Newcomers: Book One

Prišleki #1

by Lojze Kovačič, Michael Biggins (Translator)

The first volume of this three-part autobiographical series begins in 1938 with the expulsion of the Kovacic family from their home of Switzerland, eventually leading to their settlement in the father's home country of Slovenia. Narrated by Kovacic as a ten-year-old boy, he describes his family's journey with uncanny naiveté. Before leaving their home, he imagines his father's home country as something beautiful out of a fairytale, but as they make their way toward exile, he and his family realize that any attempt to make a home in Slovenia will be in vain. Confronted by misery, hunger, and hostility, the young boy refuses to learn Slovenian and falls silent, his surroundings becoming a social, cultural and mental abyss. 


Kovačič meticulously, boldly, and sincerely portrays the objective, everyday world; the style is clear and direct. Told from the point of view of a child, one memory is interrupted by fragments and visions of another. Some are innocent and tender, while others are miserable and ruthless, resulting in a profound and heart-wrenching description of a period torn apart by conflict, reflected in the author's powerful and innovative command of language.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Literature, Historical Fiction

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Newcomers is a heartfelt and colourful chronicle of misery…
Not long before the war, due to the paterfamilias’ vainglory and shortsightedness, the Slovene family is expelled from Switzerland… The young boy, who tells the story, is full of childish expectations…

…on the far side of the clouds and the arrogant mountain that kept retreating ahead of us, no matter how much the train tried to reach it… on the far side of some mountain slope I was going to encounter all kinds of things that were appropriate for my age… whether those were toys or buildings, animals or people, cars or airplanes.

However, the fatherland isn’t a land of milk and honey… So they live in the village in the utter poverty slaving for their greedy relatives in the atmosphere of the total hatred…

I got hit by a corncob in the head, in the back… All of a sudden so many hands!… I grabbed Karel by the neck… He was grinning… Then I squeezed… He shrieked… I flung myself this way and that… I wouldn’t let go… He fell back off his log… He bit me in the arm, the pig!… Ciril came to help him… One more head… I leapt at Karel and gripped his chest between my legs.

The father managed to find a pitiful work in town… Living there in a damp basement room, he contracts consumption… At last the family escapes the village and they all find themselves residing in this tiny room in the ultimate penury bordering on starvation… The boy was even compelled to go begging…

The Šarabon department store across from the hospital was the most tolerant of beggars… you just had to hurry so that the other cadgers didn’t beat you to it… the tavern drunks, the morons and idiots from the municipal poor houses, who knew the city’s more charitable hearts well. You had to be there the minute the shutters over their doors got rolled up… The big store was the shape of the letter L. We went in and said what Mirko’s mother had taught us to say, “In God’s name, please give a beggar some alms…”

Hubris can be as ruinous as earthquakes and floods.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lojze Kovacic is one of Slovenia’s most acclaimed writers and The Newcomers, his autobiographical trilogy, one of the most important Slovenian works of the 20th century, being voted the “Slovenian Novel of the Century” by literary critics. So this English translation is to be welcomed, and indeed I did enjoy it, even though I found it quite challenging at times. It’s the sort of book that presupposes some background knowledge of the politics and social conditions of the time, and I had to do some research to fully understand what was going on. It’s based on the author’s own experiences when his family were forcibly returned to their Slovenian homeland in 1938 from Switzerland, where they lived in fairly affluent circumstances. Back on the father’s birthplace, things are a lot more primitive and the family have to cope with some very harsh conditions and dispiriting poverty. The opening scene of the novel when the family arrive in darkness and mud through the forbidding forests when no one meets them and when they do arrive at the family home face a hostile reception is chilling indeed. We see it all through the eyes of the youngest child of the family, and life is miserable in the extreme. Eventually the family are able to move to Ljubljana but life is little better there. This first volume ends with the arrival of Mussolini’s troops and the beginning of a period of occupation. Grim indeed. I found the writing atmospheric and the nightmarish quality of the family’s existence, where they meet only prejudice and hostility from those around them is vividly conveyed. I look forward to reading the next 2 volumes at some point.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was rather emotionally raw and at times a bit overly detailed account of Slovenia's national author's rather rough transition (serious language troubles & poverty) from Switzerland to Yugoslavia during WWII. It ends on a cliffhanger of the invasion of the area and so, there is no real conclusion (it's part of a series, something I hadn't realized). Kovacic writes well (as does the translator, Michael Biggins) and his story is an interesting insight on the inter-WW society of Yugoslavia and the European concerns around ethnicity and community. Readers would benefit from an general understanding of the non-German/British situations in inter-war Europe, a world of new national boundaries, as Aloyse, the narrator, is too young, too trapped in a linguistic limbo to guide the reader.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books) · Rating 2 out of 5]

90 pages in, I just can't go on. Too Proustian for me. So far there has been about three pages worth of narrated story and the rest, while extremely well-written and/or translated, has been pages-long atmospheric descriptions of the settings as seen through the eyes of a young boy. Um, no thank you: I'm good.

