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The Masterpiece
Enter two good-looking, ambitious characters: Adam is a professor of literature trying his hand at writing again, while Ana is the editor who receives his manuscript, The Masterpiece. Filled with a sense of their own destinies, the protagonists soon cross the lines of their professional relationship and become entangled in an intense, adulterous affair. But Adam moves in dissident circles and Ana owes her position as the youngest editor in the history of the biggest state publishing house to her cooperation with the dark side of the government.
The Masterpiece is a love story with tinges of the political thriller, written in a tantalizing prose style. Set in the golden years of 1980s Yugoslavia, it revels in an era of unprecedented freedom of thought and travel, of dissident movements and literary scenes, while also revealing the tight grip that the state maintained on the lives of its citizens, not least through its security services and its web of informants.
The Masterpiece is a love story with tinges of the political thriller, written in a tantalizing prose style. Set in the golden years of 1980s Yugoslavia, it revels in an era of unprecedented freedom of thought and travel, of dissident movements and literary scenes, while also revealing the tight grip that the state maintained on the lives of its citizens, not least through its security services and its web of informants.
- GenresFiction
163 pages, Unknown Binding
First published April 2, 2020
9 people are currently reading
130 people want to read
About the author
Ana Schnabl
13 books53 followersANA SCHNABL is an award winning authoress from Slovenia.
Her collection of short stories Razvezani (Disentangled) received Best Literary Debut Prize at the annual Ljubljana Book Fair in 2017. The same book was shortlisted for the Novo mesto Short Prize and for the Mira PEN Award. The collection was translated into Serbian (Partizanska knjiga, 2018) and German (Folio Verlag, 2020). The Serbian translation received the Edo Budiša Award in Croatia.
Her second book, a novel called Mojstrovina (Masterpiece) was published in 2020. It is due to be translated into Serbian (Partizanska knjiga, 2022), German (Folio Verlag, 2022) and English (Istros Books, 2021).
She finished her second novel called Plima (The Tide) in January 2021. The book will be published in January 2022. She is currently working on a colection of novellas.
Her collection of short stories Razvezani (Disentangled) received Best Literary Debut Prize at the annual Ljubljana Book Fair in 2017. The same book was shortlisted for the Novo mesto Short Prize and for the Mira PEN Award. The collection was translated into Serbian (Partizanska knjiga, 2018) and German (Folio Verlag, 2020). The Serbian translation received the Edo Budiša Award in Croatia.
Her second book, a novel called Mojstrovina (Masterpiece) was published in 2020. It is due to be translated into Serbian (Partizanska knjiga, 2022), German (Folio Verlag, 2022) and English (Istros Books, 2021).
She finished her second novel called Plima (The Tide) in January 2021. The book will be published in January 2022. She is currently working on a colection of novellas.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
September 19, 2021
He started: because he would not share the truth with Ana, he could at least spare her the metaphors. To pluck up the courage not to surround at least what he did want to share, with a thicket of words. He got up and joined her at the window, through which the strengthened but not yet piercing spring sunlight was shining on her. For some moments, he looked at her without speaking and she returned his look as if she was looking at him with her whole body, as if her breasts, stomach and thighs also had eyes. He touched her, perhaps to ameliorate the exchange that frightened him just a little (why?); he slid the back of his hand along her bare, hot, almost boiling forearms and — the contact hurt him, not on his skin, but in his stomach: she seemed bigger and wider than him, gigantic, but nevertheless much lighter, intangible, as if beneath the merciful light she had burst into flames, as if she was radiating in a hallucination that would now engulf and swallow him.
The Masterpiece has been translated from Slovenian by David Simon from Ana Schnabl's 2020 debut novel Mojstrovina, and translated by Istros Books.
The novel opens on 18 September 1985 (each chapter is dated) and the story spans the following 8 months, with a coda set a decade later.
Slovenia is still under communist rule, and part of the wider Yugoslavia, and while both nationalist sentiment and pro-democracy forces are stirring, and there is increasing freedom of expression, the security services maintain their shadowy watch.
In the opening chapter, Adam Bevk, a middle-age writer, is meeting with Ana, a 30-year-old editor at the state publishing company, the youngest ever to achieve that position. Ana agrees to take on his novel, called “Masterpiece”, the second, his first written almost 20 years earlier when he was a student, although she explains it will need detailed editing.
