101 Detectives

by Ivan Vladislavić

What kind of Detective am I? Eardrum or tympanum? Gullet or esophagus? Pussy or pudenda? A Detective needs a language almost as much as a language needs a Detective .

In this new collection of stories, award-winning author Ivan Vladislavic invites readers to do some detective work of their own. Each story can be read as just that – a story – or you can dig a little deeper. Take a closer look, examine the artefact from all angles, and consider the clues and patterns concealed within.

Whether skewering extreme marketing techniques or constructing dystopian parallel universes; whether mourning a mother’s loss or tracing a translator’s on-stage breakdown, Vladislavic’s pitch-perfect inquisitions will make you question your own language – how it defines you, and how it undoes you.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, South Africa

216 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2015

About the author

Ivan Vladislavić is a novelist, essayist and editor. He lives in Johannesburg where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. His books include The Folly, The Restless Supermarket, Portrait with Keys and Double Negative. Among his recent publications are Flashback Hotel, a compendium of early stories; The Loss Library, a reflection on writing; and 101 Detectives, a collection of new short stories. He has edited volumes on architecture and art. His work has won several prizes, including the University of Johannesburg Prize, the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction. In 2015, he was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction by Yale University.

Reviews

[L · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird little book, to say the least. Vladislavić's language is at the same time playful, cerebral, eerie and gently poetic. His 11 stories will make you giggle, think and feel. Lullaby is deceptively simple but devastating, while the complex The reading with its multiple narrators, story within a story structure and the underlying critique of the literary academia but also the inability [or ability] of language to cross both metaphorical and real borders is a story you definitely won't forget.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

korporativna pripovjedačica!!

[Grady · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m pretty sure these short stories are objectively better than my rating suggests. They are definitely post-modern, sometimes surreal, sometimes absurdist, and I didn’t understand several of them, which was a disappointment, as I’ve read and loved other stories by this author. In this collection, I really appreciated ‘Dead Letters’, which combines photographs taken by David Goldblatt and text written by Vladislavic - the text being a short bio of Neville Lister, the supposed taker of the pictures, and several letters Lister is said to have collected from a dead letter office, inspiring him to go take the photographs of locations mentioned in the letters. Each of the letters hints at a far more interesting story or scandal, so the whole project, in addition to simulating reality, provokes an intense curiousity that it is impossible to satisfy. The feeling is like wondering what happened to a minor character that passed through but then disappeared from a novel you read, but more intense.

The other piece I really liked is ‘The Reading’, which seems initially headed in an absurdist direction, but delivers a gut-punch analysis of how trauma affects people - those who experience it and speak their memories; those who internalize it and are silent; those who encounter it second-hand; and those of us who know that evil exists in the world, but distract ourselves from taking it seriously. Especially in the reaction of the broader audience, the story has something in common with Auden’s poem, Musee de Beaux Arts, with a darker edge.

[Vanja · Rating 3 out of 5]

O detektivima
Edicije Božićevič, 2017.

Ovo je zbirka 11 priča, što kraćih, što dužih. Dok u neke od priča ulaziš na logičnom početku, mnoge se čitaju kao nekakav isječak, in medias res, već se nešto zbiva i ti moraš brzo pohvatati konce. Često je s ovim potonjima slučaj da nisu dovoljni upitnici koji ti se roje u glavi pa pokušaš sam dopnuiti smisao. A onda dođeš do kraja knjige pa nađeš "Izbrisane prizore", koji sadrže još dodatne rečenice iz te i te priče, dodatan vizualni stimulans u obliku pisama i fotografija mjesta o kojima je govorio. Doista, ova se zbirka ne može čitati samo da se pročita. I dok neke priče prihvatiš kao futurističke, koje donose viđenje svijeta koji jednoga dana možda postane (korporativna pripovjedačica u "Planu za izlaz"; hranjenje čistim proteinom u "Izvještaju s kogresa"), neke scene te potaknu na razmišljanje i istraživanje. Pa se tako latiš gugla i proučiš kakav je to acoli jezik, naučiš još neke stvari o apartheidu i pokušaš pronaći postoji li stvarno Ford Kafka.

Najupečetaljivija priča, i najdirljivija, je zasigurno "Čitanje". Govori se tu o životnoj priči djevojke koja je preživjela pomor svoje obitelji i čitavog sela u Ugandi, pobjegla i spasila se i o tome napisala knjigu. I to je divno opisano, kroz predstavljanje knjige s prevoditeljem kojega je prijevod toliko namučio a ta priča toliko potresla da se na kraju slomio tokom čitanja. Uz neodobravanje publike koja također ima veliku ulogu u ovoj priči. Jer ničija uloga u toj sceni predstavljanja knjige nije premala da bi bila zamjetna.


"Očito imam problem, a to je da mi ljudi ostavljaju svoje papire. Razlog je jasan: zato što i ja sâm gomilam velike količine vlastitih papira.

Podjednako mi je upečatljiva i priča "Sanduci", ponajviše zbog toga što vidim da nisam jedina s tim problemom skupljanja i čuvanja stvari koje s vremenom gube smisao i vrijednost. A opet, toliko smo opsjednuti stvarima da ih se naprosto ne možemo tako lako riješiti. Baciti knjigu? Koja, doduše, ima preko 50 godina, čiji je autor odavno među zaboravljenima, ali je čitava i izgleda kao nova? To bi po nekima gotovo trebalo upisati među smrtne grijehe. Tako naš pripovjedač godinama sa sobom vuče tuđe sanduke prepunjene knjigama, papirima i memorabilijama tražeći među njima smislenu povijest osobe kojoj su pripadali. Međutim, sve je uzalud, ne nalazi u njima smisao i shvaća da su mu postali samo prepreka, kamen spoticanja zbog kojeg ne može naprijed te ih ipak sve vraća osobi od koje ih je i preuzeo.


Vladislavićeve priče su neobične i zanimljive i ne bih imala ništa protiv da pročitam još nešto njegovo.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As much I enjoyed this collection—Vladislavić's prose is exquisitely crafted as always, his stories precisely askew from expectation—I can't help but feel like I read it wrong. Frequently I would get to the end of a story and feel like I missed the point, missed some dot I was supposed to connect, despite following along right up until the last sentence. Perhaps on re-reading I might get more out of it.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's not much to glean from this. I think it's about identity and language, but whatever is about, it's mostly about nothing. Too postmodern for its own good. Still, it's too overall competent and inoffensive to earn less than a 3/5.

[Akiva ꙮ]

Sat in the library and read "Mountain Landscape," bc it was short. It was ok. I did a little googling around and don't see anything I'm missing. It's possible I don't get it; it's also possible that the blurb isn't as promised.

[Josh Slingers · Rating 5 out of 5]

“‘We are stories.’ It’s a notion so simple even a child could understand it. Would that it ended there. But we are stories within stories. Stories within stories within stories. We recede endlessly, framed and reframed, until we are unreadable to ourselves”.

[Mirjam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favourite book ever, but there was something compelling about all but the first story. The first one was not worth reading in my opinion, the rest were good.

[Alison Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Ivan Vladislavic, so I'm biased. Strongly recommend, if you enjoy short stories.

[Bernadine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quirky collection of stories.
A very good read.

[Margaret Crampton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag of stories, somewhat puzzling

[Nelisiwe]

An intriguing set of short stories.My favourite story is a about a corporate story-teller (the first time I had ever come such a title and profession for a character).