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Rod
Rod Miljenka Jergovića je knjiga sastavljena od više celina – romana, dokumenata, pripovednih skica, fragmenata – u kojima se smenjuju fiktivni i nefiktivni delovi i savršeno se mešaju stvarno i izmaštano. S mnogo autobiografskih elemenata Jergović u Rodu ispisuje sagu o porodici Karla Stublera, svog pradede.
Karlo Stubler, dunavski Švaba, rođen u Bosovicu, u rumunskom Banatu, po zanimanju je bio železničar koji je život proveo u Bosni. Ćerke su mu se udavale u Bosni, sin mu je studirao u Beču i Gracu. U njegovom domu se govorio nemački jezik, a van kuće srpskohrvatski. Država s kojom je došao u Bosnu zvala se Austrougarska, ali je većinu života proživeo u Jugoslaviji. Unuk mu je 1943. poginuo kao nemački vojnik u Slavoniji. Dve godine kasnije po Karla Stublera dolaze partizani da ga vode u logor za pripadnike nemačke nacionalne manjine u Jugoslaviji, iz kojeg će biti deportovan u Nemačku. Spasavaju ga susedi koje je tokom rata štitio i skrivao u svojoj kući. Rod prati priče Karlove dece i unuka sve do smrti njegove poslednje unuke, koja je živela u Sarajevu, i prekida porodične loze.
Rod je roman u kom Jergović kroz sudbinu vlastite porodice govori o stoleću Srednje Evrope i Balkana, roman koji poput železnice premrežuje epohu i krajeve, zemlje koje su se smenjivale, istoriju koja je bila nemilosrdna. Od pradede i početka dvadesetog veka do današnjice i autora i njegove sudbine Rod je magnum opus Miljenka Jergovića, autora kog s pravom možemo nazvati Ivom Andrićem našeg doba.
Karlo Stubler, dunavski Švaba, rođen u Bosovicu, u rumunskom Banatu, po zanimanju je bio železničar koji je život proveo u Bosni. Ćerke su mu se udavale u Bosni, sin mu je studirao u Beču i Gracu. U njegovom domu se govorio nemački jezik, a van kuće srpskohrvatski. Država s kojom je došao u Bosnu zvala se Austrougarska, ali je većinu života proživeo u Jugoslaviji. Unuk mu je 1943. poginuo kao nemački vojnik u Slavoniji. Dve godine kasnije po Karla Stublera dolaze partizani da ga vode u logor za pripadnike nemačke nacionalne manjine u Jugoslaviji, iz kojeg će biti deportovan u Nemačku. Spasavaju ga susedi koje je tokom rata štitio i skrivao u svojoj kući. Rod prati priče Karlove dece i unuka sve do smrti njegove poslednje unuke, koja je živela u Sarajevu, i prekida porodične loze.
Rod je roman u kom Jergović kroz sudbinu vlastite porodice govori o stoleću Srednje Evrope i Balkana, roman koji poput železnice premrežuje epohu i krajeve, zemlje koje su se smenjivale, istoriju koja je bila nemilosrdna. Od pradede i početka dvadesetog veka do današnjice i autora i njegove sudbine Rod je magnum opus Miljenka Jergovića, autora kog s pravom možemo nazvati Ivom Andrićem našeg doba.
1065 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
59 people are currently reading
1572 people want to read
About the author
Miljenko Jergović
75 books555 followersMiljenko Jergović is a Bosnian born prose writer. He currently lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia.
Jergović has established himself as a regional writer across the territory of former Yugoslavia and is best known for his prolific work on Balkan history, the Bosnian war, and the Yugoslav legacy. Critics have acclaimed his capability to turn every topic into a story without changing it's core at all, hence preserving its internal logic.
His more acclaimed works include a collection of short stories Sarajevski marlboro (Sarajevo Marlboro, 1994) and widely translated novels like Kin, Ruta Tannenbaum, and The Walnut Mansion. Jergović works as a journalist and has published several collections of his articles and essays.
Jergović has established himself as a regional writer across the territory of former Yugoslavia and is best known for his prolific work on Balkan history, the Bosnian war, and the Yugoslav legacy. Critics have acclaimed his capability to turn every topic into a story without changing it's core at all, hence preserving its internal logic.
His more acclaimed works include a collection of short stories Sarajevski marlboro (Sarajevo Marlboro, 1994) and widely translated novels like Kin, Ruta Tannenbaum, and The Walnut Mansion. Jergović works as a journalist and has published several collections of his articles and essays.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
November 22, 2017
I guess I don't really have to like this book so much, but as a matter of keeping my sanity, I do! The reason is that I'm in the process of translating it into English for Archipelago Books. When the English version is published, which I anticipate will be in 2019, I will write a more substantial review of the book. For now, it is enough to say that it is a monster of 1000 pages, a family history focused on the twentieth century, particularly the period between WWII and the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s, but with tendrils reaching backwards to Hapsburg and Ottoman times and forward to 2013, when the original Bosnian-Croatian version was completed, and that its geographical center is Sarajevo. I should also note that it is highly literary, with numerous references and allusions to the works of authors such as Ivo Andric, Danilo Kis, Mesa Selimovic, Thomas Mann, and Robert Musil.
August 7, 2021
Where to begin with Kin. I finished yesterday and was trying to figure out what to say/write. Here we go…
This might be one of the most rewarding reads I’ve ever had. A truly beautiful experience with Miljenko Jergovic and his family. From one member to the next it touched and moved me beyond words. I could relate in some ways and in most, I could just reflect on his experiences.
I couldn’t help but think of the film Shoah and what Claude Lanzmann presented. 9+ hours of people’s experiences after another (I consider Shoah to be one of the greatest pieces of art I’ve ever seen/read/heard…) And what Miljenko Jergovic and the gorgeous translation by (Russell Scott Valentino) give us is similar, 900+ pages of personal experiences. Gorgeous prose. Beautiful and heartfelt stories. One of the most rewarding books I’ve ever read. If you can find the time (and it is a very readable 900 pages) please pick this up from https://archipelagobooks.org/book/kin/
Worth it. Promise.
This might be one of the most rewarding reads I’ve ever had. A truly beautiful experience with Miljenko Jergovic and his family. From one member to the next it touched and moved me beyond words. I could relate in some ways and in most, I could just reflect on his experiences.
I couldn’t help but think of the film Shoah and what Claude Lanzmann presented. 9+ hours of people’s experiences after another (I consider Shoah to be one of the greatest pieces of art I’ve ever seen/read/heard…) And what Miljenko Jergovic and the gorgeous translation by (Russell Scott Valentino) give us is similar, 900+ pages of personal experiences. Gorgeous prose. Beautiful and heartfelt stories. One of the most rewarding books I’ve ever read. If you can find the time (and it is a very readable 900 pages) please pick this up from https://archipelagobooks.org/book/kin/
Worth it. Promise.
February 27, 2023
Time leaps forward and back throughout the 900-page, century-long saga of a family, comprised of letters, journals, family gossip, genealogical discovery, and invention-filled gaps in ancestral history and personal memory: Jergović has created an astonishing masterwork.
The individual stories, characters, and episodes, weave and overlap, interplay backwards and frontwards, from varying vantage points, from witnesses, from memories good and bad, over Jergović's nonlinear narrative. This creates for the reader a vantage point outside of time, glimpsing an entire family history, eventful foreshadowing and harbingers of things past, as a single contemporaneous Now. And if the concept of time is nothing more than an illusion made up of human memories, as some physicists suggest, then Jergović has crafted a literary exemplar.
The individual episodes drift past as you read, the apocalyptic and the mundane, timeless, they collect, emotional layer upon emotional layer, forming familial strata that in time have a cumulative effect on the reader, a sum much greater than its parts. It's a profound, sobering melancholy. The final pages are beautiful, and I suspect the longer you've lived, the more life experience you've had, the more people you've lost, the more painful it will be.
A masterpiece.
"The air was heavy and fetid, stinking of a Sarajevo November morning, of coal smoke, and rot, a fog in which, like bed linen that has not been aired out for a long while, all the odors in the air have settled. The fog contained the memory of this city, all the odors of the last six hundred years. It was a memorial and grave marker of everyone who had lived here. I too was in the fog's odor, my walking to school thirty or forty years before, or being taken to the clinic on Skerliceva Street to get vaccinated against small pox. When I was able to make out my own scent among the others, the temporal streams would separate, and I might happen to encounter on the street the self whose scent I had discerned. . . . When we looked into each other's eyes, the two of us would disappear." – Miljenko Jergović, KIN
The individual stories, characters, and episodes, weave and overlap, interplay backwards and frontwards, from varying vantage points, from witnesses, from memories good and bad, over Jergović's nonlinear narrative. This creates for the reader a vantage point outside of time, glimpsing an entire family history, eventful foreshadowing and harbingers of things past, as a single contemporaneous Now. And if the concept of time is nothing more than an illusion made up of human memories, as some physicists suggest, then Jergović has crafted a literary exemplar.