But the spark between Adam and Ana is not purely on a literary level, and, although both married, they embark on an affair. The situation is complicated by the fact that (as Adam soon guesses) Ana owes her rapid career advancement to a Faustian pact with the secret services; she informs on those whose books she reads and publishes. Meanwhile Adam himself has some links with dissident movements, so is of interest to the authorities, and both Adam and Ana try to hide their affair from their partners, albeit this seems not the first time either have strayed.
The main protagonist of the novel-within-the-novel Masterpiece is a writer, whose first youthful and utopian novel was withdrawn due to political pressure, ultimately leading to him resorting to drink, the loss of his university job, and the collapse of his marriage, his wife leaving him for a political functionary. But he is ultimately redeemed through his second book “a kind of panegyric to freedom, justice, beauty” (as Ana describes is to her handlers). There seem, to the reader, to be some autofictional elements here from Adam’s own career, except rather idealised: in practice Adam’s first novel was met more with indifference, he remains married, his wife entirely faithful to him, and in his job at the university, rather resigned to his literary fate.
The set-up of and political background to the novel are fascinating, but the story went in a rather different direction to that which I had hoped. Much of the attention is on Adam and Ana’s relationship, and in writing style this is a psycho-analytical text, feelings explored in depth, and at great length, with rich prose.
This is Adam’s wife Vera’s thoughts on Adam’s writing and its role in their relationship:
He had once described literature, Vera remembered, as a domineering and unpredictable mistress. Perhaps, she reasoned, the pressure he was exerting on her was exactly what he was feeling himself. The liability of the creative person, nothing fatal. His demands and needs were the same as they had been, she concluded, but the stakes, with the promise of a real, second book, had been dangerously raised. He was testing her. He still needed her unlimited encouragement and support, in which he was willing to recognise universal justice, the zeal from which he rushed to ascribe excellent meanings, she thought. She loved an uncertain man. She had long ago recognised and accepted that their love was woven from selfish fibres. That Adam was attached to his own shining image, which day after day she kept returning to him, which day after day, without objection, she carefully nurtured; that she herself was attached to the extensive influence she had over him. The influence which, whenever she plucked up the courage, could be called power. Each of us gets most deeply involved with those people who, with all their resources, prevent us from slipping into the deepest crevasse, or with those who have to be protected from evaporation. Few can bear exposure. No one can endure the indifference of the world bursting upon them. Their balance, based on premises that they had both recognised without ever articulating, had been solid for more than a decade.
This from the 25 April 1986 entry, while Ana is waiting for what expects may be a decisive encounter with her secret police handlers:
She stopped in front of the narrow entrance and pulled a slender cigarette from her pocket. The sign outside the bar that she had not visited since the end of her studies, which was once again flashing brokenly, was leaving nervous traces of poisonous green and black on her hair, face and hands. The streetlights at the corner of the short street were spraying a copper orange colour on her dress and from the windows of the bar a faint yellow was pouring evenly onto her outline. Although she had her head down and was blowing smoke at her shoes, she felt passers-by looking at her: illuminated like this, she realised, she also must look tainted. Sick. Grotesque. Like an unwanted, unplanned shadow in a shadow puppet performance, a phenomenon that hinders the flow of the story, destroys the balance among the figures, making a happy end impossible. An apparition that does not want to be clear, and so all the others are suddenly forced to deal with it. Illuminated like this, she thought further, she was illuminated in the right way, but her realisation did not bring the usual unease. She took a deep drag, dropped the cigarette end and trod on it decisively. It won't be much longer, she thought. The spring, which had caught her days before, had not let go, quite the opposite — she sensed even more strongly that her appearance in the performance was running out and, even more, that with the performance that mysterious, alien genre was also expiring. She was convinced that she was about to face the first meeting in a long line of last encounters. She placed herself in the hands of time and hoped that it would perform its major salvational and problem-solving role, as only those who love deeply, unfearfully and foolishly dare to do. She moved her hair from her face and smiled at the suspicious students who were staring at her and the mature couple waiting on the other side of the street, who were watching her surreptitiously. She crossed the narrow steps to the door and pressed the handle.
