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Lend Me Your Character
The pieces collected in Lend Me Your Character—the novella "Steffie Cvek in the Jaws of Life" and a collection of short stories entitled Life Is a Fairy Tale— solidify Dubravka Ugresic's reputation as one of Eastern Europe's most playful and inventive writers. From the story of Steffie Cvek, a harassed and vulnerable typist whose life is shaped entirely by clichés as she searches relentlessly for an elusive romantic love in a narrative punctuated by threadbare advice from women's magazines and constructed like a sewing pattern, to "The Kharms Case," one of Ugresic's funniest stories ever about the strained relationship between a persistent translator and an unresponsive publisher, the pieces in this collection are always smart and endlessly entertaining.
246 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 2005
2 people are currently reading
345 people want to read
About the author
Dubravka Ugrešić
54 books651 followersDubravka Ugrešić was a Yugoslav, Croatian and Dutch writer. She left Croatia in 1993 and was based in Amsterdam since 1996. She described herself as "post-Yugoslav, transnational, or, even more precisely, postnational writer".
Dubravka Ugrešić earned her degrees in Comparative Literature, Russian Language and Literature at the University of Zagreb, and worked for twenty years at the Institute for Theory of Literature at Zagreb University, successfully pursuing parallel careers as a writer and a literary scholar.
She started writing professionally with screenplays for children’s television programs, as an undergraduate. In 1971 she published her first book for children Mali plamen, which was awarded a prestigious Croatian literary prize for children’s literature. Ugresic published two more books (Filip i Srecica, 1976; Kucni duhovi, 1988), and then gave up writing for children.
As a literary scholar Dubravka Ugrešić was particularly interested in Russian avant-garde culture. She was a co-editor of the international scholarly project Pojmovnik ruske avangarde, (A Glossary of the Russian Avangarde) for many years. She rediscovered forgotten Russian writers such as Konstantin Vaginov and Leonid Dobychin, and published a book on Russian contemporary fiction (Nova ruska proza, 1980). She translated fiction into Croatian from Russian (Boris Pilnyak, Gola godina; Daniil Kharms, Nule i nistice), and edited anthologies of both Russian contemporary and avant-garde writing (Pljuska u ruci, 1989).
Dubravka Ugrešić was best known in the former Yugoslavia for her fiction, novels and short stories: Poza za prozu, 1978; Stefica Cvek u raljama zivota, 1981; Zivot je bajka, 1983; Forsiranje romana reke, 1988.
Her novel Forsiranje romana reke was given the coveted NIN-award for the best novel of the year: Ugrešić was the first woman to receive this honor.
Croatian film director Rajko Grlic made a film U raljama zivota (1984) based on Ugrešić’s short novel Stefica Cvek u raljama zivota. Ugrešić co-authored the screenplay, as she did with screenplays for two other movies and a TV drama.
In 1991, when the war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Ugrešić took a firm anti-nationalistic stand and consequently an anti-war stand. She started to write critically about nationalism (both Croatian and Serbian), the stupidity and criminality of war, and soon became a target of the nationalistically charged media, officials, politicians, fellow writers and anonymous citizens. She was proclaimed a “traitor”, a “public enemy” and a “witch” in Croatia, ostracized and exposed to harsh and persistent media harassment. She left her country of origin in 1993.
Dubravka Ugrešić continued writing since she began living abroad. She published novels (Muzej bezuvjetne predaje, Ministarstvo boli) and books of essays (Americki fikcionar, Kultura lazi, Zabranjeno citanje, Nikog nema doma).
Her books have been translated into more then twenty languages. Dubravka Ugrešić has received several major European literary awards. In 2016, Ugrešić won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
On March 17th of 2023, one of Europe's most distinctive essayists, Dubravka Ugrešić, died in Amsterdam at the age of 73.
Dubravka Ugrešić earned her degrees in Comparative Literature, Russian Language and Literature at the University of Zagreb, and worked for twenty years at the Institute for Theory of Literature at Zagreb University, successfully pursuing parallel careers as a writer and a literary scholar.