The individual episodes drift past as you read, the apocalyptic and the mundane, timeless, they collect, emotional layer upon emotional layer, forming familial strata that in time have a cumulative effect on the reader, a sum much greater than its parts. It's a profound, sobering melancholy. The final pages are beautiful, and I suspect the longer you've lived, the more life experience you've had, the more people you've lost, the more painful it will be.
A masterpiece.
"The air was heavy and fetid, stinking of a Sarajevo November morning, of coal smoke, and rot, a fog in which, like bed linen that has not been aired out for a long while, all the odors in the air have settled. The fog contained the memory of this city, all the odors of the last six hundred years. It was a memorial and grave marker of everyone who had lived here. I too was in the fog's odor, my walking to school thirty or forty years before, or being taken to the clinic on Skerliceva Street to get vaccinated against small pox. When I was able to make out my own scent among the others, the temporal streams would separate, and I might happen to encounter on the street the self whose scent I had discerned. . . . When we looked into each other's eyes, the two of us would disappear." – Miljenko Jergović, KIN
Want to read
January 27, 2021TranzLate Pleeze! [and it is in the works! see gr=trans'r Review below]
Thanks Griffin!
Archipelago.
https://archipelagobooks.org/book/kin/
Title translates as "Kin" ; keep your eyes peeled for me? I'm eager for the pre=Order button to hit.
"Kin is a dazzling family epic from one of Croatia’s most prized writers. In this sprawling narrative which spans the entire twentieth century, Miljenko Jergović peers into the dusty corners of his family’s past, illuminating them with a tender, poetic precision. Ordinary, forgotten objects – a grandfather’s beekeeping journals, a rusty benzene lighter, an army issued raincoat – become the lenses through which Jergović investigates the joys and sorrows of a family living through a century of war. The work is ultimately an ode to Yugoslavia – Jergović sees his country through the devastation of the First World War, the Second, the Cold, then the Bosnian war of the 90s; through its changing street names and borders, shifting seasons, through its social rituals at graveyards, operas, weddings, markets – rendering it all in loving, vivid detail." --blurb
Thanks Griffin!
Archipelago.
https://archipelagobooks.org/book/kin/
Title translates as "Kin" ; keep your eyes peeled for me? I'm eager for the pre=Order button to hit.
"Kin is a dazzling family epic from one of Croatia’s most prized writers. In this sprawling narrative which spans the entire twentieth century, Miljenko Jergović peers into the dusty corners of his family’s past, illuminating them with a tender, poetic precision. Ordinary, forgotten objects – a grandfather’s beekeeping journals, a rusty benzene lighter, an army issued raincoat – become the lenses through which Jergović investigates the joys and sorrows of a family living through a century of war. The work is ultimately an ode to Yugoslavia – Jergović sees his country through the devastation of the First World War, the Second, the Cold, then the Bosnian war of the 90s; through its changing street names and borders, shifting seasons, through its social rituals at graveyards, operas, weddings, markets – rendering it all in loving, vivid detail." --blurb
May 31, 2022
ROD se čita sa posebnom pažnjom, velikom koncentracijom i mirnom glavom. Način na koji je loza Stublera pretočena u riječi je netipičan, ogoljena je cijela jedna porodica, pa i sam pisac. Imam osjećaj da nijedna tajna nije ostala skrivena, sve je bačeno pred čitaoce, pa šta bude.
Sve vrijeme me držao utisak koliko odluke pojedinaca utiču na budućnost generacija i generacija poslije njega. Odzvanja u budućnosti nešto što je u sadašnjem trenutku odlučeno, rečeno ili što se dešava.
Knjiga je obimna, ali pitka i nikako nije na teretu. Ovo je svojevrsna rekapitulacija svega što sam pročitala sa njegovim potpisom. I nemam šta da pametujem, bravo za trud, istraživanje i volju da se zadrži jedna istorija među koricama.
Moj slučaj je, to danas znam, malo složeniji, jer je moj identitet u velikoj mjeri sastavljen od onoga što - nisam. Možda i više nego od onoga što jesam.
Nijedan osećaj nije tako sveobuhvatan i ispunjavajući kao mržnja i ništa osim mržnje ne može od privatne postati javna i društvena emocija.
Nesretni ljudi su poput magneta i ambisa, privuku čovjeka i progutaju...
A ljudi zaziru od žrtava, u strahu da i sami ne nastradaju.
Naš život teče u procjepu između života i pripovijedanje. Uzalud nam je ne živjeti, jer koliko god bježali od svijeta, stvarnost će nas odnekud potkačiti. I to, pravilu, tako što će nam se, možda i u najosetljiviji trenucima, događati sve ono čega smo se najviše plašili, i što smo unaprijed zamišljali i samima sebi u strahu ispripovijedali. I naravno, neće biti nikoga tko bi nam pomogao, jer kada odustajemo od življenja ljudi misle da odustajemo od njih, pa se odalje, uvrijede i više ih nema. Ne razumiju da pripovijedamo da ne bismo živjeli, da bismo se nekako sklonili, anestezirali, i da je pripovijedanje simptom neke emocionalne slabosti, nemoći, duševne bolesti, onoga pred čime drugi ljudi traže pomoć od psihijatra. Kada bi svi slabi i nemoćni, kada bi svatko nesiguran u duši i užasnut pred svakim sutrašnjem danom mogao preskočiti taj procjep, taj klanac od života prema pripovijedanju, psihijatri ne bi imali koga liječiti. Ili bi liječili samo divlje.
Nezdravo je ponositi se svojom obitelji i širom familijom, jer je to korak do toga da se čovjek počne ponositi i svojom nacijom - što je već teška, prezira vrijedna i mahom neizlječiva bolest.
Kako je Munevera?
I u tom pitanju nema tuge, ne postavlja ga onaj tko je u životu nešto propustio, ili je život uludo proživio, pošto se nije vratio ženi u koju se zagledao. Erwin se vratio iz Beča, odživio je sa Muneverom ljubav, a to što ona nije bila doživotna, nimalo ne kvari osjećaj ispunjenosti. Za jedan ljudski život dovoljna je jedna takva ljubav od tri godine.
U bolesti i u umiranju čovjek više ne živi balansirajući na tankome koncu između prošlosti i budućnosti. Taj konac raširi se, postane širok kao aerodromska pista, i prvi put čovjek živi u sadašnjosti. Njoj se samo nada, nastoji je produžiti, sve gledajući unatrag.
Vraća se očarana, govori da život ne vrijedi ništa ako svaki osjećaj u ovom životu ne košta skupo kao u Hamletu.
Daniel Ozmo nema svoj dom pa njegove slike tako malo vrijede ljudima koji imaju domovinu. Za mene, one su neprocjenjive. Onima koji još uvijek imaju dom i nikad ga nisu izgubili teško je reći u čemu je njihova vrijednost. Ni u jednom priručniku za uređenje životnoga prostora ne piše ništa o onome što meni nedostaje. Težnja za domom težnja je za neredom i neskladom, a to je suprotno uređenju životnoga prostora. Dom po priručniku uređuju oni koji ga imaju viška, oni kojima dom nije potreban, ili oni koji nisu ni svjesni da ga nemaju.
Svijet će stradati od viška svjetla, i od njegova razgovornog djelovanja na čovjekovu imaginaciju. Svjetlo nas, i stvarno i metaforično, udaljava od snova. A čovjek poludi, ako prestane sanjati.
Ali svako je ime na svijetu, zečje kao i ljudsko, nadjeveno iz milja. To je prvi čin ljubavi koji djetetu biva upućen po rođenju, tada se počnemo razlikovati od drugih novorođenih, s imenom bivamo pojedinci, zaštićeni emocijama i moralom jednog društva. Da bi se ljude tovarilo na stočne vagone, da bi ih se ubijalo zato što su Jevreji, moraju se najprije zaboraviti ili prečuti njihova imena. Jedino je tako moguće, jer kakva bi to savjest morala biti, ljudska, skretničarska, željezničarska ili njemačka, pa da podnese smrt tolikih drugih ljudi. Ako nema imena, nego postoje samo brojevi, tada nema ni ljudi, mislio je otata.
Ono što boli, tad nije zub, nego boli vrijeme u kojemu bol, jednakoga intenziteta i ritma, koja pulsira sporo, kao srce budista u molitvi, i nikako ne prolazi. I kako ne prolazi, sve je teže podnošljiva, izludi čovjeka, učini ga životinjom, biljkom, iako ta bol i dalje nije jaka, ništa jača nego u početku, i više zaboli kada čovjek samoga sebe uštipne za stražnjicu. Jer to ne boli zub, nego boli čovjeka vrijeme, boli ga čekanje...
A čim je netko spreman umrijeti za svoj san, mora postojati i onaj na čiju će savjest pasti njegov život.
Mnogo života može stati pod istu kožu i u jedan ljudski vijek.
Kakve su oči čovjeka kojem je rečeno da će biti strijeljan?
Nije moguće zamisliti koliko užasa može u čovjeka stati. Kao u bocu od jedne litre, u koju se da naliti tisuću litara vode. A nakon svake se litre čini da ne može više stati ni kap. Iako može, beskrajno mnogo užasa, i svaki čovjeka ispuni i obuzme od vlasi kose na tjemenu do nokta na malom nožnom prstu, i ostaje tu i nakon što dođe sljedeći, koji ga, također, svog ispuni.