It is all very well done, but wasn’t to my taste, and I felt the focus on the more interesting (to me) aspects of the set-up suffered a little as a result. That said, the coda set 10 years later, in December 1996, does give the novel a very neat, meta-fictional end.
A book I would recommend to others but not a prose style I enjoy, hence the 2.5 star rating.
The Masterpiece has been translated from Slovenian by David Simon from Ana Schnabl's 2020 debut novel Mojstrovina, and translated by Istros Books.
The novel opens on 18 September 1985 (each chapter is dated) and the story spans the following 8 months, with a coda set a decade later.
Slovenia is still under communist rule, and part of the wider Yugoslavia, and while both nationalist sentiment and pro-democracy forces are stirring, and there is increasing freedom of expression, the security services maintain their shadowy watch.
In the opening chapter, Adam Bevk, a middle-age writer, is meeting with Ana, a 30-year-old editor at the state publishing company, the youngest ever to achieve that position. Ana agrees to take on his novel, called “Masterpiece”, the second, his first written almost 20 years earlier when he was a student, although she explains it will need detailed editing.
But the spark between Adam and Ana is not purely on a literary level, and, although both married, they embark on an affair. The situation is complicated by the fact that (as Adam soon guesses) Ana owes her rapid career advancement to a Faustian pact with the secret services; she informs on those whose books she reads and publishes. Meanwhile Adam himself has some links with dissident movements, so is of interest to the authorities, and both Adam and Ana try to hide their affair from their partners, albeit this seems not the first time either have strayed.
The main protagonist of the novel-within-the-novel Masterpiece is a writer, whose first youthful and utopian novel was withdrawn due to political pressure, ultimately leading to him resorting to drink, the loss of his university job, and the collapse of his marriage, his wife leaving him for a political functionary. But he is ultimately redeemed through his second book “a kind of panegyric to freedom, justice, beauty” (as Ana describes is to her handlers). There seem, to the reader, to be some autofictional elements here from Adam’s own career, except rather idealised: in practice Adam’s first novel was met more with indifference, he remains married, his wife entirely faithful to him, and in his job at the university, rather resigned to his literary fate.
The set-up of and political background to the novel are fascinating, but the story went in a rather different direction to that which I had hoped. Much of the attention is on Adam and Ana’s relationship, and in writing style this is a psycho-analytical text, feelings explored in depth, and at great length, with rich prose.
This is Adam’s wife Vera’s thoughts on Adam’s writing and its role in their relationship:
He had once described literature, Vera remembered, as a domineering and unpredictable mistress. Perhaps, she reasoned, the pressure he was exerting on her was exactly what he was feeling himself. The liability of the creative person, nothing fatal. His demands and needs were the same as they had been, she concluded, but the stakes, with the promise of a real, second book, had been dangerously raised. He was testing her. He still needed her unlimited encouragement and support, in which he was willing to recognise universal justice, the zeal from which he rushed to ascribe excellent meanings, she thought. She loved an uncertain man. She had long ago recognised and accepted that their love was woven from selfish fibres. That Adam was attached to his own shining image, which day after day she kept returning to him, which day after day, without objection, she carefully nurtured; that she herself was attached to the extensive influence she had over him. The influence which, whenever she plucked up the courage, could be called power. Each of us gets most deeply involved with those people who, with all their resources, prevent us from slipping into the deepest crevasse, or with those who have to be protected from evaporation. Few can bear exposure. No one can endure the indifference of the world bursting upon them. Their balance, based on premises that they had both recognised without ever articulating, had been solid for more than a decade.
