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Combustions
Srđan Srdić’s collection of short stories, Combustions, establishes this author’s position as one of the best prose writers in Serbia and across the region. This book consists of nine stories in which the author brings the reader face to face with the seamy side of everyday life, where, somewhere in the province, hopelessness and despair of the endless Balkan transition meet one another in the most radical way. Devoid of illusions of social engagement and narrative tricks, Srdić linguistically demolishes the present and its numerous platitudes, either liberal or conservative, with which we have been overwhelmed for years, to the extent that we can no longer discern the depth of the twilight zone in which we live. Srdić’s stories are linguistically flawless, authentic and emblematically recognizable. The ironic distance that Srdić uses to talk about his characters, which are often socially marginalized and in disproportion to self-perception, combined with exquisite attention to detail, associativity and a number of intertextual references, makes this collection of short stories a genuine masterpiece, which uncompromisingly brings into light the bizarre quality of contemporary life.
140 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
23 people want to read
About the author
Srđan Srdić
17 books25 followersSrđan Srdić is a Serbian novelist, short-story writer, essayist, editor, publisher and creative reading/writing teacher. He has published five novels, two short story collections and a book of essays, and has contributed as a writer and/or editor to several short story collections and literary magazines.
After completing his secondary education in a music school, Srdić acquired a degree in world literature and literary theory from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology, where he also defended his PhD thesis entitled Relationship between Reality and Fiction in Jonathan Swift's Prose.
In December 2015, he established a publishing house named "Partizanska knjiga".
After completing his secondary education in a music school, Srdić acquired a degree in world literature and literary theory from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology, where he also defended his PhD thesis entitled Relationship between Reality and Fiction in Jonathan Swift's Prose.
In December 2015, he established a publishing house named "Partizanska knjiga".
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 10, 2025
I guess I'm not a serious reader...
English speakers don't often get a chance to experience literature from countries with little market for translating their books for worldwide distribution. I consider Serbia to be one of those places. So when I find a translation of Serbian literature, I tend to jump on it. But was "Combustions", the second collection of short stories by Srđan Srdić, the wisest choice for a translation?
It would seem that the author himself didn't think so. He says that he meant this book for "serious readers". This sentiment reflects an intention to keep this book insulated among a certain limited target audience of people who "get it". I don't know about you, but when I hear that kind of talk from any artist, my Spidey sense is activated. I begin to detect the whiff of bovine feces. It betrays a self-awareness of the limitations of your art, but also a narcissistic denial that your art can be improved for wider and more timeless appeal, so excuses are preemptively made to dismiss those who aren't careful enough or intelligent enough or open-minded enough to "get it".
In this case, I certainly didn't get it. I am neither an expert on Serbian history and culture, nor am I ignorant, particularly when it comes to post-Yugo Serbia. I married into a Serbian family, have followed the liturgy in Church Slavonic, and currently work in a heavily Serbian community, so I have lived and continue to live among those who still have strong ties to their country and culture, and who never miss a chance to talk about 1993, Kosovo, Montenegro, Albanians, Bosnians, Bill Clinton, and NATO over cevaps, ajvar, and slivovitz. So yes, I think I got the contextual gist of these stories as much as anyone could who had not been born and raised in the Balkans within the last forty years. That wasn't the problem.
I think the problem was not my failure to connect to his world, but that the author himself didn't fully understand the Western European and American literary idiom he was attempting to mimic. The fingerprints of modernism and post-modernism are all over his text, and he admits to being heavily influenced by the likes of William Faulkner and James Joyce. But "Ulysses" this is not.
After reading these nine stories, I was left scratching my head, so I tried to get a little more context by reading about the author and some academic reviews of his work. In so doing, my Spidey sense went off again. There's this constant use of the word "intertextual" in analysis of his writing. The repeated idea in his interviews and in the literary applause he has received is that, in order to "get it", the reader has to enjoy "intertextuality" and be well-versed in haute-literature as well as with certain musical forms like industrial metal and post-rock (in other words, books and bands the author likes).