She started writing professionally with screenplays for children’s television programs, as an undergraduate. In 1971 she published her first book for children Mali plamen, which was awarded a prestigious Croatian literary prize for children’s literature. Ugresic published two more books (Filip i Srecica, 1976; Kucni duhovi, 1988), and then gave up writing for children.
As a literary scholar Dubravka Ugrešić was particularly interested in Russian avant-garde culture. She was a co-editor of the international scholarly project Pojmovnik ruske avangarde, (A Glossary of the Russian Avangarde) for many years. She rediscovered forgotten Russian writers such as Konstantin Vaginov and Leonid Dobychin, and published a book on Russian contemporary fiction (Nova ruska proza, 1980). She translated fiction into Croatian from Russian (Boris Pilnyak, Gola godina; Daniil Kharms, Nule i nistice), and edited anthologies of both Russian contemporary and avant-garde writing (Pljuska u ruci, 1989).
Dubravka Ugrešić was best known in the former Yugoslavia for her fiction, novels and short stories: Poza za prozu, 1978; Stefica Cvek u raljama zivota, 1981; Zivot je bajka, 1983; Forsiranje romana reke, 1988.
Her novel Forsiranje romana reke was given the coveted NIN-award for the best novel of the year: Ugrešić was the first woman to receive this honor.
Croatian film director Rajko Grlic made a film U raljama zivota (1984) based on Ugrešić’s short novel Stefica Cvek u raljama zivota. Ugrešić co-authored the screenplay, as she did with screenplays for two other movies and a TV drama.
In 1991, when the war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Ugrešić took a firm anti-nationalistic stand and consequently an anti-war stand. She started to write critically about nationalism (both Croatian and Serbian), the stupidity and criminality of war, and soon became a target of the nationalistically charged media, officials, politicians, fellow writers and anonymous citizens. She was proclaimed a “traitor”, a “public enemy” and a “witch” in Croatia, ostracized and exposed to harsh and persistent media harassment. She left her country of origin in 1993.
Dubravka Ugrešić continued writing since she began living abroad. She published novels (Muzej bezuvjetne predaje, Ministarstvo boli) and books of essays (Americki fikcionar, Kultura lazi, Zabranjeno citanje, Nikog nema doma).
Her books have been translated into more then twenty languages. Dubravka Ugrešić has received several major European literary awards. In 2016, Ugrešić won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
On March 17th of 2023, one of Europe's most distinctive essayists, Dubravka Ugrešić, died in Amsterdam at the age of 73.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 26, 2014
More magical egghead prose from Croatia’s best woman. ‘Steffie Cvek in the Jaws of Life’ is a patchwork novella with various instructions for perforating and crocheting the prose. Where B.S. Johnson might actually knit a novel in a scarf, Mrs. Ugrešić merely presents the idea with her customary sardonic wit. The story collection ‘Life is a Fairy Tale’ involves a woman who finds a penis in her hotdog, a zealous translator of Daniil Kharms failing to reach her publisher, a reworking of Tolstoy’s ‘The Kreutzer Sonata’ involving a cannon on a train, and a man who borrows a writer’s female character to have sex with his male character. Absurd brilliance from this restless firecracker. See also Baba Yaga Laid an Egg.
to-be-consideread
October 17, 2013...in the age of the Great Revolt of the Grieved Readers...see first comment.
-----X: Cut the text as desired along the dotted line
-.-.-.-: Resize the text in any direction after moistening with damp imagination
.......: Take in with critical darts
//////: Gather large thematic stitches on either side of the author's seam, pull and arrange evenly
" " " ": (S)mock by accordion folding seam to seam and finishing with sentiment stitches
+ + + +: Slits for co-authored ribbons, bows, fripperies etc
-----X: Cut the text as desired along the dotted line
-.-.-.-: Resize the text in any direction after moistening with damp imagination
.......: Take in with critical darts
//////: Gather large thematic stitches on either side of the author's seam, pull and arrange evenly
" " " ": (S)mock by accordion folding seam to seam and finishing with sentiment stitches
+ + + +: Slits for co-authored ribbons, bows, fripperies etc
October 30, 2023
This collection of short stories and a novella by Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic was just delightful. Strongly reminiscent of great Russian novels with a sprinkle of magical realism and a little or a lot of female sexuality thrown in. The novella was my favorite, Stefica Cvek in the Jaws of Life. It was so funny and deeply sad. Stefica is a mousy little single-girl seamstress who lives with her overbearing aunt and whiles away the hours wishing she had a man in her life. She gets some truly awful advice from various girlfriends, has a few truly awful one night stands, and then the author makes herself known and wails out for poor Stefica's plight, agreeing to give her an unrealistic happily ever after. I loved how she plays around with the form, having the author interact with the subject like that. One chapter is called "Some unexpected overstitching of S.C. with the author's own zigzag stitch."
