downer. I guess I am not as much a literary elitist as she is, because I think you should be allowed to enjoy trash books every once in a while. Nevertheless, these essays are an important reminder that we should consume culture conscientiously, as we definitely seem to be living more and more in Aldous Huxley’s nightmare scenario. 3 stars, and now I want to read her fiction!

[João Reis · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome collection of essays by Dubravka Ugresic.
Witty, sarcastic, compelling. Funny to see that despite most of them were written more than 20 years ago, the so-called literary market hasn't changed at all. I found this collection truthful and hilarious, but the casual reader might find it somewhat depressing. The essay on cynicism is pure perfection (gosh, in 2019 students still ask if a fiction book is based on reality, and fewer and fewer people understand irony, which is both sad and terrifying).

A must-read for everyone: writers, writers-readers, readers who want to be writers, readers who think they know a lot about literature without actually knowing, and any other combination one may find suitable.

[Yakup Öner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bir süre yazarın farklı diline alıştıktan sonra kendinizi modern yaşamın geçirmiş olduğu sancılardan biri olan tükenmişliği hisseden her bireyin, tükettiği edebi eserlerin, müziğin v.b. olguların bizdeki kalıntılarını, aynı zamanda vicdansız piyasa şartlarında varlık gösteremeyen veya göstermekte tereddüt edenlerin alın yazısının aktarımıdır. Kitabın yarısından sonra ise genel anlamda sosyalist bir alt kültür ile yetişmiş yazar, bize anılarını aktarırken bir taraftan ise aslında toplumda oluşan yapısal evreleri bir bir vermektedir edebi eserleri var eden bir insanın gözüyle...

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

These be charming and hilarious attacks on the publishing world, writers and their tics, and the laughable state of Croatian culture. These also be serious academic essays on East European writers, with ‘The Writer in Exile’ as its centrepiece: a lacerating display of egghead invective laced with personal sorrow and frustration.

Ugrešić has suffered the indifference of her chauvinist peers, the turned backs of a fiercely nationalist state, and the folly of trying to sell East European issues in the western marketplace. I can’t think of a writer up against such odds who writes with such warmth, intelligence, irony and genius. This collection is a challenging feast of lighter magazine pieces and some substantial four-course socio-cultural investigations.

For writers who are readers, readers who want to be writers, and readers who love reading.

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Okumadığınız İçin Teşekkür Ederiz”, Dubravka Ugresic’in edebiyatla ilgili önemsiz hatta gayri ciddi örneklerle edebiyat dünyasının fotoğrafını çektiği 1996-2001 yılları arasında yazdığı denemelerin derlemesidir: yayıncılık endüstrisi, edebiyat, kültür ve yazmak üzerinedir bu denemeler. Kitap, edebiyat ve yayın dünyasıyla ilgili herkese tabii başta okurlar olmak üzere yazarlar, editörler, yayın yönetmenleri, ajanslar, kitabevleri ve sektördeki birçok kesime hitap ediyor.

İki ay önce Amsterdam’da kaybettiğimiz Hırvat asıllı yazarın daha önce “Acı Bakanlığı” adlı romanını okumuştum ve çok beğenmiştim. Dubravka Ugresic sözünü sakınmayan, dilin kemiği yoktur misali aklına yatan her konuyu sansürlemeden kağıda döken bir yazar, bu nedenle okurken gülümseyecek, kızacak, üzülecek ama “helel olsun kadına ne kadar gerçekçi yazmış” diyeceksiniz. Tabii yazarın tüm görüşlerini doğru kabul etmek mümkün değil, örneğin P. Coelho için doğru saptamaları var, buna karşın U. Eco için katılmadığım değerlendirmeleri var.

Savaş karşıtı yazı ve söylemleri nedeniyle ülkesinden ayrılmak zorunda bırakılan Ugresic’in kitapta yeralan şu sözleri çok düşündürücü “Lahey Mahkemesi'ni atlatmaktan mutlu olan Hırvat Savunma bakanı bile "Candle in the Wind" şarkısıyla gömül­müştür. Başka bazı Doğu Avrupa ülkelerinde olduğu gibi Hırvatistan'da da samimiyet ve özgünlük (yeni bir faşizm türü olarak özgünlük) ulusal kökenlere dönüş olarak yorumlanmış­tır.” Sadece savaşa değil kapitalizme de karşıdır. Sürgün bir yazar olarak “sürgün olmak” ve “sürgünlük” üzerine yazdıkları çok etkileyici. Ayrıca Yugoslavya’nın parçalanması ve beraberindeki iç savaşın kültür üzerinde yaptığı dramatik etkileri çok açık yazmış.