I cannot stand it when pseudo-intellectuals ramble on about intertextuality when reviewing art. Intertextuality is just a fancy term for allusion, and one can argue (and I do) that all art is intertextual. Art makes something new out of old legends, popular tales, and Jungian archetypes. It pays homage to the artist's influences. Art can be a pastiche, a blatant rip-off, or just inspired practice. So don't pretend to convince readers of the genius of a writer because of the intertextuality of their work. That's like saying an author is brilliant because they use words. There is nothing new under the sun--it's how effectively the artist illicits a fresh understanding that makes the art unique and potentially even timeless. This was part of the reason why first-wave industrial musicians were so fascinated with William Burroughs and his "cut-up" techniques--by rearranging text that someone else wrote, or by splicing words that someone else spoke on a tape, you change the meaning. Sampling, collage, and cut-ups were a powerful way to bring art to its most basic and powerful level. So let's clear the smoke screen of intertextuality and talk about the real issues with this book.
An artist who is sharing their art with the public primarily does so because they expect to make a connection with people. In other words, the artist is trying to communicate something. Often, art is simply communicating the artist's imagination, putting the audience in another world or time. Sometimes the art is asking the right questions, and even more rarely, offering potential answers that the audience can choose to accept or reject. But Srdić says he's not giving answers or even bothering to ask questions--what a stereotypically edgy thing to say about your art when you're not sure what to say about it!
The authorial voice reveals little about the writer's distinct personality, and rather showcases every experimental cliche he ever learned in school or read in books. There is no conventional narrative structure, no dialogue, and very few named characters--only vague, watery impressions strung together by the reader's own confabulations. Some stories rely on run-on sentences, while others are simply a rapid-fire assault of single words. All consist of stream-of-consciousness ramblings typical of every author with aspirations to either be just like Proust or to be short-listed for the Mann-Booker Prize. Syntax is thrown out the window, along with consistent use of grammar. Regarding this last point, since I do not read Serbo-Croatian, I cannot tell if these are mistakes on the part of the translator or sloppiness on the part of the author, but I'm sure the author and his fans have insisted that it was intentional and have come up with some song-and-dance to justify it.
In short, his prose reads more like poetry, and this is a wonderful thing in the few inspired moments when he is being more poetic than posey.
Look, I don't expect to be spoon-fed with linear narratives and exposition. My favorite musical genres tend to be experimental and avant-garde, particularly old-school industrial, noise, and experimental improvised musics in the realms of jazz, prog, post-rock, and post-punk. I also enjoy surrealism and absurdism in my literature and film. That's because, when done authentically, these art forms create a visceral experience that leads to an understanding of the inner space of the artist and their truth about the world and the universe. In addition, I believe there's nothing wrong with mimicking the artists you love and admire. If you are moved by classical piano and have spent years playing the same Bach piece, then your talent, hard-work, and passion is valid art. When I sit down in my own home studio, I really am just practicing art. I make improvisations that answer the call of the same muse as my musical heroes--in other words, I intentionally or unintentionally try to SOUND LIKE those who came before me, even if what I am composing is unique to me. But I do not pretend that my work is the voice of contemporary life in my country. Unfortunately, this book seems to be accompanied by a marketing campaign that says exactly that.
The point of my review is not to encourage you to dislike this book if you read it. In fact, you might just find that it is exactly what you've been wanting. Rather, my concern is for those who are guided by literary circles and marketing strategies that manipulate people into a fear of landing on the side of those plebes who simply don't get it. I found an overall lack of honest discourse and coherent explanation on the part of the author and reviewers regarding this book, and even an expectation that no discourse or explanation is needed. That, to me, is the definition of conceit.
And while I can applaud the experiments in language found here, there is a fundamental flaw that borders on irony. The stories in this collection are about outsiders failing to communicate, and thus self-combusting in their attempts. I feel like Srdić also was failing to communicate, and was consumed by his deliberate attempts to be abstruse.
However, I do see some potential here. For me, the best of the stories were directly at the beginning, middle, and end of the compilation, namely "Good Night, Captain", "Summertime", and "About a Door". The first story was particularly clever (though gimmicky) in using footnotes, thus shunning linearity by giving us two perspectives at once. These stories felt more honest than the rest, and I enjoyed the process of getting a peek into the minds of characters as though tuning in to the fuzzy wavelengths of their souls. But for every good story, there were misfires, the worst offender being "The Daydreaming Rat".