The female eroticism and sensuality was very reminiscent of Amélie. Her characters are kind of childish and flat but they do have desires and urges in kind of a funny way. "The author was convinced that this would be a moving episode, nothing short of brilliant. Then the author read around and was disappointed to learn that another writer had already used a mechanical penis/electric eye incident. It's not enough to have a brilliant idea, you have to have it first!"
Some of the other short stories were better than others. Some were a little too opaque, like Button Button Who's Got the Button? I wasn't sure what that one was trying to say. I thought A Hot Dog in a Warm Bun was a little crude (a hot dog turns into a dismembered penis right before the woman's eyes. Inspired by The Nose by Gogol! That connection was great, but the story itself was not my favorite.) I did love The Kharms Case, about an obsessive translator desperate to get her manuscript of a Russian writer's work published. That one really made me laugh. She hounds the publisher for years before improbably starting a relationship with him and then leaving him without fanfare for another translator. I also liked Lend Me Your Character where two writers bicker over the use of one's intellectual property. The writers become the characters, the characters come out of the writing, it's all very cool and magical realist.
Dubravka Ugresic has such a unique voice, and I really want to read her novel, Baba Yaga Lays an Egg. She has this mix of Soviet-era, Balkan bleakness with some very optimistic characters, and never lets the reader forget that a writer wrote these words, popping in every so often to make a narrative flourish.
The female eroticism and sensuality was very reminiscent of Amélie. Her characters are kind of childish and flat but they do have desires and urges in kind of a funny way. "The author was convinced that this would be a moving episode, nothing short of brilliant. Then the author read around and was disappointed to learn that another writer had already used a mechanical penis/electric eye incident. It's not enough to have a brilliant idea, you have to have it first!"
Some of the other short stories were better than others. Some were a little too opaque, like Button Button Who's Got the Button? I wasn't sure what that one was trying to say. I thought A Hot Dog in a Warm Bun was a little crude (a hot dog turns into a dismembered penis right before the woman's eyes. Inspired by The Nose by Gogol! That connection was great, but the story itself was not my favorite.) I did love The Kharms Case, about an obsessive translator desperate to get her manuscript of a Russian writer's work published. That one really made me laugh. She hounds the publisher for years before improbably starting a relationship with him and then leaving him without fanfare for another translator. I also liked Lend Me Your Character where two writers bicker over the use of one's intellectual property. The writers become the characters, the characters come out of the writing, it's all very cool and magical realist.
Dubravka Ugresic has such a unique voice, and I really want to read her novel, Baba Yaga Lays an Egg. She has this mix of Soviet-era, Balkan bleakness with some very optimistic characters, and never lets the reader forget that a writer wrote these words, popping in every so often to make a narrative flourish.
October 10, 2021
A very entertaining collection of humorous to hilarious stories. The best of the stories is actually a novella titled "Steffie Cvek in the Jaws of Life" about a young woman who is leading a very dull life as a typist and so, to liven up her life, she tries venturing out by improving her love life. There is a hilarious series of attempts with different men (all of whom are losers) of finding love (by finding love I mean having sex) but this doesn't work out so well. Ugresic likes to insert herself, occasionally, into her stories and in this section she explains to Steffie why she just doesn't write a part that lets her meet the man of her dreams. It's a very clever and funny technique that Ugresic uses to add to the humor. Of the short stories the best was "The Kharms Case" written as a series of letters from a translator to a publisher about a manuscript he submitted. It's absolutely hilarious. This was my first book by Dubravka Ugresic and it was a very entertaining read.
March 17, 2017
Probably more of a 4.5, but I was just so delighted.