Yazarın mizahi ve zaman zaman alaya almaya varan ironik dili okumayı renkli ve kolay hale getiriyor, tekrarlar okuma keyfini kaçırabilir kadar çok olsa da edebiyatın ticari ve etik konularını, özellikle Doğu Bloku’nun çökmesinden sonraki durumunu irdelemesi hatta kirli çamaşırları etrafa saçmasını ilginç buldum. Öneririm.

[Lee Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the first 114 pages tremendously. Such flowing, amusing, intelligent essays on the writing world that, although from the 1990s, still seemed relevant. The essays more about Croatia and/or Croatian writers I found myself fighting an impulse to skim, but loved the second to last essay about the writer and the future. On every page she makes her many points with panache. Generally, I feel like this more than adequately introduced the writer to me -- will definitely get to her novels in 2020.

[Bilal Y. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bunca denemenin bulunduğu, sanki tekrarların da olduğu bu ironik ve mizahi dille yazılmış kitabı bir iki cümle ile özetlemek gerekirse:

Dünya bir gösteri alanı, bir sirk. Ancak meta değeri olan, tüketilebilir olan şeyler (edebiyat dahil) boy gösterebilir bu alanda.

[Oriana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. This is a hell of a book. Dubravka is really damn smart, sometimes too smart for me, in fact. These essays really range in scope, although the first section is all about publishing: how sex appeal counts for more than skill, how 'the market' is a blind, dumb animal, how agents are totally full of shit, how everything has become ruled by spectacle and silliness, etc.

I actually got this book because I saw her read with Bragi Ólafsson. During the reading, she said that this book got her basically blacklisted in the publishing community because she shits all over every aspect of the culture.

Here's a fabulous quote from that section:

Milan Kundera wrote that one day, when everyone writes, nobody will listen. The market, it seems, is creating that utopia. But nevertheless, in the whole commercial whirligig, there is a sad and paradoxical truth: glamour is a populist longing, a sign of absence. Literacy can have an aura of glamour only where literacy does not exist.

But so then she moves on to much broader observations. Dubravka is an emigrée from the former Yugoslavia, and she has quite a bit to say about communism, America, fame, home, Ivana Trump, exile, war, teaching, dolls, Kirk Douglas, art, libraries, and writing, writing, writing.

So yeah. These essays are really incredible—smart, cynical, world-weary, and even, ultimately, a little hopeful. Incredibly biting, incredibly smart, and also pretty funny in a very black way. Highly recommended.

[Kayıp Rıhtım]

Okumadığınız İçin Teşekkürler, cüretkar isimli, cüretkar konulu bir kitap. Düşünsenize, kitap piyasasını, velinimetiniz olan okuru ve dost edinmenin referans anlamına geleceği yazarları düşman edeceksiniz. Bu sırada kendi yazarlık kariyerinizi de tiye alacak, bir de üstüne üstlük kitaba böyle bir ad vereceksiniz. Biz buna Dubravka Ugresiç diyoruz.

Ugresiç kitabında Winnie the Pooh’nun depresif ama her daim mantığın sesi olan eşek karakteri Eeyore’u sık sık kullanıyor. Ugresiç’in sık sık vurguladığı kadarıyla, piyasada pesimistlere yer yok. Ama öte yandan, Eeyore çılgın ekibin mantıklı yanı. Onun o boynu bükük, hüzünlü gözlerinin ardından çıkan akıllıca sözleri kaçımız fark ettik? Etmedik. O yüzden de Ugresiç ona bu yergi kitabında özel bir yer vermiş durumda.

Kendisinin de satır aralarında söylediği kadarıyle Eeyore ile benzer bir yanı var. Kendi tecrübe ve fikirlerini kimi zaman gerçek dışı olaylarla süsleyerek bizlerle paylaşıyor. Ama onun da dediği gibi, kendisi bir yazar ve bir yazarın uydurmasından daha doğal ne olabilir?

