NP--On the Waiting List--Cyclops

[rich]

Hello All--never turn away from opportunity for a good read. added
this one to the pile.

rich


In his semiautobiographical novel, Cyclops, Croatian writer Ranko
Marinković recounts the adventures of young theater critic Melkior
Tresić, an archetypal antihero who decides to starve himself to avoid
fighting in the front lines of World War II. As he wanders the streets
of Zagreb in a near-hallucinatory state of paranoia and
malnourishment, Melkior encounters a colorful circus of
characters--fortune-tellers, shamans, actors, prostitutes, bohemians,
and café intellectuals--all living in a fragile dream of a society
about to be changed forever.


A seminal work of postwar Eastern European literature, Cyclops reveals
a little-known perspective on World War II from within the former
Yugoslavia, one that has never before been available to an
English-speaking audience. Vlada Stojiljković's able translation,
improved by Ellen Elias-Bursać's insightful editing, preserves the
striking brilliance of this riotously funny and densely allusive text.
Along Melkior's journey Cyclops satirizes both the delusions of the
righteous military officials who feed the national bloodlust as well
as the wayward intellectuals who believe themselves to be above the
unpleasant realities of international conflict. Through Stojiljković's
clear-eyed translation, Melkior's peregrinations reveal how history
happens and how the individual consciousness is swept up in the tide
of political events, and this is accomplished in a mode that will
resonate with readers of Charles Simic, Aleksandr Hemon, and Kundera.
(20100715)

http://www.amazon.com/Cyclops-Margellos-World-Republic-Letters/dp/0300152418/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294237495&sr=1-1