This from the 25 April 1986 entry, while Ana is waiting for what expects may be a decisive encounter with her secret police handlers:
She stopped in front of the narrow entrance and pulled a slender cigarette from her pocket. The sign outside the bar that she had not visited since the end of her studies, which was once again flashing brokenly, was leaving nervous traces of poisonous green and black on her hair, face and hands. The streetlights at the corner of the short street were spraying a copper orange colour on her dress and from the windows of the bar a faint yellow was pouring evenly onto her outline. Although she had her head down and was blowing smoke at her shoes, she felt passers-by looking at her: illuminated like this, she realised, she also must look tainted. Sick. Grotesque. Like an unwanted, unplanned shadow in a shadow puppet performance, a phenomenon that hinders the flow of the story, destroys the balance among the figures, making a happy end impossible. An apparition that does not want to be clear, and so all the others are suddenly forced to deal with it. Illuminated like this, she thought further, she was illuminated in the right way, but her realisation did not bring the usual unease. She took a deep drag, dropped the cigarette end and trod on it decisively. It won't be much longer, she thought. The spring, which had caught her days before, had not let go, quite the opposite — she sensed even more strongly that her appearance in the performance was running out and, even more, that with the performance that mysterious, alien genre was also expiring. She was convinced that she was about to face the first meeting in a long line of last encounters. She placed herself in the hands of time and hoped that it would perform its major salvational and problem-solving role, as only those who love deeply, unfearfully and foolishly dare to do. She moved her hair from her face and smiled at the suspicious students who were staring at her and the mature couple waiting on the other side of the street, who were watching her surreptitiously. She crossed the narrow steps to the door and pressed the handle.
It is all very well done, but wasn’t to my taste, and I felt the focus on the more interesting (to me) aspects of the set-up suffered a little as a result. That said, the coda set 10 years later, in December 1996, does give the novel a very neat, meta-fictional end.
A book I would recommend to others but not a prose style I enjoy, hence the 2.5 star rating.
January 8, 2025
Eden izmed boljših prikazov, kaj pomeni ljubiti res orng patriarhalno induciranega tipa.
December 7, 2020
Mojstrovina je roman, ki se dogaja v letih 1985-86, v časih, ko se je Jugoslavija na majavih nogah držala skupaj, in so mnogi vedno glasneje izražali želje po spremembah. V knjigi spremljamo urednico Ano, ter pisatelja Adama, ki se po nekaj srečanjih zapleteta v več mesecev trajajočo afero, ki v njunih življenjih pusti velike posledice.
Prva polovica knjige mi je izredno hitro stekla, potem pa se mi je vse skupaj začelo malo vlečti. Vmes sem knjigo že skoraj za nekaj časa odložila, ampak sem se vedno hitro vrnila, ker me je zanimalo kako se bo zgodba razpletla. Ni dvoma, da Schnablova mojstrsko obvlada besede, še posebej ko gre za opisovanje likov in njihovih čustev, na čemer je tudi poudarek te zgodbe. Avtorica zgodbo gradi okoli likov, nikoli pa sama zgodba ni v ospredju. Niti ni tako pomembna, kot je pomembno razumevanje lika. Oziroma dveh likov - Ane in Adama. In čeprav se mi je vmes vleklo, čeprav so se mi včasih kakšni odstavki zdeli predolgi, ali pa se enostavno nisem počutila dovolj pametno, da bi popolnoma razumela vsebino, mi je bila knjiga izredno všeč. Še posebej konec, ki je bil nepričakovan. Zagotovo je to knjiga, v kateri lahko z vsakim ponovnim branjem odkrivaš nove pomene.
Prva polovica knjige mi je izredno hitro stekla, potem pa se mi je vse skupaj začelo malo vlečti. Vmes sem knjigo že skoraj za nekaj časa odložila, ampak sem se vedno hitro vrnila, ker me je zanimalo kako se bo zgodba razpletla. Ni dvoma, da Schnablova mojstrsko obvlada besede, še posebej ko gre za opisovanje likov in njihovih čustev, na čemer je tudi poudarek te zgodbe. Avtorica zgodbo gradi okoli likov, nikoli pa sama zgodba ni v ospredju. Niti ni tako pomembna, kot je pomembno razumevanje lika. Oziroma dveh likov - Ane in Adama. In čeprav se mi je vmes vleklo, čeprav so se mi včasih kakšni odstavki zdeli predolgi, ali pa se enostavno nisem počutila dovolj pametno, da bi popolnoma razumela vsebino, mi je bila knjiga izredno všeč. Še posebej konec, ki je bil nepričakovan. Zagotovo je to knjiga, v kateri lahko z vsakim ponovnim branjem odkrivaš nove pomene.