Dubravka Ugresiç kitabında sık sık Doğru Avrupalı olmanın, dahası Doğu Avrupalı bir yazar olmanın ne demek olduğunu bizlerle paylaşıyor. Piyasada kendinize yer bulmanın bu köken meselesi nedeniyle hepten zor oluşuna da değiniyor. Bununla da bitmiyor, Doğu Avrupalılar’ın edebiyattan anlayışı ne kadar eğitime dayalı ve yazar olmak nasıl saygı değer bir meslekse, Amerika ve Avrupa’nın geri kalanında ne kadar basit ve meslekten uzak, “herkesin olabileceği ve hatta olması gereken” bir şey oluşunu da gözler önüne seriyor.

Böylece kitap yazan çocuklar, futbolcular, eski mankenler, eski fahişeler, eski vesaireler ve nicesi Ugresiç’in eğlenceli dilinin konuğu oluyor. Pek çok tarihi olay ve alıntıyla da bunu taçlandırmayı ihmal etmiyor yazarımız. Dahası, son zamanlarda neredeyse her yayınevinden fırlayan Marquis de Sade kitaplarına ta o zamanlardan değinmiş. Nasıl da yumuşatılıp popüler kültür ikonu hâline getirildiğini anlatıyor bizlere.

Ugresiç’in hicvinde okur da nasibini alıyor. O kurtuluyor sanmayın. Hani “ironiden anlamayan nesle aşina değiliz,” diye bir internet jargonu var ya, işte Ugresiç bunu 90’ların sonunda söylemiş de haberimiz olmamış.

Eeyore ile yolun sonuna geldik. Dubravka Ugresiç ile olan hicivli denemeler ve tecrübeleri de böylece sonlandırıyoruz. Bu incelemeden de anlayacağınız gibi, yazar yazmanın bir yeti ve eğitim meselesi olduğunu savunan bir düşünceye sahip. Herkes istediği her şey olabilir tarzındaki günümüz politikasının yazarlık için versiyonunu bizler için bu küçük yazılarında irdeleyişi böylece bitiyor.

Her okurun şapkasını önüne alıp üzerinde bir süre düşünüp kendi okur kimliğini ve para kazandırdığı içi boş kitleleri bir gözünün önüne getirmesi gerek. Yoksa bu kitabı okumanın hiçbir anlamı olmaz.

Sen çok yaşa Eeyore. Hep bir depresifsin falan ama çok tatlı eşeksin hani. Efendim? Ne? Aman neyse, yine karamsar şeyler dedin herhalde. Neyse boşver, sonra dinlerim seni. Bak Winnie nasıl da tombul ve sevimli!

- Hazal ÇAMUR

İncelemenin tamamı için: http://www.kayiprihtim.org/portal/inc...

[Burak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitap Dubravka Ugresiç'in 1995-2000 yılları arasında yazdığı ve yayıncı, yazar, okur demeden edebiyat dünyasının tamamını topa tuttuğu yazılardan oluşuyor. Topa tutmak belki biraz ağır bir tabir ama Ugresiç'in lafını sakınmadığı da aşikar. Hatta yer yer kendini bile eleştiriyor. Bir de yazarın 20 sene önce yaptığı çıkarımlar bugün için o kadar açık bir şekilde geçerli ki yazara saygı duymamak mümkün değil.

Kitabın ortalarından sonra konular biraz daha yazarın bölünmüş bir ülkenin vatandaşı olması ve ülkesinden ayrılmak zorunda kalmasından doğan sıkıntılara kayıyor. Bundan çok fazla şikayetçi değilim (farklı bir düşünce için bknz. Hazal'ın incelemesi) ancak hem yazarın aynı şeyleri tekrar etmesi hem de bahsettiği sorunların bana yabancı olması bana biraz sıkıcı geldi.

Sonuç olarak yazarın alaycı dili iyi bir çeviri ve editörlükle birleşince okuması epey keyifli bir derleme oldu benim için. Bu arada Ugresiç'in bundan başka iki de kurgu eseri Türkçeye çevrilmiş ve bu üç kitabı da bulmak için tek ihtimal sahaflar şu an. Şaşırtıcı değil ama üzücü gerçekten de.

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

as a reader, i long for my own writer. i sift through books with promising blurbs, but few of them satisfy my readerly tastes. bookstores increasingly resemble gleaming supermarkets: the products look high-quality, but the flavor is disappointing. just as fruit and vegetables have mutated and lost their flavor in favor of external appearance, so books too, both bad and good, have mutated with time into mainstream literature.

as incisive and witty as it was when first published some twenty years ago, dubravka ugrešić's thank you for not reading (verboden te lezen!) collects over thirty essayistic pieces, many on the homogenizing commercialization of books and authors. writing mostly about the industry, but also culture, exile, globalization, and a enigmatic handyman, ugrešić lends every subject her abundant humor (often dark and delectable!), keen insight, and critical observation. in any kind of just world, dubravka would top bestseller lists the world over.

the global noise is indescribable. even angels, whose job description includes patience and compassion, walk around with cotton balls in their ears. the only acceptable aesthetic choice that remains for people of good taste is silence.