A strah? Svaki čovjek se jednako plaši, samo što se većina ljudi plaši tako da sav svijet vidi, a malobrojni se plaše duboko u sebi, jer ih je sram da išta svoje drugome pokažu.
Sve vrijeme me držao utisak koliko odluke pojedinaca utiču na budućnost generacija i generacija poslije njega. Odzvanja u budućnosti nešto što je u sadašnjem trenutku odlučeno, rečeno ili što se dešava.
Knjiga je obimna, ali pitka i nikako nije na teretu. Ovo je svojevrsna rekapitulacija svega što sam pročitala sa njegovim potpisom. I nemam šta da pametujem, bravo za trud, istraživanje i volju da se zadrži jedna istorija među koricama.
Moj slučaj je, to danas znam, malo složeniji, jer je moj identitet u velikoj mjeri sastavljen od onoga što - nisam. Možda i više nego od onoga što jesam.
Nijedan osećaj nije tako sveobuhvatan i ispunjavajući kao mržnja i ništa osim mržnje ne može od privatne postati javna i društvena emocija.
Nesretni ljudi su poput magneta i ambisa, privuku čovjeka i progutaju...
A ljudi zaziru od žrtava, u strahu da i sami ne nastradaju.
Naš život teče u procjepu između života i pripovijedanje. Uzalud nam je ne živjeti, jer koliko god bježali od svijeta, stvarnost će nas odnekud potkačiti. I to, pravilu, tako što će nam se, možda i u najosetljiviji trenucima, događati sve ono čega smo se najviše plašili, i što smo unaprijed zamišljali i samima sebi u strahu ispripovijedali. I naravno, neće biti nikoga tko bi nam pomogao, jer kada odustajemo od življenja ljudi misle da odustajemo od njih, pa se odalje, uvrijede i više ih nema. Ne razumiju da pripovijedamo da ne bismo živjeli, da bismo se nekako sklonili, anestezirali, i da je pripovijedanje simptom neke emocionalne slabosti, nemoći, duševne bolesti, onoga pred čime drugi ljudi traže pomoć od psihijatra. Kada bi svi slabi i nemoćni, kada bi svatko nesiguran u duši i užasnut pred svakim sutrašnjem danom mogao preskočiti taj procjep, taj klanac od života prema pripovijedanju, psihijatri ne bi imali koga liječiti. Ili bi liječili samo divlje.
Nezdravo je ponositi se svojom obitelji i širom familijom, jer je to korak do toga da se čovjek počne ponositi i svojom nacijom - što je već teška, prezira vrijedna i mahom neizlječiva bolest.
Kako je Munevera?
I u tom pitanju nema tuge, ne postavlja ga onaj tko je u životu nešto propustio, ili je život uludo proživio, pošto se nije vratio ženi u koju se zagledao. Erwin se vratio iz Beča, odživio je sa Muneverom ljubav, a to što ona nije bila doživotna, nimalo ne kvari osjećaj ispunjenosti. Za jedan ljudski život dovoljna je jedna takva ljubav od tri godine.
U bolesti i u umiranju čovjek više ne živi balansirajući na tankome koncu između prošlosti i budućnosti. Taj konac raširi se, postane širok kao aerodromska pista, i prvi put čovjek živi u sadašnjosti. Njoj se samo nada, nastoji je produžiti, sve gledajući unatrag.
Vraća se očarana, govori da život ne vrijedi ništa ako svaki osjećaj u ovom životu ne košta skupo kao u Hamletu.
Daniel Ozmo nema svoj dom pa njegove slike tako malo vrijede ljudima koji imaju domovinu. Za mene, one su neprocjenjive. Onima koji još uvijek imaju dom i nikad ga nisu izgubili teško je reći u čemu je njihova vrijednost. Ni u jednom priručniku za uređenje životnoga prostora ne piše ništa o onome što meni nedostaje. Težnja za domom težnja je za neredom i neskladom, a to je suprotno uređenju životnoga prostora. Dom po priručniku uređuju oni koji ga imaju viška, oni kojima dom nije potreban, ili oni koji nisu ni svjesni da ga nemaju.
Svijet će stradati od viška svjetla, i od njegova razgovornog djelovanja na čovjekovu imaginaciju. Svjetlo nas, i stvarno i metaforično, udaljava od snova. A čovjek poludi, ako prestane sanjati.
Ali svako je ime na svijetu, zečje kao i ljudsko, nadjeveno iz milja. To je prvi čin ljubavi koji djetetu biva upućen po rođenju, tada se počnemo razlikovati od drugih novorođenih, s imenom bivamo pojedinci, zaštićeni emocijama i moralom jednog društva. Da bi se ljude tovarilo na stočne vagone, da bi ih se ubijalo zato što su Jevreji, moraju se najprije zaboraviti ili prečuti njihova imena. Jedino je tako moguće, jer kakva bi to savjest morala biti, ljudska, skretničarska, željezničarska ili njemačka, pa da podnese smrt tolikih drugih ljudi. Ako nema imena, nego postoje samo brojevi, tada nema ni ljudi, mislio je otata.
Ono što boli, tad nije zub, nego boli vrijeme u kojemu bol, jednakoga intenziteta i ritma, koja pulsira sporo, kao srce budista u molitvi, i nikako ne prolazi. I kako ne prolazi, sve je teže podnošljiva, izludi čovjeka, učini ga životinjom, biljkom, iako ta bol i dalje nije jaka, ništa jača nego u početku, i više zaboli kada čovjek samoga sebe uštipne za stražnjicu. Jer to ne boli zub, nego boli čovjeka vrijeme, boli ga čekanje...
A čim je netko spreman umrijeti za svoj san, mora postojati i onaj na čiju će savjest pasti njegov život.
Mnogo života može stati pod istu kožu i u jedan ljudski vijek.
Kakve su oči čovjeka kojem je rečeno da će biti strijeljan?
Nije moguće zamisliti koliko užasa može u čovjeka stati. Kao u bocu od jedne litre, u koju se da naliti tisuću litara vode. A nakon svake se litre čini da ne može više stati ni kap. Iako može, beskrajno mnogo užasa, i svaki čovjeka ispuni i obuzme od vlasi kose na tjemenu do nokta na malom nožnom prstu, i ostaje tu i nakon što dođe sljedeći, koji ga, također, svog ispuni.
A strah? Svaki čovjek se jednako plaši, samo što se većina ljudi plaši tako da sav svijet vidi, a malobrojni se plaše duboko u sebi, jer ih je sram da išta svoje drugome pokažu.
March 31, 2021
Волим породичне теме којима се бави Јерговић. Можда је могло нешта од породичних дешавања и да не уђе у овај роман, био би мало лакши за читање. Леп приказ породице у нашим историјским лудилима.
April 3, 2022
Kin by Miljenko Jergović
This book took me over three months to read. It is long, sprawling, of epic proportions, as the blurbs all say, as Jergović chronicles (through the lens of autofiction) the story of his family across the Balkans throughout the 20th century. It is complicated, as borders identities, home, language and alliance change from one day to the next:
“We represent identities that cannot be defined by a single word, passport, identity card, entry pass… the feeling that today we are one thing, tomorrow another, that our hymns and state borders constantly elude us.”
Yet each time I found myself immersed in a page or different story, it didn’t feel epic or sprawling-- it felt very intimate. Jergović focuses in on moments, objects, individuals. Sometimes it felt like standing in the corner watching a family gather at the dining table. It’s only after stepping away from each discrete section—sometimes just a sketch, other times a novella-length story—that you remember the story’s place in the greater part of the history of his family and land.
“Is all this even possible? I don’t know. My job is investigation, into the past, into memories, and nothing in it is real except for the Stublers. And they aren’t really real either. We are a family of phantoms and spirits.”
Kin takes perseverance, and some parts will resonate better with different readers more than others. However, it is a beautiful experience. Even amidst the brutality of people and history, what shines through is how much heart is on each page. Jergović doesn’t shy away from reality or criticism, even when leveled at his own kin, but he does it with the uttermost compassion and care.
Translated by Russel Scott Valentino
“Nothing is ever forgotten by chance or randomly. It happens according to an order and in accord with a person’s internal equilibrium.”
4.5*
This book took me over three months to read. It is long, sprawling, of epic proportions, as the blurbs all say, as Jergović chronicles (through the lens of autofiction) the story of his family across the Balkans throughout the 20th century. It is complicated, as borders identities, home, language and alliance change from one day to the next:
“We represent identities that cannot be defined by a single word, passport, identity card, entry pass… the feeling that today we are one thing, tomorrow another, that our hymns and state borders constantly elude us.”
Yet each time I found myself immersed in a page or different story, it didn’t feel epic or sprawling-- it felt very intimate. Jergović focuses in on moments, objects, individuals. Sometimes it felt like standing in the corner watching a family gather at the dining table. It’s only after stepping away from each discrete section—sometimes just a sketch, other times a novella-length story—that you remember the story’s place in the greater part of the history of his family and land.