October 2, 2008
There is a great line here, in Ugresic's "explanation" (itself great) to the patchwork novella "Steffie Cvek in the Jaws of Life": "Not only does [the author] wish to imitate the precision of 'Instructions for Making the Garment' from the aforementioned fashion magazine, she also wishes to iron on the outline of the pattern as clearly as possible for others to follow. Incidentally, in the author's view, ironing on is the literature of the future." Of course, it goes along with her central metaphor, but beyond that, this concept of "ironing on" entire texts is one that appeals to me beyond measure. Ugresic's comment puts the process itself, rather than the borrowed text, at the center, which is precisely the point. It is not so much that Ugresic has followed the pattern of a fashion magazine article, which is only a gimmick if that is all there is to it, but that she has utilized her process of "ironing on" as generator and product of the act of literature. This pattern is not applied to some piece, but is itself recognized as something which can be applied, as literature is not an end use for the reader, but only something which can be utilized.
That that "is the literature of the future," not "indispensable to the literature of the future," or "part of the literature of the future," is what convinces me that Ugresic's explanation is not just meta-fictional twaddle- cheap jokes at the reader's expense- but a considered position, and one that goes directly to supporting her "reading" of her own novella. In fact, while the novella itself flounders in meta-fictional devices that seem rather cheap, the explanation saves the day by immediately throwing everything into a different light. And before you can say, "Wait, that> is a meta-fictional gimmick if ever there was one," think of the last act of any dramatic novel and realize that that is precisely what happens in most fiction. We advance blindly through events in the expectation that all will come clear in the end, and hope for revelation, for a kind of explanation. Ugresic has merely approached it from another, more direct, angle. With this last chapter, things that seemed like cheap jokes at first start to assume significance and acquire resonance. It remains to be seen whether this might hold up to a second reading...
That that "is the literature of the future," not "indispensable to the literature of the future," or "part of the literature of the future," is what convinces me that Ugresic's explanation is not just meta-fictional twaddle- cheap jokes at the reader's expense- but a considered position, and one that goes directly to supporting her "reading" of her own novella. In fact, while the novella itself flounders in meta-fictional devices that seem rather cheap, the explanation saves the day by immediately throwing everything into a different light. And before you can say, "Wait, that> is a meta-fictional gimmick if ever there was one," think of the last act of any dramatic novel and realize that that is precisely what happens in most fiction. We advance blindly through events in the expectation that all will come clear in the end, and hope for revelation, for a kind of explanation. Ugresic has merely approached it from another, more direct, angle. With this last chapter, things that seemed like cheap jokes at first start to assume significance and acquire resonance. It remains to be seen whether this might hold up to a second reading...
January 27, 2008
I thought this was a really dynamite book, a fresh and inventive pastiche of pre-existing texts high and low (Gogol and Tolstoy, chick-lit) that still had some inventive and compelling things to say about the challenges and rewards of being the kind of writer that is self-aware.
A really good book, and one I'm happy to have read!
A really good book, and one I'm happy to have read!
January 21, 2011
I've been wondering for a while if there were fun ways to make fiction textile, and Ugresic figured out one by placing seamstress icons in different areas of the fiction with a key to the icons in the beginning so the reader knows where to fold, tuck, or tear.