*translated from the croatian by celia hawkesworth (andrić, drndić, mehmedinović, et al.), with contributions from damion searls (fosse, modiano, walser, et al.)

[Ranjan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sorry, for reading the book!

I have never read collection of essays with much interest but the way Dubravka writes with sharp wit and sarcasm, I just could not stop myself finish reading this book. The reflection on books, literature, art, exile, pop-culture, writing and writers, society in general and many more makes you think twice before you consume information in this modern day and age. I felt when she said "At a time when books are written, published and read more than ever before, the writer and reader are the loneliest and most threatened species"

"Books will exist as long as there are stories which are convinced that they must be written and as long as there are readers who as they read those stories are convinced that they have to be rewritten."

This my first book from Ugresic and definitely not the last :)

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderful, maddening, frustrating, brilliant book. Short essays of literary/cultural criticism that have the confidence of a Sontag, a Svetlana Boym, with all the subway-razor-slasher pessimism of a Nabokov. Yet I wavered between four and five stars because Ugresic never really takes her criticism all the way, as Boym does--she stops at quickly slashing the jacket of one's naive Western optimism and populism without ever telling us what she really does believe, what would be more correct or precise.

Yet these dead-witty essays in essence compellingly mourn the absence of literary values in judging literature in the marketplace, which was once 'Western' but now encompasses the globe. Her quick rapier attacks are milk-spitting hilarious. She talks about attending a literary conference in which the headliner is Joan Collins, which becomes a recurring motif. She dreams that she has won the Nobel Prize--as Joan Collins. That we no longer even recognize what literature is--that the so-called literature of the West is not literature at all, not in the true sense of continuing a literary conversation that has been going on for ten or fifteen centuries, of responding to Homer and Shakespeare and Tolstoy, but is only a commodity, where sheer popularity (revenue) and consumability is the sole standard--and that is its ideology, no different from the positivist ideology and the resultant 'literature' of Socialist Realism.

Ugresic is savagely elitist as only an Eastern European is really permitted to be within global culture today. Having shaken the imposed mediocrity of State sponsored culture, she is naturally--as are many former Soviet writers and Eastern Europeans--bitter about the state of literature in the so-called 'free' world. That it's still not literary value but now the marketplace which has taken the place of the State imposing its agenda upon art. And rightly so. Celebrities are getting their books published right and left, the bestsellers who pump out stories of little artistic merit, when great artists, who do not write for the average reader, but for the sophisticated ones, are free to literally starve, without health care, teaching way too much, unable to publish--especially in America, which has no academy, no way to support artists who cannot support themselves in the marketplace but are doing exceptionally beautiful work. (Recently my own chapter of PEN USA had to quietly take up a collection for an important poet who could not pay her medical bills.) Ugresic's essays are biting and funny but they also speak to the death of art.

I wavered between four and five stars here--Ugresic slashes well, but she never really takes it all the way, as Boym or Sontag does, in these very short essays, leaving me intellectually dissatisfied, as if someone has spoken to me brilliantly in a buffet line but then I can't find them afterwards to get to the real meat of their argument. But as I've been talking about nothing but this since I started reading it, I have to give it the five.

I found the essays absorbing, hilariously apt, but I also wanted to hear her respond to the circumstance of great authors who nevertheless were able to dance with the demands of the marketplace, who produced their fine and yet extremely popular works within the commercial brawl of the popular arena--the difficulty with elitism and wholesale criticism of anyone successful the marketplace. What about Dickens? I wanted to ask. Doestoyevsky? Art and popularity aren't necessarily exclusive--though they aren't identical either, for their values have nothing to do with each other. But in the absence of a canon or an Academie, how is sophisticated art, what Mayakovsky called "art for the producer" to be kept alive in such a publishing world not guided by real literary values? It's a question forcefully raised but not pursued in this intriguing volume.

********************************
I started reading this again. It's an itch I can't stop scratching.






"

[Hazal Çamur]

Kitabın ilk yarısı beni fazlasıyla heyecanlandırırken yarısından sonrası hayal kırıklığı oldu.