“Is all this even possible? I don’t know. My job is investigation, into the past, into memories, and nothing in it is real except for the Stublers. And they aren’t really real either. We are a family of phantoms and spirits.”
Kin takes perseverance, and some parts will resonate better with different readers more than others. However, it is a beautiful experience. Even amidst the brutality of people and history, what shines through is how much heart is on each page. Jergović doesn’t shy away from reality or criticism, even when leveled at his own kin, but he does it with the uttermost compassion and care.
Translated by Russel Scott Valentino
“Nothing is ever forgotten by chance or randomly. It happens according to an order and in accord with a person’s internal equilibrium.”
4.5*
February 8, 2025
8th book read 2025
It took me four months to read this six-inch-thick tome. I read from it every day at a rate of 5 to 14 pages per sitting. It was daunting, disturbing and detrimental to my peace of mind, but I feel I acquired a clearer understanding of the former Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War and the peoples who lived through all that turmoil.
Why did I read it? The answer is a long story though not as long as the story in the book. In 2020, I finished reading Black Lamb, Grey Falcon by Rebecca West, at about the same rate of pages per day. In that amazing piece of historical non-fiction, I learned about the history, cultures, religions and politics of what became Yugoslavia. In 1937, before WWII began, Ms West and her husband took a journey through all the countries that eventually were united into Yugoslavia after 1945. Being an excellent political writer and novelist herself, she created a travelogue and historical document for the ages.
Sometime after that I took out a subscription to Archipelago Books as an impetus to read more translated literature. Kin was an early book sent to me, but I kept putting off reading it due to its length and to the struggle involved in reading Black Lamb, Grey Falcon. (I receive approximately 12 books a year from Archipelago and I never seem to get to all of them. Last fall I decided to go back and read those missed books in the order I had received them. Kin was the next book to read.)
As it turned out, having read Rebecca West’s book first gave me at least a foundation for understanding this area of the world which has a long history of invasion by foreign powers, including the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There are at least five major religions in conflict: Muslim, Judaism, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Catholic and various Protestant churches. Each of these brought their own struggles with them as politics and wars drove them from one exile to another. If the United States is a melting pot, Yugoslavia was a boiling cauldron.
Kin is an amalgam of memoir and fiction. The author covers his own family history as influenced by the conflicts. It is a tale of displacement, loss, achievement and just plain determination to carry on. Milenko Jergovic is a famous novelist, short story writer, poet and columnist in Europe. It seems that he writes as easily as he breathes, although the material in Kin must have been as hard for him to write as it was necessary to do so. The translation is excellent. I had my globe of the world and the internet handy as I read, but I cannot even pronounce the hundreds of names of characters and places. I made up my own pronunciations as I read. I even found a video of the author being interviewed, in Croatian of course, and listened for a while just to hear the language.
Kin ends with the novella, Sarajevo Dogs, in which the author paints a picture of his return to the city of his birth after the Bosnian War. All throughout the book, he had been delving into his difficult relationship with his mother which is about the saddest story I have ever read. Though this long book is filled with war and all its evils, it is in fact a celebration of life and the people who live it.
If you have read either of these books please let me know in the comments. If you have questions about either, I will answer as best I can.
It took me four months to read this six-inch-thick tome. I read from it every day at a rate of 5 to 14 pages per sitting. It was daunting, disturbing and detrimental to my peace of mind, but I feel I acquired a clearer understanding of the former Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War and the peoples who lived through all that turmoil.
Why did I read it? The answer is a long story though not as long as the story in the book. In 2020, I finished reading Black Lamb, Grey Falcon by Rebecca West, at about the same rate of pages per day. In that amazing piece of historical non-fiction, I learned about the history, cultures, religions and politics of what became Yugoslavia. In 1937, before WWII began, Ms West and her husband took a journey through all the countries that eventually were united into Yugoslavia after 1945. Being an excellent political writer and novelist herself, she created a travelogue and historical document for the ages.
Sometime after that I took out a subscription to Archipelago Books as an impetus to read more translated literature. Kin was an early book sent to me, but I kept putting off reading it due to its length and to the struggle involved in reading Black Lamb, Grey Falcon. (I receive approximately 12 books a year from Archipelago and I never seem to get to all of them. Last fall I decided to go back and read those missed books in the order I had received them. Kin was the next book to read.)
As it turned out, having read Rebecca West’s book first gave me at least a foundation for understanding this area of the world which has a long history of invasion by foreign powers, including the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There are at least five major religions in conflict: Muslim, Judaism, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Catholic and various Protestant churches. Each of these brought their own struggles with them as politics and wars drove them from one exile to another. If the United States is a melting pot, Yugoslavia was a boiling cauldron.
Kin is an amalgam of memoir and fiction. The author covers his own family history as influenced by the conflicts. It is a tale of displacement, loss, achievement and just plain determination to carry on. Milenko Jergovic is a famous novelist, short story writer, poet and columnist in Europe. It seems that he writes as easily as he breathes, although the material in Kin must have been as hard for him to write as it was necessary to do so. The translation is excellent. I had my globe of the world and the internet handy as I read, but I cannot even pronounce the hundreds of names of characters and places. I made up my own pronunciations as I read. I even found a video of the author being interviewed, in Croatian of course, and listened for a while just to hear the language.
Kin ends with the novella, Sarajevo Dogs, in which the author paints a picture of his return to the city of his birth after the Bosnian War. All throughout the book, he had been delving into his difficult relationship with his mother which is about the saddest story I have ever read. Though this long book is filled with war and all its evils, it is in fact a celebration of life and the people who live it.
If you have read either of these books please let me know in the comments. If you have questions about either, I will answer as best I can.
November 15, 2017
Wenn mich jemand fragte, welches das Buch ist, das mich in diesem zu Ende gehenden Lesejahr am meisten, am allermeisten beeindruckt hat, so würde ich antworten: Die unerhörte Geschichte meiner Familie von Miljenko Jergovic.
Das hat mehrere Gründe.
Die Fabulierlust Miljenko Jergovics ist vielleicht der erste Grund, den ich nennen würde. Wie jemand von Hölzchen auf Stöckchen kommt und ihm einfach immer mehr einfällt, er das nicht zurück hält, sondern alles alles aufs Papier bringt, das hat mich unglaublich beeindruckt und ich habe wirklich jede einzelne der 1100 Seiten mit einem körperlich spürbaren Genuss verschlungen. Hier begegnet man einem zutiefst begnadeten Erzähler. Ich wüsste keinen zweiten zu nennen, den ich mit ihm in eine Reihe stellen könnte. Im Verlauf der Geschichte nennt er selbst einige, Peter Nadas, Paul Auster unter anderen, ich denke, das ist die Reihe der Giganten, in die er gehört, und das weiß er und beansprucht seinen Platz entgültig durch diese unerhörte Geschichte. Die Parallelgeschichten von Peter Nadas sind das Buch, das er ausdrücklich dabei hat, als er zum letzten Mal Sarajevo besucht, zum letzten Mal seine sterbende Mutter aufsucht, als er wieder weg fährt, packt er dieses Buch ganz nach oben in die Reisetasche.
Den Rest meiner Besprechung findet Ihr unter https://lobedentag.blogspot.de/2017/1...
Das hat mehrere Gründe.
Die Fabulierlust Miljenko Jergovics ist vielleicht der erste Grund, den ich nennen würde. Wie jemand von Hölzchen auf Stöckchen kommt und ihm einfach immer mehr einfällt, er das nicht zurück hält, sondern alles alles aufs Papier bringt, das hat mich unglaublich beeindruckt und ich habe wirklich jede einzelne der 1100 Seiten mit einem körperlich spürbaren Genuss verschlungen. Hier begegnet man einem zutiefst begnadeten Erzähler. Ich wüsste keinen zweiten zu nennen, den ich mit ihm in eine Reihe stellen könnte. Im Verlauf der Geschichte nennt er selbst einige, Peter Nadas, Paul Auster unter anderen, ich denke, das ist die Reihe der Giganten, in die er gehört, und das weiß er und beansprucht seinen Platz entgültig durch diese unerhörte Geschichte. Die Parallelgeschichten von Peter Nadas sind das Buch, das er ausdrücklich dabei hat, als er zum letzten Mal Sarajevo besucht, zum letzten Mal seine sterbende Mutter aufsucht, als er wieder weg fährt, packt er dieses Buch ganz nach oben in die Reisetasche.
Den Rest meiner Besprechung findet Ihr unter https://lobedentag.blogspot.de/2017/1...
July 30, 2021
Mi predstavljamo identitete koji se ne mogu odrediti jednom riječjuju,pasošem,osobnom iskaznicom,propusnicom.. Svjetina zna što je po grbu,zastavi i imenu, pa onda to i skandira, a nama preostaju duga i nejasna objašnjenja, romani, filmovi, izmišljene i stvarne priče, potreba da se posjeti selo u rumunjskome Banatu, gdje više nema Nijemaca, ali gdje je horizont isti kao kada je otata Karlo bio dječak, nama preostaju pusti gradići u Bugarskoj, Ukrajini,Poljskoj, gdje su živjeli ljudi koji su pošli u dim,preostaju nam nejasna sjećanja,osjećaj da smo danas jedno, a sutra drugo , da nam himne i državne granice neprestano izmiču, preostaje nam kajanje, dugo i bolno grizodušje, jer je naš rođeni živio i umro kao neprijatelj,preostaje nam vjera u ono što pod jezikom skrivamo, istina da našeg zavičaja više nema, i možda ga nikada nije ni bilo, jer je svaka stopa zemlje za nas tuđina.