January 5, 2021
A wonderful and stylistically perfect novel, even if we ignore the time in which it takes place. The relationships in the love triangle are universal, the characters are accurately outlined, the relationships are psychologically illuminated and compelling, the language is rich, full of witty comparisons and stylistically perfect, the ending in the spirit of an intelligent crime novel. Treat for demanding readers.
April 18, 2020
Mojstrica opisov in spajanja besed v nove kombinacije, ki prikažejo podobe na svež način, ko znano situacijo bereš v povsem novi verziji. Izvirnost opisovanja, brskanja globoko globoko v intimo protagonistov me navdušuje, da se veselim ponovnega branja, ker je v prvem branju in goltanju same zgodbe gotovo kak dragulj šel mimo neopažen.
April 21, 2023
mein erstes Buch einer slowenischen Autorin und dann gefällt es mir einfach mal so gar nicht,,,,. Ich konnte weder mit der Handlung noch den Charakteren überhaupt etwas anfangen und bei einigen Beschreibungen dachte ich mir this was written by a man bis mir dann wieder eingefallen ist,,,,,nein, Ana Schnabl schreibt einfach nur komisch :‘)
April 8, 2020
"Besede so sicer res izbrane, jezik lep in pravilen, ampak..."
Kot rečeno, jezik za pet zvezdic. Treba je brati počasi, zbrano, da lahko uživaš v vsakem stavku posebej. Od zgodbe pa sem si obetal nekoliko več.
Kot rečeno, jezik za pet zvezdic. Treba je brati počasi, zbrano, da lahko uživaš v vsakem stavku posebej. Od zgodbe pa sem si obetal nekoliko več.
January 13, 2021
Knjiga polna globokih misli in življenjskih resnic, katero je težko odložiti na stran, saj so poglavja ravno prav dolga in tako mojstrsko spisana, da si bralec zaželi še malo. In še malo. Samo še malo...
Dokler knjige ne zmanjka. Poigravanje z zgodbo znotraj zgodbe. Res prava Mojstrovina!
Dokler knjige ne zmanjka. Poigravanje z zgodbo znotraj zgodbe. Res prava Mojstrovina!
April 25, 2021
Liked:
- unexpected ending
- uncertain Yugoslav times
- interesting use of language
Disliked:
- both characters were not very likable
- it really pulled me in, but then got a bit boring when the main characters got entangled
- unexpected ending
- uncertain Yugoslav times
- interesting use of language
Disliked:
- both characters were not very likable
- it really pulled me in, but then got a bit boring when the main characters got entangled
January 12, 2021
It's in the name, isn't it?
Truly a masterpiece.
Truly a masterpiece.
July 9, 2024
mogoce rahlo prevec zgoščen slog zame...kar je malo smesno, ker sem knjigo požrla v treh dneh. celih 216 strani sem se sprasevala a mi je vsec al ne...edino kar vem je, da sem zadnjih 20 strani rahlo trpela. dam 3.5⭐️, ker sem si kar veliko stvari izpisala, ker je bilo vseeno lepo in sem uzivala v prostem toku, ki se je razlezel na vec strani. aja pa dialog vcasih (?)
June 4, 2024
There were some things I liked about this book. I liked how the book resists the urge to romanticize dissidents, as often happens in writing about communism, instead portraying them as people driven by ego and spectacle, with a fairly loose grasp of their ideals and plans. The role of Ana the informer is also complex, challenging typical narratives of "communism" - she's not really an innocent victim forced to be an informer, but driven by her own ambition.
This isn't really a political thriller as mentioned in the description, more of a psychological novel. There were some parts I liked, especially examining the psychology of the spouses of the two main characters—what drives someone to tolerate infidelity, or what drives them to the breaking point. The last chapter is also an interesting twist, a fun little meta narrative.
However. Oh boy is there a however.
The things that I liked only made up about 10% of the book. The remaining 90% was just endless philosophizing about the affair, describing their innermost thoughts about the affair, and lingering on the affair. Which wouldn't be a problem, since the whole point of the book is the affair, but the characters are selfish, arrogant, annoying, and boring. I don't mind unlikable characters, but I don't like characters that are unlikable AND boring. Ana has some interesting moments where the text explores her inner life, such as the dilemma of being an ambitious young woman in 1980s Yugoslavia who is also a mother, but Adam is a boring cliche that makes it impossible to believe that multiple beautiful women were entranced by him. Seriously, I've read about a dozen characters like him and heard about a hundred more.