İlk yarıda cesur ve alaycı bir kadınla beraberdim. Kah onun muzip eleştirilerine gülüyor, kah başımı sallayarak iğneyi kendime de batırıyordum. Okumadığınız İçin Teşekkürler, cüretkar isimli, cüretkar konulu bir kitaptı benim için. Düşünsenize, kitap piyasasını, velinimetiniz olan okuru ve dost edinmenin referans anlamına geleceği yazarları düşman edeceksiniz. Bu sırada kendi yazarlık kariyerinizi de tiye alacak, bir de üstüne üstlük kitaba böyle bir ad vereceksiniz. Biz buna Dubravka Ugresiç diyoruz.

Harikaydı. Altı çizili sayısız cümleyle beni kitabın yarısına kadar taşıdı. Fakat yarısından sonra bir savaş sonrası depresyonunun içine girdi ve çıkamadı gitti. Bu kitabı okuma ve sevme amacım bu ilk yarıdaki hınzır ve eleştirel tutumdu. Kitap piyasasının 90'ların sonunda da bugünkü içi boş halinde olduğunu okumak ve bunu Ugresiç'in zeki sözleriyle tekrar idrak etmekti. Ancak ikinci yarıyla birlikte Yugoslavya dışında bir şey duyamaz oldum.

Bu kitabı bir tarih kitabı olarak okumak istemedim. Yugoslavya ve savaşların kitaplara neler yapabildiğini okumak elbette önemli, ama aynı konuda bitmeyen sayfalar beni oldukça sıktı. Yugoslavya ve yazarın göç hikayesi bitmedi gitti ve en sonunda Amerika'ya gelişiyle kitabı sonlandırdı. Yarısından sonrası bir denemeler bütünü değil, bir anı dizisi olmuş.

Keşke anılarını bir başka kitaba saklasaydı diyor ve bu kafa karışıklığından dolayı kitaba yıldız vermiyorum.

Dubravka Ugresiç'in bu kitabını okuduğum için gayet memnunum. Ancak ikinci yarısının "benim için" bir hayal kırıklığı olduğunu vurgulamalıyım. Sizler kendinizi buna hazırlarsanız belki de böyle düşünmeyeceksinizdir. Dahası, yazarın kimi gençlere yönelik eleştirilerine katılmamakla birlikte, kitabın başında yazdığı notta edebiyat konusundaki tutkulu ve o eleştirdiği pek çok özelliği taşıyan öğrencilerini bu kitabı yazdıktan sonra tanımış olmasının üzüntüsünü paylaşıyor. Ama kendisini de eleştiriyor hani. Özellikle TV kültürünün nasıl dünyayı ve insanları ele geçirdiğinden yakınırken, kendisinin de nasıl sadık bir Oprah Winfrey izleyicisi olduğuna değinmeden geçmiyor. Bu dürüstlüğü çok tatlı.

Kapağını kapatmamla birlikte beni bir kafa karışıklığına sürükleyen, sanki iki farklı kitabın birleşimi gibi bir haldeki farklı bir kitaptı. Tekrar ediyorum, bu cüretkar tutumu ve alaycılığına bayıldım, ama yarısından sonraki seyir ve anlatıların bu kitap için yanlş bir tercih olduğunu düşünüyorum.

Son olarak, çeviri ve editörlük gayet hoştu. Ayrıntı Yayınları'nın kalitesindeydi.

[Ezgi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ugresic hemen herkesin belirttiği gibi ironik bir dille edebiyat ve popüler kültür denemeleri çıkarmış. Kitabın ismi gibi cüretkar bir tavrı var. Edebiyatta işlerin nasıl ilerlediği ile alakalı yazılar en sevdiklerim oldu. Kitap tanıtım yazıları yazdığı dönem neyin satacağı üzerine çeşitli bilgiler ediniyor. Sanatın ardında gizlenen piyasayı görmek hoşuma gidiyor. Ama Ugresic başka konulara geçince aynı hoşnutluğu duyamadım. Eski Yugoslavya’da doğmuş bir yazar. Sırbistan başta olmak üzere dağılan ülkelerin tutumlarına dair saptamaları var. Sosyalizme duyduğu nefreti iliklerimde hissettim. Mizahın ardına gizlediği histeri derecesinde bir nefret var. Eleştirel tavırdan bayağı ayrılan bir şey bu. Hemen her yazı fazla ironik. Sarkastik yaklaşacağım diye yazıdan koparıyor okuru. Tekrara düştüğü gibi tavrındaki ciddiyetsizlik de bir noktadan sonra etkileyici olmuyor. Genel itibariyle ortalama bulduğum denemeler. Fakat epey sevilmiş. Türkçe’ye bile çevrildiğine göre bahsettiği gibi Gucci ayakkabılarına kavuşmuştur.

[Allyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grumpy Eastern-European intellectuals are awesome. Americans usually think they are "conservatives". They don't get it.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spirited essays that are better when Ugrešić hews close to particulars (life as a post-yugoslavia writer, say) where she can use a fine pencil than when she paints with a broad brush in some of the later essays on all writers and all countries. There's a bit of repetition, to be expected in an essay collection. I found her comments on the marketplace (of ideas, of eastern european and/or post-communist country writers) helpful and illuminating.

The essays come from 2000 and earlier so a bit dated, but her style can sparkle and her humour can bite, when she wants. Recommended.

[Justine Kaufmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine a world where an author’s success relies more on looks and trivial facts rather than talent. A world where it’s easier for an athlete or actress than an actual writer to become a best-selling author. A world where you open the New York Times Book Review and find Ivana Trump getting favorable reviews while Joseph Brodsky’s Watermark gets torn apart. It is a world (or dystopian landscape, if you prefer, if it wasn’t obvious enough already) where the only way for an author to make it is to get an official stamp of approval, a giant O on the cover of their book... Or, better yet, an official bucket hat bearing the title of the book given out to lucky influe—I mean readers… Just kidding! Thankfully, Ugresic did not take her cynical dystopian imaginings that far. I mean, how could she have predicted that bucket hats would have made it back into style more than 20 years ago when she wrote these essays?


In Thank You for Not Reading, Dubravka Ugresic takes on the contemporary book industry: who and what gets published, the people running the whole show, the readers who mindlessly gobble it all up, and most importantly, the writers who must find their place in this circus. But she also discusses other topics, such as cynicism, being an exile, her former country of Yugoslavia, or one of my favorite essays in the collection (‘Long Live Socialist Realism!) where she compares the rules of market-oriented literary culture (cue in Oprah) to the Socialist Realism movement.

These essays are extremely intelligent, biting and funny, with a kind of cynicism and humor I love (and frankly need to brace myself against society anymore). But there’s a kind of indescribable warmth beneath this cynicism (something I’m likely more attune to after reading her Museum of Unconditional Surrender). So, I recommend this book to those interested in books or writing books, and because its Ugresic. But also because this was just released by Open Letter Books last week (with a different cover brought to you by the amazing power of Clipart), and I have not heard or seen a thing about it on here (minus one post from the press a month ago). Ugresic deserves better.


Translated by Celia Hawkesworth

Quotes, because who doesn't love quotes:

"Through media contamination, a real event is fictionalized (what an old-fashioned word!), for that is the only way it can be consumed, de-realized (deprived of its reality), and hyper-realized (made more real than reality itself). It begins to function the same way as the texts of popular culture do… A text of popular culture…must stimulate and produce meanings, bring them into conflict, engage and activate the emotions of the consumers, question but also confirm the fundamental set of values which consumers have."

"The phenomenon of the best-seller contains a manipulative, fascist streak, for the best-seller is a holy marriage between the text and the readers, it is always an ideology, a surrogate of the spiritual. The best-seller offers a closed system of of simple values and even simpler knowledge."


"Americans love junk. It's not the junk that bothers me, it's the love" said George Santayana. He said it at a time when he did not yet know that we were all one day going to become Americans.
Only the word "kitsch," the object of intellectual interest in the sixties, has been squeezed out of circulation. Its place has been taken by the industry (film, publishing), entertainment, pleasure, and fun.


"We, the optimists, are God's chosen ones. Why? Because only we, the optimists, are reliable consumers."

[Hon Lady Selene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and illuminating, once the Reader accepts what Dubravka hadn't accepted: that perhaps a writer needn't have an opinion on Everything under the sun - but this is merely another form of Communist trauma.

She reads better than Slavenka Drakulić, with a more reasonable approach and I admit being impressed with her managing Ivana Trump and Thomas Mann in the same sentence.

Three interesting moments from this book:

"In London once, I found myself at a party where I was out of place. Ivana Trump was there as well. My host introduced me to her condescendingly, as though he were introducing me to Thomas Mann himself. I offered her my hand and said: “Pleased to meet you.” She said nothing."