Rodila je Željka, a pet-šest godina kasnije i Branku. Ni to ju nije promjenilo. Mater ili jest ili nije,to se unaprijed može znati, i prije nego što se djeca rode. Ali obično se krivo misli da će se rađanjem mijenjati svojeglavi ženski karakteri, pa će onda i u onom zatvorenom i zakovanom ženskom srcu doći do velike promjene. Tetka Lola se nije mjenjala, nije bila majka, i tu se ništa, ili skoro ništa, nije mjenjalo. Kada bi joj dodijao takav život ili kada bi joj dodijao takav dundo Andrija, ostavljala ga je s djecom, i bez puno riječi odlazila. Vraćala se za desetak dana pa bi ljutito rekla: Ja došla...
Ti ljudi su se zvali obično, Jozo, Meho, Sulejman, teta Roza, to su sirotinjska imena.Istina, mogu se tako zvati i bogati ljudi, ali nekako mi je prirodno da se tako zove sirotinja. U to vrijeme još uvijek su se u moju svijest upisivala osnovna znanja o svijetu: nebo plavo, kruh svjež,čokolada za kuhanje gorka,psi dobri, ose opasne... Teorija o sirotinjskim imenima pripadala je tim osnovnim znanjima o svijetu. nakon što su ti nadjenuli ime Jozo, nekako je i očekivano da se za tebe pobrine Crveni križ. Ali zašto ga onda nisu nekako drugačije nazvali? Zato što tako treba biti,zato što na svijetu mora postojati siromašni Meho, i nisam mislio da bi se tu nešto moglo i smjelo mjenjati. Postoji neki red stvari i imena postoje pravila i osnovno znanje o svijetu-nebo plavo,kruh bijel, čokolada gorka-kojima se dječak uči. Ali šta kada se siromašak, najbjedniji od svih, zove Rikard Goldberger?
Nezdravo je ponositi se svojom obitelji i širom familijom, jer je to na korak do toga da se čovjek počne ponositi i svojom nacijom-što je već teška, prezira vrijedna i mahom neizlječiva bolest.
Kako je Munevera? I u tom pitanju nema tuge, ne postavlja ga onaj tko je u životu nešto propustio, ili je život uludo proživio, pošto se nije vratio ženi u koju se zagledao. Erwin se vratio iz Beča, odživio s Muneverom ljubav, a to što ona nije bila doživotna, nimalo ne kvari osjećaj ispunjenosti. Za jedan ljudski život dovoljna je jedna takva ljubav od tri godine.
Rodila je Željka, a pet-šest godina kasnije i Branku. Ni to ju nije promjenilo. Mater ili jest ili nije,to se unaprijed može znati, i prije nego što se djeca rode. Ali obično se krivo misli da će se rađanjem mijenjati svojeglavi ženski karakteri, pa će onda i u onom zatvorenom i zakovanom ženskom srcu doći do velike promjene. Tetka Lola se nije mjenjala, nije bila majka, i tu se ništa, ili skoro ništa, nije mjenjalo. Kada bi joj dodijao takav život ili kada bi joj dodijao takav dundo Andrija, ostavljala ga je s djecom, i bez puno riječi odlazila. Vraćala se za desetak dana pa bi ljutito rekla: Ja došla...
Ti ljudi su se zvali obično, Jozo, Meho, Sulejman, teta Roza, to su sirotinjska imena.Istina, mogu se tako zvati i bogati ljudi, ali nekako mi je prirodno da se tako zove sirotinja. U to vrijeme još uvijek su se u moju svijest upisivala osnovna znanja o svijetu: nebo plavo, kruh svjež,čokolada za kuhanje gorka,psi dobri, ose opasne... Teorija o sirotinjskim imenima pripadala je tim osnovnim znanjima o svijetu. nakon što su ti nadjenuli ime Jozo, nekako je i očekivano da se za tebe pobrine Crveni križ. Ali zašto ga onda nisu nekako drugačije nazvali? Zato što tako treba biti,zato što na svijetu mora postojati siromašni Meho, i nisam mislio da bi se tu nešto moglo i smjelo mjenjati. Postoji neki red stvari i imena postoje pravila i osnovno znanje o svijetu-nebo plavo,kruh bijel, čokolada gorka-kojima se dječak uči. Ali šta kada se siromašak, najbjedniji od svih, zove Rikard Goldberger?
Nezdravo je ponositi se svojom obitelji i širom familijom, jer je to na korak do toga da se čovjek počne ponositi i svojom nacijom-što je već teška, prezira vrijedna i mahom neizlječiva bolest.
Kako je Munevera? I u tom pitanju nema tuge, ne postavlja ga onaj tko je u životu nešto propustio, ili je život uludo proživio, pošto se nije vratio ženi u koju se zagledao. Erwin se vratio iz Beča, odživio s Muneverom ljubav, a to što ona nije bila doživotna, nimalo ne kvari osjećaj ispunjenosti. Za jedan ljudski život dovoljna je jedna takva ljubav od tri godine.
Read
March 23, 2024Sećam se teksta u Politici, ima tome previše godina da bi se pamtilo, teksta ili kolumne u kojoj je opisao sliku koju je video tokom nekog autobuskog putovanja, scenu letnjeg, predvečernjeg, izbegličkog boćanja. Plakao sam čitajući je, teško je to objasniti, beše to veličanstven opis života čitavog jednog naroda. Samo tim zapisom mogli ste prikazati svu njegovu veličinu, nisu potrebne hiljadustranične porodične kolaž epopeje. A možda i jesu. Čim ih je napisao.
Rod je, jasno je to, bio potreban pre svega njemu. Da se handkeovski razjasni sa majkom, da skine teret Mladenove smrti sa sebe, da vazdigne kuferašku lozu Stublera u književne visine.
Možda dobro dođe i švedskom komitetu u obrazloženju nagrade jednog dana. Nama koji smo čitali Lebovića, ili Handkea, ili Desnicu, ovo nije bilo nužno štivo.
Meni je trebalo samo da ponovo počnem da jedem med. Niko nikada nije napisao nešto tako lepo o medu. I to je dovoljno, i više nego dovoljno.
Čitao sam Dvore prošle godine, ponovo. Dugo, decenijama zapravo, nisam čitao neku knjigu ponovo. I tada sam shvatio- najveću i najvažniju knjigu napisao je prerano. Posle nje nije vredelo pisati dalje, naročito ne u pravcu u kojem je ona dosezala. U kolektivnu jungovsku prošlost čitavog jednog arhipelaga.
Rod je, jasno je to, bio potreban pre svega njemu. Da se handkeovski razjasni sa majkom, da skine teret Mladenove smrti sa sebe, da vazdigne kuferašku lozu Stublera u književne visine.
Možda dobro dođe i švedskom komitetu u obrazloženju nagrade jednog dana. Nama koji smo čitali Lebovića, ili Handkea, ili Desnicu, ovo nije bilo nužno štivo.
Meni je trebalo samo da ponovo počnem da jedem med. Niko nikada nije napisao nešto tako lepo o medu. I to je dovoljno, i više nego dovoljno.
Čitao sam Dvore prošle godine, ponovo. Dugo, decenijama zapravo, nisam čitao neku knjigu ponovo. I tada sam shvatio- najveću i najvažniju knjigu napisao je prerano. Posle nje nije vredelo pisati dalje, naročito ne u pravcu u kojem je ona dosezala. U kolektivnu jungovsku prošlost čitavog jednog arhipelaga.
July 9, 2021
Sommige boeken zijn gewoon te dik. Dat geeft niet als het een goed boek is, maar in dit geval (1139 pagina’s) dacht ik: waarom moet ik dat allemaal weten? Het is goed verteld, hoor, het verhaal over de Duits-Kroatische familie Stubler. Maar op een gegeven moment was het alsof ik een volle buik had terwijl er nog volop eten op tafel stond. Ik heb een paar maanden pauze gehouden om weer trek te krijgen. Dat was een misrekening. Na 800 pagina's heb er een streep onder gezet. Het boeide me niet meer, ondanks het feit dat ik iets meer begrijp van de Slavische geschiedenis en de mentaliteit, die ik achterdochtig en in elk geval weinig empathisch zou willen noemen.
April 20, 2021
A moving Baltic Aeneid that tells a century-long story of a family’s struggle through wars and political chaos.
