The Museum of Unconditional Surrender - Hardcover

Ugresic, Dubravka; Hawkesworth, Celia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0811214214 ISBN 13: 9780811214216

Publisher: New Directions, 1999

Synopsis

This is a deeply East European novel in flavour reminiscent of Kundera and Borges. Through weaving together fragments, stories, and diaries Dubravka Ugresic, a prize-winning novelist in the former Yugoslavia, captures the world of a group of characters living in Berlin and Lisbon. Ugresic convincingly brings to life a world and characters preoccupied by questions of exile, nationalism, angels, parables, the Berlin zoo, the layers of meaning in one's past and future frozen by the camera. Underpinned by a calm note of tragedy. The Museum of Unconditional Surrender is a beautifully written novel, both bitter and funny in tone.

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Reviews

This unconventional novel by Croatian writer Ugresic is a collection of fragmentsAshort essays, journal entries, stories, factual items, descriptions of placeAthat combine to evoke the distinct "point of pain" experienced by a political exile. The book is divided into seven parts, four taking place in present-day Berlin, the unnamed Yugoslavian narrator's place of "temporary exile." The Berlin pieces consist of numbered sections, some only a few lines or a paragraph, which convey city facts ("Under the grassy surface of the hill pulsate 26 million cubic metres of rubble from the ruins of Berlin, collected and dragged here after the Second World War"); thoughts about exile; quotations about Berlin, exile and art; and descriptions of friends, many of whom are themselves artists whose works reflect themes of fragmentation and attempts to reclaim lost or scattered memories. Another series of fragments consists of six stories, some set in America, loosely connected by themes of rootlessness, memory, disorientation. "Part Six" of the novel is a tale about seven women friends in Zagreb who encounter a prophetic angel shortly before "the local apocalypse"; the angel allows only the narrator to remember the occasion and give testimony. Recurring images and themesAthe photo album or the museum, for instanceAdraw together the "bits and pieces," while the domestic detailsAmeals, meetings, shopping expeditionsAkeep the work anchored firmly in the realm of day-to-day existence. Complex, intelligent and challenging, this unusual novel is rendered impressively accessible by Ugresic's human, vulnerable voice. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811214214
• ISBN 13: 9780811214216
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 238