***

"Once, when I was in New York, I came across a Czech writer who told me how she had been to visit Ivana Trump, trying to persuade her to give money for the impoverished Czech library collections. Ivana Trump gave nothing."

***

"And I continue my search for an agent, hoping always that one day I will find the right one.

Soon, a letter arrived from a French agent:

I have not read your manuscript, but I do not doubt that it is an exceptional literary work. However, it would be hard to sell it at this time to any West European publisher. East Europeans are no longer the trend, which is of course sad, but true. If Solzhenitsyn has problems finding a publisher, then there is nothing we can do but wait for happier times.
With warm greetings,


At the same time, a letter arrived from my former Croatian publisher:

Hey, you’ve been on the blacklist for ten years, it’s natural that your readers have forgotten you! Not more than a dozen people would buy one of your books today. No one reads local writers anymore. They hate anti-regime writers, while regime writers make them sick. Books are expensive. It comes to the same thing, one way or another. Only the Croatian edition of Mein Kampf has sold really well. So there you are.
Yours,

1999"

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank god for translations. This is a fascinating group of essays that looks at the current downslide of good writing in the United States and Europe. Her essays are not dogmatic--they are hilarious, often tongue-in-cheek, and yet critical. She articulates so much of what the publishing industry does to destroy good and great writers from reaching their audience. And she should know--as a Croatian writer, she is relegated to a part of the world that doesn't matter in corporate views of what sells. I highly recommend this for writers and for readers.

[M. Sarki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A serious writer's manual that is well-written and quite entertaining.

[Nick Grammos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ugresic' comments on the publishing industry, both as an outsider-foreigner and as an intellectual make for painful reading. If this was the industry 20 years ago, what is it like now? Well, we know, full of sporting memoirs, tragedy porn, how to downsize, how to make money, the lives of celebrities, and endless pointless fiction boasting literariness, but about as compelling a read as the blurb. I felt I was in a dystopia reading it, only to find myself in a dystopia when I stopped.

Confirmation bias? Of course. But who else thinks they are better off reading great works from the past than wading through the treacle of modern prose? Sad, because how do we define the age we are in without those works that struggle with ideas and language, the individual vs society.

There are good books today, I'm carrying on. But the dross. Aaagggh!

[Bülent Ö. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harika. Çok yerinde bir ironiyle mühim meseleleri anlatıyor Ugresiç. Tekrar tekrar okunması gereken, güncelliğini kaybetmeyen güzel denemelerle dolu kitap. Büyük bir zevkle okudum.

[Tubi(Sera McFly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitap sektörü ve batı dünyasında Amerikalı ya da İngiliz olmayan bir yazar olmakla ilgili denemelerinin yanında, romantik sürgün imajını yerle bir ettiği yazılarıyla küreselleşmeye ilişkin denemeleri etkili. Bu tür edebiyat ve okumakla ilgili denemelerden oluşan kitaplarda sıkça rastlanan, tespitlerinin çoğu doğru bile olsa çeşitli okur tiplerine yönelik kategorizeleştirmeye meyleden alaycı bir yaklaşımdan öteye gidemeyen tutumdan fazlası var. Yazar popüler kültür üzerine düşüncelerinde, herkesin kendini ifade etmesinin önemine dikkat çekerken çokluk içinde bireyin kaybolacağına dair internetin ve sosyal medyanın yaygınlaşmasından önce dile getirdiği öngörüleri de dikkat çekici.

[Ginger K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique blend of essays and short fictions, with neither fiction nor nonfiction marked. The author makes interesting insights into the effects of market forces on literature and the aftereffects of communism and its fall in Eastern Europe.

"The Book Proposal" and "Eco among the Nudists" are among my favorites, but "Long Live Socialist Realism" - which compares the Oprah bestseller phenomenon to the Socialist realism movement of Yugoslavia's communist past - is the hook I'm using to get friends reading.

[Emre · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Özellikle kısa öyküleriyle tanınan çağdaş bir Amerikalı yazara bir keresinde,'Öyküden vazgeçip, neden romana yöneldiniz?' diye sorulmuştu.
'Altı haneli bir farktan ötürü' cevabını vermişti yazar.'" Sf:58

"Milan Kundera bir keresinde, bir gün herkesin yazacağını ama kimsenin dinlemeyeceğini söylemişti." Sf:62

"Hayat yanımda taşıdığım tek bavuldur." Sf:135

[Liên]

The book to quash most literary dreams. I had entirely too much despair fun reading this.