In true epic fashion, KIN begins in media res, in the middle of things, with a reference to a high school in Sarajevo that the narrator’s father and two uncles attended, the older uncle, Mladen, in 1934. At that time the city was a part of Yugoslavia, a synthetic nation created at the end of World War I, which disolved in 1992 after the Yugoslav Wars, when Sarajevo again became the capital city of the separate country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mladen is a central character in the century-long story in KIN, even though he lived only a short 19 years, killed during World War II as a German soldier. The time and location of the story are quickly set. It begins with Mladen’s grandfather, Karlo Stubler, a Swabian German from Banat, Romania, before the turn of the century. Karlo also lived in Serbia, Hungary, and Austria before settling in Dubrovnik, Croatia, only to be deported to Bosnia in 1920. And so began the saga of the extended Stubler family, complete with a changing cast of countries and languages until the story’s conclusion in Zagreb, Croatia in 2012.
The narrator of KIN observes in the early pages, “It is possible for language to determine a person’s destiny.” Karlo spoke German with his children, Croatian with his daughters’ husbands, and both those languages with his grandchildren, including the children of the narrator’s grandmother Olga, but only after they first address him in German. This was the environment in which Mladen grew up, and it was this family dynamic in 1942 that made him report for conscription in Hitler’s army rather than join the Partisans. Olga and her husband hated the fascists but decided that Mladen’s chances of survival were greater with the German army. They were tragically mistaken. Mladen was killed in 1943, the central event in KIN, around which the destinies of all family members would thereafter orbit, a tragic sphere of influence that would suck into its gravitational pull even the older ancestors from Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. The narrator, Miljenko, widen the sphere to the younger generation when he moves to Zagreb at the beginning of the 1990’s Bosnian war. It is a return to the country from which his great grandfather was banished, but amid the geographic hatred of those times he remained to the Croatian artistic hierarchy a “Bosnian piece of shit.” In effect, the novel’s theme is one of nationalities, religions, and hatred, a contrast in some respects, but perhaps only a modern rendition of, Virgil’s “Of arms and the man I sing.”
KIN is a long book–500 pages–and its reading takes persistence and care. The events are not presented in a clear chronological order, and the author often takes leaps forward in the story and at times regresses to fill in family history, on occasion even repeating what has been said before. Jergovic’s story, being a family history, includes the author as a character, the youngest and last of the direct Karlo descendants, as it turns out. Miljenko is the story’s Aeneas. He recounts, almost relives, the hardships of the Stublers, particularly his mother, by wandering through their lives, in some places even giving the reader the impression that he is present in those decades before his birth. There are railway workers, doctors, beekeepers, pilots, book keepers, and even a match-stick juggler, more than fifty persons in all. And what the narrator doesn’t report, he imagines, in short digressions like the one about Sarajevo’s dogs. Unlike the Aeneid, the end of Miljenko’s story brings despair, not rage, although the two emotions for the Stublers are much alike. Javorka’s pain is Miljenko’s fault, just as Mladen’s death had been her fault. In the end Miljenko has made his story with concentric circles widening outward around his Opapa, Karlo Stubler, describing the people he “and his family knew well, of their fates in life, how their fates were entangled with his, and of the fates of all their offspring, up until the present day.” Yet, Miljenko cannot show mercy to his family. His mother’s death at the end of the story is for him almost a relief, as well as the end of the Stublers. They leave nothing behind for the city of Sarajevo, which, like Troy, was ravaged by war.
Mark Zvonkovic, Reviewer and Author
In true epic fashion, KIN begins in media res, in the middle of things, with a reference to a high school in Sarajevo that the narrator’s father and two uncles attended, the older uncle, Mladen, in 1934. At that time the city was a part of Yugoslavia, a synthetic nation created at the end of World War I, which disolved in 1992 after the Yugoslav Wars, when Sarajevo again became the capital city of the separate country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mladen is a central character in the century-long story in KIN, even though he lived only a short 19 years, killed during World War II as a German soldier. The time and location of the story are quickly set. It begins with Mladen’s grandfather, Karlo Stubler, a Swabian German from Banat, Romania, before the turn of the century. Karlo also lived in Serbia, Hungary, and Austria before settling in Dubrovnik, Croatia, only to be deported to Bosnia in 1920. And so began the saga of the extended Stubler family, complete with a changing cast of countries and languages until the story’s conclusion in Zagreb, Croatia in 2012.
The narrator of KIN observes in the early pages, “It is possible for language to determine a person’s destiny.” Karlo spoke German with his children, Croatian with his daughters’ husbands, and both those languages with his grandchildren, including the children of the narrator’s grandmother Olga, but only after they first address him in German. This was the environment in which Mladen grew up, and it was this family dynamic in 1942 that made him report for conscription in Hitler’s army rather than join the Partisans. Olga and her husband hated the fascists but decided that Mladen’s chances of survival were greater with the German army. They were tragically mistaken. Mladen was killed in 1943, the central event in KIN, around which the destinies of all family members would thereafter orbit, a tragic sphere of influence that would suck into its gravitational pull even the older ancestors from Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. The narrator, Miljenko, widen the sphere to the younger generation when he moves to Zagreb at the beginning of the 1990’s Bosnian war. It is a return to the country from which his great grandfather was banished, but amid the geographic hatred of those times he remained to the Croatian artistic hierarchy a “Bosnian piece of shit.” In effect, the novel’s theme is one of nationalities, religions, and hatred, a contrast in some respects, but perhaps only a modern rendition of, Virgil’s “Of arms and the man I sing.”
KIN is a long book–500 pages–and its reading takes persistence and care. The events are not presented in a clear chronological order, and the author often takes leaps forward in the story and at times regresses to fill in family history, on occasion even repeating what has been said before. Jergovic’s story, being a family history, includes the author as a character, the youngest and last of the direct Karlo descendants, as it turns out. Miljenko is the story’s Aeneas. He recounts, almost relives, the hardships of the Stublers, particularly his mother, by wandering through their lives, in some places even giving the reader the impression that he is present in those decades before his birth. There are railway workers, doctors, beekeepers, pilots, book keepers, and even a match-stick juggler, more than fifty persons in all. And what the narrator doesn’t report, he imagines, in short digressions like the one about Sarajevo’s dogs. Unlike the Aeneid, the end of Miljenko’s story brings despair, not rage, although the two emotions for the Stublers are much alike. Javorka’s pain is Miljenko’s fault, just as Mladen’s death had been her fault. In the end Miljenko has made his story with concentric circles widening outward around his Opapa, Karlo Stubler, describing the people he “and his family knew well, of their fates in life, how their fates were entangled with his, and of the fates of all their offspring, up until the present day.” Yet, Miljenko cannot show mercy to his family. His mother’s death at the end of the story is for him almost a relief, as well as the end of the Stublers. They leave nothing behind for the city of Sarajevo, which, like Troy, was ravaged by war.
Mark Zvonkovic, Reviewer and Author
June 9, 2022
The author, acclaimed Bosnian Croat writer Miljenko Jergovic calls this book a “family novel”, and it’s a mix of fiction and memoir, a portrait of his family, primarily his mother’s family, the Stublers. The autobiographical element is emphasised by the inclusion of family photos and documents. Through the story of his family he explores the complex history of the region, marked as it is by both World Wars and the more recent Bosnian war and its devastating ethnic clashes. Swept by historical, political and cultural forces, none of his countrymen and no individual family have escaped unscathed by cataclysmic events. His family were Bosnian Croats whose identities were also marked by Slovene, German, Italian and other nationalities of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. It’s a very long book – around 900 pages – a sprawling, multi-layered and complex non-linear narrative, jumping around in time and place, covering more than 100 years, with anecdotes and digressions aplenty and with a bewilderingly vast cast of characters. It demands patience and concentration from the reader, and although I did indeed read it carefully and attentively nevertheless found it hard-going keeping track of all the characters and all the events. There was a lot to absorb and it’s one of those books that really demands a second reading. I may well go back to it when time permits. So I have mixed feelings about it, whilst remaining full of admiration for the author’s skill at conjuring up a complete world and at least attempting to make a coherent narrative out of a very confused and confusing time and place.
May 26, 2021
A sprawling, genre-defying work. Epic in scope, it combines memoir and fiction in a history of family and place from the late 19th century to (almost) the present day. The family is that of Karlo Stubler, the author’s great grandfather and the place is mainly Sarajevo and Bosnia with excursions to the Dalmatian coast in and around Dubrovnik. The author follows Karlo and his family through objects, photographs, encounters and across the city, its people and architecture over the course of Austro-Hungarian rule, the two world wars, socialism, the break-up of Yugoslavia, the civil war and its aftermath.
Some of the family stories are sketches, episodes while others, like The Bee Journal are novella-length. The Match Juggler relates the life story of a man the author’s great uncle encountered on a train journey for example, while Mama Ionesco: A Report and Sarajevo Dogs are meta/ autofiction where the author is writing the book being read.
Absorbing, immersive, melancholy and at times wondrous, Kin is a remarkable book. However, at around 900 pages, I also found it indulgent on occasion, a minor grumble in an otherwise highly recommended book. Excellent translation by Russell Scott Valentino too.
My thanks to Archipelago and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Kin.
Some of the family stories are sketches, episodes while others, like The Bee Journal are novella-length. The Match Juggler relates the life story of a man the author’s great uncle encountered on a train journey for example, while Mama Ionesco: A Report and Sarajevo Dogs are meta/ autofiction where the author is writing the book being read.