The prose is also irritating. It is not poetic but overwrought at times and I found myself skimming the book and probably wouldn't have finished it if I wasn't reading it for a book club (I'm glad I finished it in the end because the ending was strong but the chapters in the middle dragged on and on and on). I also had issues with the translation. I'm not fluent in Slovene, but I understand it reasonably well as a BHMS speaker and I could pinpoint exact moments when the translator literally translated an expression that felt clunky in English. Had I known what this was really like, I probably wouldn't have recommended it to my book club honestly.
This isn't really a political thriller as mentioned in the description, more of a psychological novel. There were some parts I liked, especially examining the psychology of the spouses of the two main characters—what drives someone to tolerate infidelity, or what drives them to the breaking point. The last chapter is also an interesting twist, a fun little meta narrative.
However. Oh boy is there a however.
The things that I liked only made up about 10% of the book. The remaining 90% was just endless philosophizing about the affair, describing their innermost thoughts about the affair, and lingering on the affair. Which wouldn't be a problem, since the whole point of the book is the affair, but the characters are selfish, arrogant, annoying, and boring. I don't mind unlikable characters, but I don't like characters that are unlikable AND boring. Ana has some interesting moments where the text explores her inner life, such as the dilemma of being an ambitious young woman in 1980s Yugoslavia who is also a mother, but Adam is a boring cliche that makes it impossible to believe that multiple beautiful women were entranced by him. Seriously, I've read about a dozen characters like him and heard about a hundred more.
The prose is also irritating. It is not poetic but overwrought at times and I found myself skimming the book and probably wouldn't have finished it if I wasn't reading it for a book club (I'm glad I finished it in the end because the ending was strong but the chapters in the middle dragged on and on and on). I also had issues with the translation. I'm not fluent in Slovene, but I understand it reasonably well as a BHMS speaker and I could pinpoint exact moments when the translator literally translated an expression that felt clunky in English. Had I known what this was really like, I probably wouldn't have recommended it to my book club honestly.
December 4, 2022
Ich habe dieses Buch auf Deutsch unter den Titel "Meisterwerk" gelesen.
Wie immer von Ana Schnabl, ein Buch, dass auf mehreren Ebenen gleichzeitig spielt, und am Ende weisst man kaum wo man mit dem Erzählen anfangen sollte. Also ein Meisterwerk.
Sie beschreibt eine Liebe zwischen einen Professor für Literatur und ein Literaturagentin, die auch eine Spitzel des sozialistischen Jugoslawien ist. Die zwei lernen sich (zufällig?) kennen, weil der Professor ein Buch geschrieben hat, dass er verlegen möchte, und Ana, die Literaturagentin, wird für den Verlag, das Buch bewerten und redigieren. Es entsteht eine Liebesgeschichte. Und es entsteht eine immer engere Abhängigkeit von Ana an ihren Auftraggeber der Sicherheitsdienst. Irgendwie könnte man von einer Dreieckbeziehung reden, aber vermutlich sind noch viel mehrere Ecken anwesend. Interessant ist auch, dass es in den letzten sozialistischen Jahren spielt. Und klar spielt es in Ljubljana und Umgebung (Bled und Bohinj).
Am Ende bleibt ein Staunen. Oft frage ich mich ob die Übersetzung die Sprache von Ana Schnabl gerecht geworden ist, aber solange ich kein Slowenisch lesen kann, bleibt es eine Frage. Ich vermute dass die Originalsprache, oder der Originalschreibstil noch viele Male schöner ist.
Wie immer von Ana Schnabl, ein Buch, dass auf mehreren Ebenen gleichzeitig spielt, und am Ende weisst man kaum wo man mit dem Erzählen anfangen sollte. Also ein Meisterwerk.