December 22, 2017
Close Encounters of the Weird Kind
Hey, postmodernism with chocolate biscuits ! Once upon a time, in Dubrovnik, Croatia, I woke up, washed my face, shaved, counted the pigeons sitting disconsolately in the rain on the house opposite, ate some bread from the pekarnica up the stone alley on the main road. Oh, yeah, I had some fig jam too. "Another day in old Ragusa." I thought. It sounded like an Italian dish to me. In the Stari Grad (old town), it was dripping rain. I didn't feel like visiting any more museums, so I walked into a book store. My wife, from a faroff land, decided to buy a book by Dubravka Ugresic. I'd never heard of her. Just then, a dog ran in with something in his mouth. It was a purple turnip in the shape of a zeppelin. I knew what that meant when I began to read LEND ME YOUR CHARACTER, though turnips never rated a mention. Neither did zeppelins, so you see... I happen to be a big fan of absurdist novels, or even novels with highly unusual plots---Lewis Carroll, Nikolay Gogol, Amos Tutuola, Milorad Pavic, and even good old José Saramago. Well, you know, Ugresic's sense of humor and absurdity didn't put me off. I don't like "guy" novels, though, never been any kind of fan of war, cowboy, sports, or Mickey Spillane type "my gun is quick" novels. Even Hemingway tires me out soon with his relentless machismo. So, tell me why I should fall in love with chick-lit. Nope, I don't. It's just a mirror image of machismo. The main novella in this book "Steffie Cvek in the Jaws of Life" was aimed solely at women. It's got something written all over it and that is "It's a woman thang, you wouldn't understand." Fair enough. I did read it, though, because I was looking for something Croatian and interesting. Sorry, maybe Ugresic is a very serious writer, but these stories are quite derivative. Humor---check, but I bet she could do better if she didn't imitate famous authors so much. I know I'll be upbraided by people, especially women, who will say, "Aw, Bob, you just didn't get it." But I DID get it, I just didn't think the book was very good except for the "Kharms Correspondence" which is all too accurate a picture of publishing and life, and for the writer's explanation of her work which I liked very much for its honesty.
Hey, postmodernism with chocolate biscuits ! Once upon a time, in Dubrovnik, Croatia, I woke up, washed my face, shaved, counted the pigeons sitting disconsolately in the rain on the house opposite, ate some bread from the pekarnica up the stone alley on the main road. Oh, yeah, I had some fig jam too. "Another day in old Ragusa." I thought. It sounded like an Italian dish to me. In the Stari Grad (old town), it was dripping rain. I didn't feel like visiting any more museums, so I walked into a book store. My wife, from a faroff land, decided to buy a book by Dubravka Ugresic. I'd never heard of her. Just then, a dog ran in with something in his mouth. It was a purple turnip in the shape of a zeppelin. I knew what that meant when I began to read LEND ME YOUR CHARACTER, though turnips never rated a mention. Neither did zeppelins, so you see... I happen to be a big fan of absurdist novels, or even novels with highly unusual plots---Lewis Carroll, Nikolay Gogol, Amos Tutuola, Milorad Pavic, and even good old José Saramago. Well, you know, Ugresic's sense of humor and absurdity didn't put me off. I don't like "guy" novels, though, never been any kind of fan of war, cowboy, sports, or Mickey Spillane type "my gun is quick" novels. Even Hemingway tires me out soon with his relentless machismo. So, tell me why I should fall in love with chick-lit. Nope, I don't. It's just a mirror image of machismo. The main novella in this book "Steffie Cvek in the Jaws of Life" was aimed solely at women. It's got something written all over it and that is "It's a woman thang, you wouldn't understand." Fair enough. I did read it, though, because I was looking for something Croatian and interesting. Sorry, maybe Ugresic is a very serious writer, but these stories are quite derivative. Humor---check, but I bet she could do better if she didn't imitate famous authors so much. I know I'll be upbraided by people, especially women, who will say, "Aw, Bob, you just didn't get it." But I DID get it, I just didn't think the book was very good except for the "Kharms Correspondence" which is all too accurate a picture of publishing and life, and for the writer's explanation of her work which I liked very much for its honesty.
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August 5, 2025The first half of this really had me hooked and I was lol-ing at one character in particular. Then I feel that the post modernism really picks up big time and things are so abstract and sometimes it was really entertaining and sometimes I realized I had read 3 pages and not retained anything. So a mixed bag overall but I do always enjoy reading a book that is really unlike anything I have ever read before.
August 13, 2021
The first two stories are fantastic and funny, though Jaws of Life is the superior of the two. The post-modern humour there is just top-notch. “Hot Dog in a Warm Bun” is a funny postmodern version of Gogol’s Nose. Afterwards her style can become tiring. Who Am I was the worst of the stories. Otherwise Dubravka is a good source for post-modern literature.
June 21, 2022
3.5 stars
read for work
read for work
June 19, 2012
I came across this book almost by accident in Foyles, and indulged in one of those impulses that apparently I should indulge in more often - see a book, buy it, read it straight away. I never do that, for some reason (well actually the reason is the complicated rotation system on which basis I usually decide what book to read next...most likely a form of OCD). Anyway for once this time I decided to buy a book I had never seen before, nor heard anything about, by a Croatian writer I had only vaguely heard of before.