[Jdu FFH · Rating 3 out of 5]

De stijl van Kovacic, met veel... interpunctie... en weinig hoofdstukindeling, is er één voor fijnproevers. Aangezien de verteller een kind is, kan het er wat mij betreft net mee door. Het kind vertelt een verhaal van een gedwongen (r)emigratie van Zwitserland naar Slovenie, vlak voor het begin van de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Het Duitssprekende gezin wordt niet bepaald liefdevol ontvangen door de Sloveense familie en leeft in grote armoede, eerst op het platteland, later in Ljubljana. Het zijn de Kinderjaren van Gorki, maar dan minder schrijnend, maar wel met de context van WOII en het Duitssprekende jongetje dat bij de Hitlerjugend gaat. Dit gebeurt pas helemaal aan het eind van het boek, als de verveling begin toe te slaan. Die verveling zorgt er voor dat ik niet echt nieuwsgierig ben naar delen 2 en 3, ook al barst daar de oorlog echt los en zou dat mogelijk tot meer verwikkelingen kunnen leiden en minder typisch kinderleed zoals gestolen knikkers en dergelijke.

[Kevin Gabriël · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story!

[Kristel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interessant verhaal met niet zo vlot leesbaar

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is, more than anything, about the human condition. Specifically it is about displacement, family, poverty, struggle and Nazis/Hitler's evil. Since it is told through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy suddenly dropped into a country where he does not speak the language and has lost any privilege he once had, the reader must parse out the happenings as related by an unreliable but fiercely intelligent narrator.

I was struck by how the children imitate the actions of countries at war in their play. They pick up the news from the adults around them, they watch the war planes in the sky, they dramatize their fears and anger in daily conflicts with other kids. Coming of age is one thing, coming of age amidst war is a wholly other thing.

Lojze based the book on his own experiences, written from memory in the 1980s. There is a Part Two which I have and will read, though not right away. He left me wanting more but needing a pause.

[Dragan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting representation from the eyes of ten years old boy (with literally skills of adult author) - how the boy sees movement of his family that was first financially destroyed and then expelled from Switzerland to Slovenia in the eve of second world war. I enriched my knowledge of that region in that time, the region that belonged to the country that I lived in. This saga will continue in books 2 a nd 3 and I am waiting to continue through writer's adventures in second world war and in postwar period.

[Phin]

Memoires of a boy who grew up in Swiss and has to move due to the Second World War. The book is written from inside if the authors head and the mind of a little boy was a bit meandering at times. Where the first part did not capture my attention, towards the end it becomes a good read. Contemplating on reading the Second part if the trilogy.

[Fugado De La Casita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story. You need to get used to the writing style, but once you're in... it's wonderful!

[Marleenmoris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Niet uitgelezen.

[B.]

Dnf

[Claudia Majetich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the late 1930s while World War 2 looms, Newcomers is a fascinating depiction of the difficulties faced by refugees, told by a boy, Aloyze, who is forced to move from his comfortable Swiss life to a life of hardship in his father's native Slovenia. The book brilliantly describes daily events using Aloyze's voice and his childish point of view. Larger, momentous issues and events intrude, but are presented through the narrow, self-absorbed understanding of a child.

Aloyze is a resilent, imaginative child who adapts to a series of moves, first to the peasant life of his paternal relatives, and then to the life of a street urchin in Slovenian cities. His mixed (Swiss) German and Slovenian ancestry, coupled with his difficulties in learning a new language, make him a target for bullies, yet he retains an appeal that motivates some kindly adults to treat him well. His longing is for a different kind of life, where he could sit, and read, and write the stories that fill his brain, comes to the surface only rarely. A wonderful glimpse into how children develop personas that allow them to cope with immensely adverse situations, while keeping another part of themselves hidden and safe till circumstances change.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Newcomers was written by one of Slovenia’s most acclaimed writers. The Newcomers, his autobiographical trilogy, was voted “the Slovenian Novel of the Century” by literary critics.

Newcomers is a fascinating description of the difficulties faced by refugees. The events and descriptions are told by a young boy named Aloyze. Many of these hurdles are probably experienced today by many refugees.

This is a translated version of the story. The writing style is different and for me difficult to get used to. Regardless the message is clearly illustrated to the reader.

Thank you to Net Galley and Archipelago Books for the opportunity to read this novel.

[Lamerestbelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

THIS WAS PART II

[Kevin Mckinney · Rating 3 out of 5]

an incredibly boring and tedious book, but somehow very interesting, too? i'm excited to see how i like the next two parts of the series whenever they're published.