Sie beschreibt eine Liebe zwischen einen Professor für Literatur und ein Literaturagentin, die auch eine Spitzel des sozialistischen Jugoslawien ist. Die zwei lernen sich (zufällig?) kennen, weil der Professor ein Buch geschrieben hat, dass er verlegen möchte, und Ana, die Literaturagentin, wird für den Verlag, das Buch bewerten und redigieren. Es entsteht eine Liebesgeschichte. Und es entsteht eine immer engere Abhängigkeit von Ana an ihren Auftraggeber der Sicherheitsdienst. Irgendwie könnte man von einer Dreieckbeziehung reden, aber vermutlich sind noch viel mehrere Ecken anwesend. Interessant ist auch, dass es in den letzten sozialistischen Jahren spielt. Und klar spielt es in Ljubljana und Umgebung (Bled und Bohinj).
Am Ende bleibt ein Staunen. Oft frage ich mich ob die Übersetzung die Sprache von Ana Schnabl gerecht geworden ist, aber solange ich kein Slowenisch lesen kann, bleibt es eine Frage. Ich vermute dass die Originalsprache, oder der Originalschreibstil noch viele Male schöner ist.
June 21, 2021
2/5. Poskusi "leposlovljenja" o t.i. polpretekli zgodovini bodo za v-nomenklaturo strmeče slovenske avtorje nadvse težki. Ker so protagonisti, nekdanji uredniki in novorevijaši še živi in nekateri vsaj (pol)aktivni, se piscem, ki so verjetno zelo temeljito preučili njihove dosjeje, vseeno pojavi samocenzurna rdečica, saj se zavedajo možnosti, da bo zapisano izmerjeno in odmerjeno z ravnili duha "pravšnje" preteklosti. Zatekanje v ekscesno fabulo bi bralec prej razumel kot avtoričino v strah zavito zadrego kot pa umetelno vajo v (nasičenem) slogu, ki ima tendenco za kanonsko literaturo.
September 5, 2023
I read this book at the early state of things, I think in the middle of corona. I read it on the monitor and it was a strange reading. Mostly as a time travel thing. The talk about the good old days of print publishing is alive even though communism died. And reading this story I found the whole thing absolutely crazy. An intelectual pearl, political hopeful and lovable husband goes to publishing house. And then we observe the paranoid nature of a good woman, who just doesn't feel the forbidden romance but a political thriller. And there is a story of a man, who really doesn't find hope in political changes, he finds there stress and work and vision, but really could not feel inspiration from his little affairs. Since the title makes the story about How did you do it? or This is great!, I, as a reader, was really hoping to find an interesting tale. I was bitterly dissappointed. A story about professors who make detailed reports was not rare even in books. But this is a story about a two adults who are talking to state agents, that they could love whoever, as teenagers, and most time we all know this is a little drama of a literary critic. Professor seems even less interesting as a cold intelectual, as he is not in the middle of an affair. I read doctor novels with more knowledge on anything. As the biggest thing about the novel is the police state of informal arrangement. where people are always around you, this is always a Payton Place story full of storm- in-a-bottle ambient. Cold war thriller with literary ambitions of a Mission impossible series before Tom Cruise. It is truly a time travel. Can you imagine a Tom Cruise movie where the mission, should you choose to accept it is to destroy a marriage or even worse...to save a marriage? Even Cruise would find this funny. I didn't.
June 22, 2024
The parts written from Ana‘s perspective interacting with the Yugoslavian secret police were the most interesting and convincing. In general I found the description of Adams internal emotional life and behaviour lacking. In general there was too much theoretical evaluations of emotions, which seemed not very human to me and therefore made the characters seem somewhat robotic. Could have also been the English translation, that lacked behind. Probably would have given it 2 stars, if I wouldn’t have read it while being in Slovenia since I liked being in the geographical context of the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 25, 2022
Read it in English, and though the translation was really good still wishing I had read the original.
December 7, 2024
unfortunately i've been advised that you can not make a claim for false advertising on a book title, citing the precedence of Lionel Hutz v The Never Ending Story
February 10, 2025
Een Bouquet-roman geschreven door een student Literatuurwetenschappen.
September 30, 2025
Įdomi idėja ant popieriaus, kuri dėl kreivo vertimo tampa privalomu kančios skaitiniu iš mokyklos laikų.
1 iš 3 šedevrų.
2024. Liubliana.
1 iš 3 šedevrų.
2024. Liubliana.
did-not-finish
October 27, 2025dnf @ 33%
i just can't bring myself to read this rn
i just can't bring myself to read this rn
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