Perhaps something truly did get lost in translation, and if so, then this may not have been the best choice of Serbian literature to anglicize. This book felt more like a writer with pretentions to be James Joyce who was inspired by getting baked on marijuana and amphetamines. The end result reminded me of twenty-something American horror authors who end up writing the same exact way in an attempt to make their generic slashers and vampire tales more literary and nihilistic. These kids have been doing this sort of thing in the market before Srdić, but it hasn't made them literary darlings either.
Thanks to companies like Glagoslav Publications, there are more opportunities than ever to explore contemporary literature from the Slavic region, but I do not recommend you start with "Combustions". I wish I could recommend this collection more highly, because books that fail to be read also fail to achieve even a chance to communicate, but unfortunately, I think this one is sort of doomed to become ashes.
SCORE: 2 legless captains out of 5
English speakers don't often get a chance to experience literature from countries with little market for translating their books for worldwide distribution. I consider Serbia to be one of those places. So when I find a translation of Serbian literature, I tend to jump on it. But was "Combustions", the second collection of short stories by Srđan Srdić, the wisest choice for a translation?
It would seem that the author himself didn't think so. He says that he meant this book for "serious readers". This sentiment reflects an intention to keep this book insulated among a certain limited target audience of people who "get it". I don't know about you, but when I hear that kind of talk from any artist, my Spidey sense is activated. I begin to detect the whiff of bovine feces. It betrays a self-awareness of the limitations of your art, but also a narcissistic denial that your art can be improved for wider and more timeless appeal, so excuses are preemptively made to dismiss those who aren't careful enough or intelligent enough or open-minded enough to "get it".
In this case, I certainly didn't get it. I am neither an expert on Serbian history and culture, nor am I ignorant, particularly when it comes to post-Yugo Serbia. I married into a Serbian family, have followed the liturgy in Church Slavonic, and currently work in a heavily Serbian community, so I have lived and continue to live among those who still have strong ties to their country and culture, and who never miss a chance to talk about 1993, Kosovo, Montenegro, Albanians, Bosnians, Bill Clinton, and NATO over cevaps, ajvar, and slivovitz. So yes, I think I got the contextual gist of these stories as much as anyone could who had not been born and raised in the Balkans within the last forty years. That wasn't the problem.
I think the problem was not my failure to connect to his world, but that the author himself didn't fully understand the Western European and American literary idiom he was attempting to mimic. The fingerprints of modernism and post-modernism are all over his text, and he admits to being heavily influenced by the likes of William Faulkner and James Joyce. But "Ulysses" this is not.
After reading these nine stories, I was left scratching my head, so I tried to get a little more context by reading about the author and some academic reviews of his work. In so doing, my Spidey sense went off again. There's this constant use of the word "intertextual" in analysis of his writing. The repeated idea in his interviews and in the literary applause he has received is that, in order to "get it", the reader has to enjoy "intertextuality" and be well-versed in haute-literature as well as with certain musical forms like industrial metal and post-rock (in other words, books and bands the author likes).
I cannot stand it when pseudo-intellectuals ramble on about intertextuality when reviewing art. Intertextuality is just a fancy term for allusion, and one can argue (and I do) that all art is intertextual. Art makes something new out of old legends, popular tales, and Jungian archetypes. It pays homage to the artist's influences. Art can be a pastiche, a blatant rip-off, or just inspired practice. So don't pretend to convince readers of the genius of a writer because of the intertextuality of their work. That's like saying an author is brilliant because they use words. There is nothing new under the sun--it's how effectively the artist illicits a fresh understanding that makes the art unique and potentially even timeless. This was part of the reason why first-wave industrial musicians were so fascinated with William Burroughs and his "cut-up" techniques--by rearranging text that someone else wrote, or by splicing words that someone else spoke on a tape, you change the meaning. Sampling, collage, and cut-ups were a powerful way to bring art to its most basic and powerful level. So let's clear the smoke screen of intertextuality and talk about the real issues with this book.