Absorbing, immersive, melancholy and at times wondrous, Kin is a remarkable book. However, at around 900 pages, I also found it indulgent on occasion, a minor grumble in an otherwise highly recommended book. Excellent translation by Russell Scott Valentino too.
My thanks to Archipelago and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Kin.
March 5, 2026
Hiljadu stranica što se čitaju kao da nije ništa. A nije da nije ništa, itekako je nešto.
Jergović se (i ovdje) bavi svojim rodom, točnije majčinim, Stubler dijelom svoje obitelji. Čini to kroz nekoliko formata, od (nedovršenog) romana, preko priča, pa sve do reportaže. Svi su likovi glavni i sporedni, članovi obitelji ulaze u fokus i izlaze od njega. Izmjenjuju se, tako, Jergovićev pradjed, pradjedovi sinovi i kćeri (prvenstveno ona koja će postati Jergovićeva baka), djed, majka, otac, ujaci, neka dalja rodbina, prijatelji i poznanici.
Kroz njihovu povijest i sudbinu, Jergović ispisuje povijest Europe i Bosne sve do kraja povijesti, pa time iscrtava i samog sebe.
Čitao sam ovo odmah nakon "Travničke hronike", pa mi se učinilo da bi se "Rod" skoro i mogao smatrati nastavkom "Hronike" u nekom smislu. Andrić završava 1814. , Jergović nastavlja početkom 20. stoljeća. A nastavak zato što ove dvije knjige skupa čine cjelovitu sliku o Bosni, pa onda i o cijeloj Jugoslaviji, na kraju i o nama samima. Tko želi razumjeti "nas", neka pročita i jedno i drugo.
Jedno od mojih mjerila kvalitete je količina šarenih papirića kojom ukrasim knjigu prilikom čitanja, označujući rečenice i paragrafe koje vrijedi pamtiti. "Travnička hronika" je završila tako da se od mojih papirića jedva razabiru Andrićeve stranice.
"Rod" je završio bez ijedne označene rečenice. Zato što nije bilo ničeg vrijednog pažnje? Au contraire, my little friend...bilo je previše toga! Zaključio sam da bih morao označavati desetke i stotine stranice bez prestanka, pa sam jednostavno odlučio uživati u Jergovićevim rečenicama.
Fantastično, majstorski, svaka preporuka!
Jergović se (i ovdje) bavi svojim rodom, točnije majčinim, Stubler dijelom svoje obitelji. Čini to kroz nekoliko formata, od (nedovršenog) romana, preko priča, pa sve do reportaže. Svi su likovi glavni i sporedni, članovi obitelji ulaze u fokus i izlaze od njega. Izmjenjuju se, tako, Jergovićev pradjed, pradjedovi sinovi i kćeri (prvenstveno ona koja će postati Jergovićeva baka), djed, majka, otac, ujaci, neka dalja rodbina, prijatelji i poznanici.
Kroz njihovu povijest i sudbinu, Jergović ispisuje povijest Europe i Bosne sve do kraja povijesti, pa time iscrtava i samog sebe.
Čitao sam ovo odmah nakon "Travničke hronike", pa mi se učinilo da bi se "Rod" skoro i mogao smatrati nastavkom "Hronike" u nekom smislu. Andrić završava 1814. , Jergović nastavlja početkom 20. stoljeća. A nastavak zato što ove dvije knjige skupa čine cjelovitu sliku o Bosni, pa onda i o cijeloj Jugoslaviji, na kraju i o nama samima. Tko želi razumjeti "nas", neka pročita i jedno i drugo.
Jedno od mojih mjerila kvalitete je količina šarenih papirića kojom ukrasim knjigu prilikom čitanja, označujući rečenice i paragrafe koje vrijedi pamtiti. "Travnička hronika" je završila tako da se od mojih papirića jedva razabiru Andrićeve stranice.
"Rod" je završio bez ijedne označene rečenice. Zato što nije bilo ničeg vrijednog pažnje? Au contraire, my little friend...bilo je previše toga! Zaključio sam da bih morao označavati desetke i stotine stranice bez prestanka, pa sam jednostavno odlučio uživati u Jergovićevim rečenicama.
Fantastično, majstorski, svaka preporuka!
July 8, 2025
Hard to put into words how amazing this is.
Soon, though, I will try.
All I can say so far is just that I think this is what I will later claim made me certain I want children. A family splayed across history, history ( the big H World War History) as a long banner held high by fists of grandfathers aunts son neighbors friends and mothers all a long line standing behind it clenching it holding it up keeping it going letting its lower edge flutter in the air. This is both those edges. The top, anchored to lives. The drifting bottom edge fluttering through moments plastered to knees marching resolutely forward and step and step and wind from behind and passing and days and loss and still the little pins of a story holding notes on all that has happened and all that will up on a hallway cork board for those passing to see to remember
Soon, though, I will try.
All I can say so far is just that I think this is what I will later claim made me certain I want children. A family splayed across history, history ( the big H World War History) as a long banner held high by fists of grandfathers aunts son neighbors friends and mothers all a long line standing behind it clenching it holding it up keeping it going letting its lower edge flutter in the air. This is both those edges. The top, anchored to lives. The drifting bottom edge fluttering through moments plastered to knees marching resolutely forward and step and step and wind from behind and passing and days and loss and still the little pins of a story holding notes on all that has happened and all that will up on a hallway cork board for those passing to see to remember
June 20, 2017
After fantastic first 23 pages (if I am not wrong) - the remaining 990 pages are mere footnotes and vignettes. Everything is in those 23 or so pages of the prolog.
Glad I have it, but overly-indulgent from Jergovic.
Glad I have it, but overly-indulgent from Jergovic.
March 11, 2024
immense, obviously. against my non-narrative tendencies, i liked the section on inventories & fictions the best, though i found it lovely also how the same stories were spun and spun again. i think one can imagine the kinds of themes that a tome like this will tackle--the arbitrariness of borders, violence and its senses, the fragmentation of memory--and it delivers on all those accounts. the translation is lovely. the loss is palpable. there is that sumptuous sense of a differently decaying life before this ruined one. the narrative surrounding mladen, twining around the contours of his absent body, i thought was especially masterful. as much as i'm grateful for my time with the book, two things hold me back from enjoying this more. 1) when i picked the novel up, i was most excited for the margins of unprecedented intergenerational loss. there were some that moved me--the beekeeping journals, the publishing of a manual on roses, the way zehra's floors shone with light. but jergovic is much more invested in the absent center; he fills it with such immense pathos it is hard to "feel for" anything else. all is in service of tracing that empty thing in the middle, that ruin into which people eventually disappear. i understand why the focus is on this. i do think that it lends the book little levity even if it is, at times, bleakly humorous. jergovic never lets that central losing off the hook to a point of exhaustion, almost as if the textured difference he is after all collapses into the same kind of movement out of time. it feels overdetermined, and severely hung up on a symbolic "mother": the mother, the motherland, the mother tongue... to me the book felt overly concerned with that all-subsuming question: anything that made this existence possible. at one point, the narrator/jergovic imagines his own death with *just* the right amount of insignificance... to the point, i think. and 2) even though i found the prose overall solid & at times soaring, i think sentence by sentence it lacked the kinetic drive to keep me moving & in it for a 1000 pages.
September 9, 2022
"For Sarajevo was, to use the language of waiters, my town and I was a Sarajevan wherever I might go. I'd carry my city on my back, dragging it with me wherever I turned. I was bent and hunched over from Sarajevo and its weight during all the years I had lived in Zagreb, and I was sorry not to have the strength for it..."
It's best to go into this expecting not a linear story but 1,000 pages of interconnected, sometimes repetitive, vignettes. The author tells the exhaustive, complicated history of his family, as mirrored by the exhaustive, complicated history of the Balkans - it helps to draw up a family tree for yourself and it also helps to have some basic familiarity with the subject and keep Google handy. The overarching themes of displacement, of existing in places that no longer exist, of legends taught as fact and real events too "literarily implausible" to be used, are presented with a deep weariness, a deep disconnection; this as you spend page after page getting to know not just the various members of this family but also the people around them, the friends and neighbors and politicians and killers and national poets and ghosts.
The author also plays with the concept of witnessing (and how seeing a thing does or does not cement it as reality, how easily things can be forgotten or lost to time. Even the fact of a country, the fact of millions of people in that country, can be lost to time). Sometimes he inserts himself into events that happened long before he was born. Sometimes he writes about himself writing the vignettes. Sometimes he presents his family and himself as being outsiders in a place they've lived in since the 1800s. There is also an interesting reflection of all this in the stories about his uncle, who is pressured by his mother into joining the SS because it seems the safest way to survive WWII and ends up dying for the villains, instead. And a haunting, somewhat surreal stroll through nighttime Sarajevo among stray dogs and defiant cabbies and local hustlers who are also possibly immortal.
This is not a fast read, and not an easy read either unless you're really really up on your 19th-20th century Balkans politics and culture, but it's an important one.
Seriously, draw up a family tree.
"...I would not be staying in this city any longer than I had to, not a single hour more."