Dubravka Ugrešić wielded a similar brand of humor to Wang Xiaobo’s: witty, sassy, smug yet self-deprecating. I wish they would have had a chance to trade quips. Their commentary - on BookTok, generative AI, ideological fanaticism, man's follies, or anything really - would have made comedic gold.

First three chapters: Easy 5/5 for sheer enjoyment value. Still relevant after 25 years. A sampling:

On the woes of book proposals, specifically her tragicomic quest to write proposals for camouflaged classics:
"I did manage to sell The Old Man and the Sea. I disguised it a bit. I stressed the ecological aspect of the whole thing. And I changed the old man into a good-looking, young, gay Cuban exile. The proposal was immediately accepted."

On writer's guilt:
"A real writer feels guilty and thinks that what he’s doing is unimportant, or useless, or privileged (although he’s not paid for it), while other serious people work. Such writers are always in awe of physicists, carpenters, and surgeons, and can always be crushed with the greatest of ease, like a worm or a fly."

On quotable quotes (hello goodreads.com/quotes, hello influencers' intro blurbs):
"[...] a writer must learn, at least in the preferential phase (if he is not naturally gifted), to pronounce easily memorable banalities that will be preserved in the storehouses of so-called eternal truths: the dictionaries of quotations."

The middle part might as well be a different book, in terms of both content and tone. Despite some shared background with the author (e.g. a childhood fed with socialist propaganda, an adulthood straddled between worlds), I found this part fairly inaccessible. Many references flew right over my head.

The closing chapters hark back to the first few, but more academese in tone. (Quotable quote from Jean Baudrillard: "“Art doesn’t die because there isn’t any more, it dies because there is too much." Touché.)

[Anetq · Rating 2 out of 5]

Essays about being a writer, an eastern european, former Yugoslavian, currently Croatian, female, non-fiction writing author. It is not the height of literary fashion, and the sarcasm is fun at times, but after the first 100 pages of variations on the theme, well... It gets a bit repetitive. And sad. Even if it does provide some interesting insights into the cultural heritage of the other side of the iron curtain - and the loss of the country one grew up in. But the form. Well I get a little tired of the self-pity, even if it is entirely justified. It's a hard life. Or maybe there is a layer of eastern european dark humor, I'm not getting. I hope so.

[Ренета Кирова · Rating 2 out of 5]

Преди време четох една книга на авторката и ми беше допаднала, затова и с удоволствие започнах тази книга с нейни есета. Само че се сблъсках с тематика за живота по времето на комунизма в Югославия, за писателите, които не са писатели, а са комерсиализирани, за емигрантския живот, за различните типове автори и всичко написано с един мрачен нюанс. Угрешич явно е интелигентна, умее да борави с думите, но вмъкването на английски непреведени изрази в текста, тук много ме подразни, постоянно надничах в бележките с превода, за което благодаря на преводача, в оригинала ги нямало. Сякаш с това вмъкване на чужди изрази, тя заявява „Вижте ме колко думи знам и как ги умело ги въвеждам в текста”, а за мен не това е важно в книгата, а цялостното усещане. Аз предпочитам да усетя чувствителността на автора, а тези есета ми звучаха като „интелигентни” жълтини и клюки за писателите като цяло. Между тях се прокрадваше мърморене за успели автори, които по призвание не са такива и се усещаше, че тя се дразни много от това. Нищо лошо да има самочувствие на добър автор, но не и да пише против другите успели автори. Ние, читателите, не сме толкова глупави и умеем да оценим хубавите книги. Тези неща ми смъкнаха оценката до 2/5.

[Vesna Filipovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved her thoughts and observations of the publishing industry, high and low literature, and after all, how she sees herself in the ever-changing environment of the writer influenced by all from mass-media, entertainment industry, constant pitches, literary agents to cyber-culture. She is ironic, fun, smart, and well educated.

Some may accuse her of being elitist, but it is true that in a world where everyone has the right to a voice, no one really listens. There is so much noise, too many books, and as she stated, literature has lost the exclusiveness it once had.

Her writings about Yugoslavia and politics in the 90s are on point, and her views are absolutely correct. I especially loved her thoughts and writings about exile. "Exile is itself a neurosis, a restless process of testing values and compering worlds: the one we left and the one where we ended up."

To me, the first part of the book was particularly interesting, and it's more focused on the subject of the book.