An artist who is sharing their art with the public primarily does so because they expect to make a connection with people. In other words, the artist is trying to communicate something. Often, art is simply communicating the artist's imagination, putting the audience in another world or time. Sometimes the art is asking the right questions, and even more rarely, offering potential answers that the audience can choose to accept or reject. But Srdić says he's not giving answers or even bothering to ask questions--what a stereotypically edgy thing to say about your art when you're not sure what to say about it!
The authorial voice reveals little about the writer's distinct personality, and rather showcases every experimental cliche he ever learned in school or read in books. There is no conventional narrative structure, no dialogue, and very few named characters--only vague, watery impressions strung together by the reader's own confabulations. Some stories rely on run-on sentences, while others are simply a rapid-fire assault of single words. All consist of stream-of-consciousness ramblings typical of every author with aspirations to either be just like Proust or to be short-listed for the Mann-Booker Prize. Syntax is thrown out the window, along with consistent use of grammar. Regarding this last point, since I do not read Serbo-Croatian, I cannot tell if these are mistakes on the part of the translator or sloppiness on the part of the author, but I'm sure the author and his fans have insisted that it was intentional and have come up with some song-and-dance to justify it.
In short, his prose reads more like poetry, and this is a wonderful thing in the few inspired moments when he is being more poetic than posey.
Look, I don't expect to be spoon-fed with linear narratives and exposition. My favorite musical genres tend to be experimental and avant-garde, particularly old-school industrial, noise, and experimental improvised musics in the realms of jazz, prog, post-rock, and post-punk. I also enjoy surrealism and absurdism in my literature and film. That's because, when done authentically, these art forms create a visceral experience that leads to an understanding of the inner space of the artist and their truth about the world and the universe. In addition, I believe there's nothing wrong with mimicking the artists you love and admire. If you are moved by classical piano and have spent years playing the same Bach piece, then your talent, hard-work, and passion is valid art. When I sit down in my own home studio, I really am just practicing art. I make improvisations that answer the call of the same muse as my musical heroes--in other words, I intentionally or unintentionally try to SOUND LIKE those who came before me, even if what I am composing is unique to me. But I do not pretend that my work is the voice of contemporary life in my country. Unfortunately, this book seems to be accompanied by a marketing campaign that says exactly that.
The point of my review is not to encourage you to dislike this book if you read it. In fact, you might just find that it is exactly what you've been wanting. Rather, my concern is for those who are guided by literary circles and marketing strategies that manipulate people into a fear of landing on the side of those plebes who simply don't get it. I found an overall lack of honest discourse and coherent explanation on the part of the author and reviewers regarding this book, and even an expectation that no discourse or explanation is needed. That, to me, is the definition of conceit.
And while I can applaud the experiments in language found here, there is a fundamental flaw that borders on irony. The stories in this collection are about outsiders failing to communicate, and thus self-combusting in their attempts. I feel like Srdić also was failing to communicate, and was consumed by his deliberate attempts to be abstruse.
However, I do see some potential here. For me, the best of the stories were directly at the beginning, middle, and end of the compilation, namely "Good Night, Captain", "Summertime", and "About a Door". The first story was particularly clever (though gimmicky) in using footnotes, thus shunning linearity by giving us two perspectives at once. These stories felt more honest than the rest, and I enjoyed the process of getting a peek into the minds of characters as though tuning in to the fuzzy wavelengths of their souls. But for every good story, there were misfires, the worst offender being "The Daydreaming Rat".
Perhaps something truly did get lost in translation, and if so, then this may not have been the best choice of Serbian literature to anglicize. This book felt more like a writer with pretentions to be James Joyce who was inspired by getting baked on marijuana and amphetamines. The end result reminded me of twenty-something American horror authors who end up writing the same exact way in an attempt to make their generic slashers and vampire tales more literary and nihilistic. These kids have been doing this sort of thing in the market before Srdić, but it hasn't made them literary darlings either.
Thanks to companies like Glagoslav Publications, there are more opportunities than ever to explore contemporary literature from the Slavic region, but I do not recommend you start with "Combustions". I wish I could recommend this collection more highly, because books that fail to be read also fail to achieve even a chance to communicate, but unfortunately, I think this one is sort of doomed to become ashes.
SCORE: 2 legless captains out of 5
Displaying 1 of 1 review