Twelve Collections - Serbian author Zoran Živković's eminently enjoyable, highly readable short novel comprised of a dozen interconnected stories linked by the theme of collectors and their collections. Also worth noting is how each tale is touched in quizzical ways by the color purple. Highly imaginative literary fiction in the tradition of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino but written with the light touch of a Roald Dahl or James Thurber.
Turning to the twelve stories themselves, in the odd numbered tales we have a first-person narrator confronted by an unearthly presence collecting wispy intangibles such as dreams or hopes. And in the even numbered, a retired old man collects items such as beautiful words, press clippings or emails, each old man story written in objective third-person. To share a taste of the charm and grace of Zoran Živkovic's storytelling , I'll turn my focus to three of the twelve:
Days
Entering a pastry shop where everything is a different shade of purple, from tablecloths, chairs, wallpaper and curtains to the very light bathing the shop, the first-person narrator observes. "Not a single one of the six small round tables with three chairs each was occupied. The pastry chef was standing behind the display counter, wiping a glass with a purple napkin. His apron was inevitably of the same tone as everything else."
Once seated, pleasantries are exchanged and the narrator peruses the shop's highly unusual menu with such pastries as "shambling violin." He asks the chef for a recommendation, a selection that will satisfy his sweet tooth. Something special. Oh, yes, the chef replies, we have something special not on the menu - stuffed monkey. And, as the chef continues, the reason this cake with such a unique flavor is not on the menu is due to price.
In the ensuing conversation, the narrator is given to understand he will have to pay for his stuffed monkey cake not with money but with a day from his past such that the specific day he chooses will completely and totally disappear from his memory as if he never lived it. The day will then become part of the chef's collection. After all, as the chef goes on to explain, "Everyone has bad days in their lives that they would happily forget."
Indeed, each one of us most certainly has bad days we would rather not remember. In Polish author Stanisław Lem's The Star Diaries, space explorer Ijon Tichy tells of his good friend Professor Tarantoga who developed a fluid for the removal of unpleasant memories. Ijon provides no further elaboration on the power or side effects of the fluid. We are left to wonder the results of an application - does the fluid remove all or only some bad memories? And what else, if anything, happens to the user?
Contrary to Professor Tarantoga and his fluid, in Zoran Živković's tale, the chef furnishes the details: one day is removed with every serving of stuffed monkey, leaving a small, invisible hole in the customer. "But after just a few pieces the empty space becomes visible and quickly spreads with each new day from the past that is consumed." The pastry chef shares additional unexpected revelations. As for the ultimate twists of fate for our narrator, you will have to taste this delicious story for yourself.
Fingernails
Mr. Prohaska has been collecting his own fingernail clippings since the age of eight. Over the years, the little bags of fingernails, each bag containing ten sickle-shaped nails, piled up. More order was needed. Mr. Prohaska came up with the idea of placing each bag in its own purple plush lined cigarette case and engraving the clipping date on the lid. Months passed until one day he pondered the prospect of a future tragedy: what would happen if a burglar broke into his apartment and stole his prize collection? Unacceptable. Mr. Prohaska recognized the proper action required: place the cigarette cases in a safe deposit box at the bank. Accordingly, he transferred his collection.
But then it occurred to him: what would happen after his death? For many days and nights Mr. Prohaska agonized over the sad prospect of the fate of his collection following his passing. How can this seemingly Insoluble quagmire be solved? Then it hit Mr. Prohaska like a thunderbolt of pure enlightenment - it was as if in a flash a complex mathematical problem finally revealed its simple, elegant solution. And what was the solution? When reading this story myself, I would never have ever guessed even if I was given a hundred guesses. When I finally read the words of the last sentence I almost could not believe my eyes - the solution was that simple and elegant.
Stories
The narrator, a fiction writer, types the last line of his story. But before he can save the file, his entire computer screen turns purple. What the hell! Like anybody else faced with a similar happening, he turns off his computer thinking the next time he turns it on everything will be just fine.
Well, when he reboots, there's the purple shade along with his story but with a difference; at the very bottom are the words: Wonderful story! Congratulations! Our fiction writer ponders the possible reasons for such an outlandish occurrence. When he is about to hit a key, more writing appears: Turning the monitor off and on again won't get you anywhere. Taken aback, he wonders what the devil is going on and who is responsible for such a hoax? Again, as if answering the questions formulated in his mind, more words on the computer screen.
The narrator (and we as readers) quickly come to know, the writer of these cryptic messages is a collector of last stories. And the sender has a life and death proposition for the fiction writer. Ah, how appropriate. Zoran Živković reports in an interview: "Love and Death. These are the two pivotal themes of the art of fiction. We write fiction in the first place because this is probably our best way to approach the two major determinants of our lives; our greatest sentiment and our mortality."
Again, I've written on only three of the dozen pieces forming Twelve Collections. I recommend you add this Zoran Živković novel to your own collection.
Twelve Collections is available as a stand-alone novel and also 1 of 5 short novels in Impossible Stories 2 published by Cadmus Press.
Serbian author Zoran Živković, born 1948
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