It's best to go into this expecting not a linear story but 1,000 pages of interconnected, sometimes repetitive, vignettes. The author tells the exhaustive, complicated history of his family, as mirrored by the exhaustive, complicated history of the Balkans - it helps to draw up a family tree for yourself and it also helps to have some basic familiarity with the subject and keep Google handy. The overarching themes of displacement, of existing in places that no longer exist, of legends taught as fact and real events too "literarily implausible" to be used, are presented with a deep weariness, a deep disconnection; this as you spend page after page getting to know not just the various members of this family but also the people around them, the friends and neighbors and politicians and killers and national poets and ghosts.
The author also plays with the concept of witnessing (and how seeing a thing does or does not cement it as reality, how easily things can be forgotten or lost to time. Even the fact of a country, the fact of millions of people in that country, can be lost to time). Sometimes he inserts himself into events that happened long before he was born. Sometimes he writes about himself writing the vignettes. Sometimes he presents his family and himself as being outsiders in a place they've lived in since the 1800s. There is also an interesting reflection of all this in the stories about his uncle, who is pressured by his mother into joining the SS because it seems the safest way to survive WWII and ends up dying for the villains, instead. And a haunting, somewhat surreal stroll through nighttime Sarajevo among stray dogs and defiant cabbies and local hustlers who are also possibly immortal.
This is not a fast read, and not an easy read either unless you're really really up on your 19th-20th century Balkans politics and culture, but it's an important one.
Seriously, draw up a family tree.
"...I would not be staying in this city any longer than I had to, not a single hour more."
August 3, 2021
It feels like your grandfather retelling the story of your family as you sit by their feet as a kid. Which starts out in a heartwarming and at times scary story. But then it keeps being said again and again until you start to realize your grandfather is a little confused, maybe a little senile. The stories keep repeating themselves but you think, “it’s grandpa he’s going to surprise us just you wait!” But if that time comes both you and he are long asleep.
I began to feel a bit crazy thinking I was the only one who didn’t like this book but after 315 pages of this you start to realize it doesn’t matter. This could’ve used an editor, based on the reaction of some folks here for the 500 page book it seems like they may have gotten one somewhere. But this 878 page book falls incredibly flat to me. I couldn’t help but wish it was Knausgaard telling it and in the end I couldn’t get halfway through.
I began to feel a bit crazy thinking I was the only one who didn’t like this book but after 315 pages of this you start to realize it doesn’t matter. This could’ve used an editor, based on the reaction of some folks here for the 500 page book it seems like they may have gotten one somewhere. But this 878 page book falls incredibly flat to me. I couldn’t help but wish it was Knausgaard telling it and in the end I couldn’t get halfway through.
November 13, 2022
Stoleće i po je nekad tako ogromno i bezobalno kao okean, a nekad toliko zgnusnuto da može da se proživi kroz čitanje tokom jednog zakasnelog letnjeg odmora. Gde nestanu svi ti ljudi, koji su se na preko hiljadu stranica mučili, nadali i čekali sa svojim kuferima i snovima, pomalo živeći, a ponajviše trpeći život, od malarične Maćedonije do grandioznog Beča i udaljenog rumunskog Banata, a sve nekako na kraju oko Sarajeva i Bosne, te mitske zemlje Orijenta?
Sentimentalno čitanje, koje uljuljkava u osećaj dečije bezbrižnosti, kada vam baba i deda pripovedaju o svetu koga nema, a vi još ne poznajete ni svet kakvim on sada jeste. Osećaj dubokog poznavanja osobe i saživljenja sa njom, iako se ona pamti tek po nekoj tričavoj životnoj epizodi, kao kad se o bolesti sudi po jednom simptomu, koji je toliko istaknut, da se ostali ni ne primećuju.
Kao i uvek - kada se čita Jergović, živi se vekovima. Preporuka za čitaoce u kondiciji.
Sentimentalno čitanje, koje uljuljkava u osećaj dečije bezbrižnosti, kada vam baba i deda pripovedaju o svetu koga nema, a vi još ne poznajete ni svet kakvim on sada jeste. Osećaj dubokog poznavanja osobe i saživljenja sa njom, iako se ona pamti tek po nekoj tričavoj životnoj epizodi, kao kad se o bolesti sudi po jednom simptomu, koji je toliko istaknut, da se ostali ni ne primećuju.
Kao i uvek - kada se čita Jergović, živi se vekovima. Preporuka za čitaoce u kondiciji.
December 31, 2021
“If each person’s presence in the world serves somehow to compensate for some kind of absence, and this in turn is the most important reason for that person’s existence, then Vasilj Nikolaevich compensated for the world’s lack of decency.”
“Forgetfulness is like garbage, except with forgetting there is no ecological problem. Forgetfulness is an ecological garbage incinerator. Nothing is left behind. But forgetfulness ravages the person, just as garbage ravages the world. Against forgetfulness there is only story, which must be narrated at the moment before everything is forgotten.”
“Was I unjust toward her? Is what I’m saying ugly, and is it even possible to be ugly when a person says what he really feels? It can’t be ugly to feel.”
“Nothing is ever forgotten by chance or randomly. It happens according to an order and in accord with a person’s internal equilibrium.”
“Forgetfulness is like garbage, except with forgetting there is no ecological problem. Forgetfulness is an ecological garbage incinerator. Nothing is left behind. But forgetfulness ravages the person, just as garbage ravages the world. Against forgetfulness there is only story, which must be narrated at the moment before everything is forgotten.”
“Was I unjust toward her? Is what I’m saying ugly, and is it even possible to be ugly when a person says what he really feels? It can’t be ugly to feel.”
“Nothing is ever forgotten by chance or randomly. It happens according to an order and in accord with a person’s internal equilibrium.”
February 17, 2022
Kapitalno delo. Ne čita se u jednom dahu. Polako se uživa u mnoštvu isprepletanih priča koje Jergović stvara na oko 1.000 strana. Maestralan je pisac, vrhunski intelektualac. Piše intimno, pronicljivo, a glatko. Kroz pojedinačne sudbine nekoliko generacija svoje porodice i mnogih ljudi s kojima su im se putevi ukrstili, šetajući kroz epohe sa mnoštvom detalja, Jergović slika ove oduvek turbulentne prostore iz krajnje lične perspektive. Pominju ga kao Andrića naših dana. Slažem se. Ima mnogo sjajnih savremenih pisaca sa ovih prostora, ali ja jedino Jergovića vidim kao nekog ko bi zaista zasluženo mogao da ponese i Nobelovu nagradu. Ne kao Andrićeva kopija, jer to svakako nije, već kao neko čiji doprinos književnosti može da se poredi sa Andrićevim.
November 5, 2022
Počela sam da čitam ovu knjigu s predubeđenjem i predznanjem da je Jergović Andrić našeg vremena i prostora. I najveći deo ovog puta sam srastala s tom mišlju, dok negde na polovini knjige nisam počela da se osećam prevareno, jer sam počela da čitam jednu priču, da pratim jednu narativnu liniju koja se, doduše, velikodušno granala u brojne bočne intimne istorije, ali mi je svakako držala pažnju i imala moje interesovanje, a onda se činilo da mi je autor kad sam već tu, pokušavao da utrapi neku sasvim nevezanu i daleko manje zanimljivu priču za koju je njemu iz nekog razloga bilo stalo da se nađe baš u ovoj knjizi. Poslednji deo mi je bio nepodnošljiv za čitanje, jer vam se bolno razdani, da umećući te priče, pisac pokušava da odgodi neumitno.
4,5*
4,5*
September 10, 2023
It took me a long time to read because I am not in my best reading moment and it is a very long and dense book, this is no light summer read for sure. I did love it and I think it was well worth the time invested. The only complaint I have is that some stories seem to remain unfinished and I don't like open endings, so I would prefer them to either be finished or not included in this book and saved for the next. I would give it 4,5 stars if that was the option. Very recommended, but mind the trigger warnings. Enjoy :)
February 16, 2023
It has really good writing, but the editing and the way that the last 300 pages just feels like so many different books and ideas are crammed together lost me. I can forgive going on and on when we keep going back to the same themes or circling to elaborate on a point but the neverending stories of random characters and the tangents really lost me. I skimmed a whole portion of his italicized "writing" pieces because I just didn't care and was ready to be done with it.
July 24, 2022
Rounded up from 2.5 stars. It would have been a solid 3 if it were shorter, but there is a lot in this book that could have been edited out. It's repetitive and I know long, rambling extraneous details are its whole deal, but it's taken too far. I liked about the first half and then it became a bit of a slog.
January 28, 2022
"Rod" je epopeja Miljenkove porodice, ali i prica jednog vremena, prica o Bosni i Sarajevu, mentalitetu te skupine naroda, kultura i veroispovesti. Zbog izuzetne obimnosti meni je neznatno umanjio uzitak, mada je Jergovicevo pisanje uvek maestralno.
May 12, 2017
Mäandernd durch Schnipsel einer Familiengeschichte und ihrer Identität auf dem Balkan - auf den ersten knapp 100 Seiten habe ich keinen Grund gefunden weiter zu lesen.
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