“And photographic reproduction, with the aid of certain processes, such as enlargement or slow motion, can capture images which escape natural vision."
The above Walter Benjamin quote could be an epigraph for Zoran Živković's The Image Interpreter, a novel of ten interconnecting stories revolving around the Paris Métro. However, since the Serbian author is writing in the Middle-European literary tradition of Nikolai Gogol, Franz Kafka and Mikhail Bulgakov, photographic images not only enlarge and slow down but twist, bend, morph and explode out to realms of the fantastic.
We are introduced to five men and five women one at a time (one in each chapter), among them a young man who discovers beauty in a cemetery, a seasoned author searching for inspiration for her next novel, a meticulous, unattractive middle age military clerk who categorically refuses to take a seat while riding the Métro. All travel solo and enter and exist the same car according to their own schedule. At no point do any of the ten exchange words; rather, they all observe one another in silence and take photos of each other or themselves surreptitiously with cameras, usually a cell phone camera.
Sound intriguing? Let me assure you, The Image Interpreter is a tantalizing, fun read from beginning to end, storytelling at its finest.
In the first chapter, Mr. Mirouille is doing what he has always done for these past months since his retirement - riding the Métro since he enjoys all the sights and sounds and can read his book in peace. Mr. Mirouille must scold himself today. If only he was more attentive and not so completely absorbed in his book, he would have seen the person who left a camera on the seat across from him. No sooner does he pick up the camera to ask if it belongs to anybody then the train reaches the next stop and the passengers bustle off.
He lets out a sigh. He has no choice - he knows he's obliged to turn the camera in at the Métro lost-and-found. But then it occurres to him: he could perhaps identify the owner of the camera by the photos taken. Accordingly, Mr. Mirouille sneaks a peak at the first photo. When the little screen sharpens into focus, there he is in his red Friday sweater reading his book. What?! Who took this picture? And, why?
After considering his next move, he surmises the easiest thing to do is simply erase the photo. Click. The photo disappears into a black dot and the next photo comes up: again, he's on the Métro reading a book, only this time he's wearing his green Thursday sweater. Has someone taken a series of photos of him? Then, without touching the camera, more photos appear one after another. Is he to believe his eyes? The camera reveals shots beyond the mysterious - Mr. Mirouille is confronted by the impossibly surreal.
Speaking of his own writing and the tradition of Middle-European fantastika, Zoran Živković notes protagonists are not heroes but men and women on the margins attempting to make their way in a world of accelerating change. Also, how the tradition features only slight deviations from reality rather than large scale dramatic events.
Certainly an apt description of The Image Interpreter with people like retiree Mr. Mirouille reading his book as he rides the Paris Métro. And these are most definitely the reasons a reader will find the novel's men and women charming and the unfolding events surprising: the characters and setting are rendered so real, so natural. And then when those fantastical elements pop up: WOW! We want to keep turning the pages to see what happens next.
Zoran Živković also characterizes his fiction as metaphysical fantasies, that is, writing that addresses the ultimate questions we face as humans. Case in point in The Image Interpreter, Mr. Alain Rigoud, the man who loves beauty in cemeteries, peers at a photo on his cellphone: "He brought the phone closer to see it better, but that was not enough, so he magnified the picture by spreading two fingers. The enlarged central part of the photo filled the screen . . . . He was surprised at what he read there, but was even more astounded that he had not seen it when he took the picture."
A photo enlarged causing astonishment. Does this sound familiar? It should for those familiar with Argentine author Julio Cortázar's short story Blow-Up (Spanish: Las Babas del Diablo) or the film based on the story made famous by director Michelangelo Antonioni. Recall photographer Roberto Michel's astonishment when enlarging the photo he took of the woman and young man in the park. This to say, the camera reveals a reality and truth that can range from the sublime to the disturbing not readily available to the naked eye. And since nowadays everyone carries a cellphone camera, all sorts of realities and truths can open up when you least expect it - especially if you find yourself in a Zoran Živković story!
Similar to the author's shorter mosaic novels wherein elements from the previous chapters are gathered together in the final chapter as a way to bring greater cohesion to all the parts, so to in Chapter 10 of The Image Interpreter. Does the surreal and fantastical a reader encountered in the first nine chapters have the last word? Or, are there other aspects of human experience that can be seen as even more remarkable and truth disclosing than those produced by a digital device? You will have to read this remarkable novel to find out.
Serbian author Zoran Živković, born 1948
"She came to when the magic dispersed upon entering the next-to-last-stop. Whilst there was actually no reason to hurry, her movements were feverish as she moved her hand away from herself, preparing to do something she had never done before and which she found deeply repulsive: to take a selfie." - Zoran Živković, The Image Interpreter
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