What a brilliant idea! What a refreshing experience!
The amazing thing about this book is that I can see just about anybody liking it (ok, admittedly women are more likely to enjoy it than men, epecially the first novella). The reason is that although this is a book that plays with literature (and 'plays' really is the right word: the book is imbued with such an amazing joy of literature, of storytelling, such as I have found in the great writers I love, from Perec to Stevenson to Calvino), and is therefore likely to appeal to the hopeless literature-lover and serious reader, it is also SO enjoyable, so funny and readable that it is ideal even if you're not exactly up for the most heavygoing piece of writing around.
The book itself includes a novella, Steffi Cvek in the Jaws of Life , which dissembles and puts together again many of the stereotypes of what the author calls 'women's writing', managing to create a romantic plot while questioning it intelligently all the way through, showing how its protagonist and her life are unwillingly shaped by all sorts of cliches, from mindless advice from women's magazine to the trivialities of worn out romantic plots that somehow imbue the female characters' conceptions of their own lives.
The rest of the book is a collection of short stories that subtly - and not at all obviously - rewrite other pieces taken from masterpieces of literature, in a series of textual and intertextual reference that however doesn't make these pieces less enjoyable, funny or readable. A rewriting of Gogol's The Nose where the missing part is a man's penis (ok, this sounds horrible and unimaginative, but I assure you it isn't), or the hilarious and grotesque story of the relationship between an obsessive translator and an unresponsive editor.
Now I have realised that by writing this review I have done for other potential readers the eact opposite of what I suggested - approaching this book without knowing anything about it. But I do think this is a book that needs to be discovered and read, and I know from experience and research how foreign fiction often needs to overcome layers and layers of resistance, diffidence, disinterest in British readers, so I thought I should most definitely tell the rest of the world not only how refreshing, intelligent and good this book is, but also what a nice feeling it is to 'discover' an author, to ignore the allurements of marketing and Tube posters and just discover new voices, new cultures, new points of view, that none of your friends/colleagues/bosses know, that have not been made famous by the usual literary prizes, that are not the usual ones that you find in ALL bookshops, that EVERYONE has read.
This has been such a liberating reading experience for me that I thought it my duty as a reader to share it with the world.
June 10, 2012
I wrote about the initial novella in this collection on my blog before I read the remaining stories in the collection. Each is a rewriting or deeply influenced by another writer's story and Ugrešić includes a key in her afterword. I loved the stories, especially "Lend Me Your Character" which spoke to how women artists sometime subsume themselves and their art when they fall for male artists and "A Hot Dog in a Warm Bun" which, true to every encounter I've had with Ugrešić, surprised me (and this one made me laugh out loud).
The afterword also speaks to the feminist nature of her work. I found this book at exactly the right time (I had a very similar discussion about women's place in the canon just the other night when I swore I would read more women writers). The entire book is rich and though the topics vary widely, it somehow coalesces beautifully. I think that's because Ugrešić has a strong sense of herself as a writer, reader, and person. I like this book more and more the longer I think about it.
The afterword also speaks to the feminist nature of her work. I found this book at exactly the right time (I had a very similar discussion about women's place in the canon just the other night when I swore I would read more women writers). The entire book is rich and though the topics vary widely, it somehow coalesces beautifully. I think that's because Ugrešić has a strong sense of herself as a writer, reader, and person. I like this book more and more the longer I think about it.
August 22, 2012
Finished this in it's entirety on the plane from Zagreb to Los Angeles. Marvelous does not begin to describe this little gem! The collection of stories starts off with a little patchwork novella about Steffi Cvek, who is struggling to define herself against changing social climes. Some of her friends are hardcore feminists, and others are typical Eastern European housewives. Ugresic doesn't stop there -- she goes through and constructs a satire on Gogol's The Nose, parodies (pays compliment to?) Dostoyevsky's infamous Raskolnikov, and edits Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata. She is simply an amazing author -- what they'd term "a writer with balls"!
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March 15, 2008The Steffi piece is wonderful. Sewing instructions? I wish they would print them with the newspaper.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews