“On the purity of the soul and the individual integrity”
(Bureau of Lost Souls- Biljana Petrova)
Whenever a literary text (of any genre) is considered for evaluation and
interpretation it soon transpires it’s not an easy or a simple task at all.
Actually, when something is being “criticized” at the same time the critic
criticizes himself. Therefore I needed
more time and several readings of the first prose work by the young author
Biljana Petrova in order to compose my modest review on the literary work- Bureau
of Lost Souls.
The text is presented through a dense philosophical poetical discourse- the
word with this author has a strictly restricted space, and yet her thought is
given infinite freedom to express relevant categories of human existence: transience,
non-sense, absurdity and paradox. Thus we have a book (closest to novella in its
genre) on a careful contemplation on the brief human life, with many enigmas
and question marks about the essence of the human being.
Biljana Petrova is a young author. She’s
authentic and has her own voice. Her work can be read and re- read and it
leaves you impressed with the philosophic depth and her knowledge in
contemplation. This latest manuscript of hers, in prose is only a confirmation
that one of her primary dilemmas is the question: is it possible, in a world
tending to progress and welfare of the human being and the society in general,
to withhold the basic spiritual values, or the purity of the soul and the
individual integrity. Or, because of the evil, greed, violence, wars, human
vices etc, man will throw himself into the self destructive fire, alienation,
fanatical fantasies.
The alienation of the individual (Oblomov) from the environment is his
own. He makes a problem out of his life and not as they say : “ the reality
must follow everything until we realize that only the real is beautiful and the
beautiful is real”.
The motive for this novella comes to Biljana
from the simple data: details of life. Life is mutable and inconsistent, and so
is the past, which was once life and meant happiness and joy, and now is
subject to memories or oblivion.
Thinking about certain phenomena and
categories of the human existence and create a novella upon these philosophical
esthetical postulates is very unusual for such a young writer. And we discover
this process in her writing on the human life, the joy and sorrow, death,
traveling through Europe and Ex-Yugoslavia. In
this novella we discover a font of rare and rich moments from the lives of Oblomov
and Miss Espresso (and this means that every single one of us can be portrayed
in these two characters).
Biljana’s writing is interesting, modern and
wise. She gives details allusive, allegoric, symbolic and metaphoric meaning,
and thus the work gains multiple meanings and ambiguity , as a creative secret
for the reader to solve.
*
I would say that his novel is fantastic as well as philosophical, even
though it does not belong to the genre of classical philosophy. It has a very
unusual content and a sinister sound to it. Why? Because nowadays we live in a
world where conflicts of all kinds: international, ethnic, political etc, then
wars, displacement, crime and corruption and so on dominate- and the author
sees it as a destruction of the soul.
She feels a negativity in the character of Oblomov compared to the
people who have placed their souls on the edge, in the abyss of the universe.
Through him people spend their lives
uncomfortably, negatively, inconveniently. Biljana, in one way or another,
tries to discover the soul, the hidden in man, what cannot be seen and yet is
the most essential part of the human existence. I think that it’s the soul
which provokes these contemplations with the author,, her own confirmations on
the fate of man- of his soul. Therefore it is to be expected that Biljana uses
the soul as a starting point, as an obsessive aspect, and in a symbolic way
asks “What would man be without his soul”.
Oblomov and his symbiotic relation to Miss Espresso imposes the
contemplation of the times where man and his existence and principles of being
in times of absence of happiness are visibly damaged, in a spiritual dimension.
The soul is always present in this manuscript, latently rather than manifestly.
That’s why the author enters a psychoanalysis of both characters in the novel.
Miss Espresso does not exist. She’s a shadow, unstable, and her name is a
corruption of “missing persons”. She is a symbol of all people deprived of
freedom. Through this character the author emphasizes the destiny fo the
missing children in the war in Bosnia
The fear, the pangs of consciousness, the
grief, the nostalgia, all these are abstract notions and they are embodied in
Miss Espresso. Oblomov overcomes the atrocities of the war while talking to
her. It’s the same with dreams. The brain processes the events so that it can
function properly at wake up. After retiring he takes part in a humanitarian
mission in Bosnia
He cures trauma with pranks, so that he may
feel alive.
We note elements of surrealism at the beginning of the novella. Yet,
this surrealism is used by Biljana to describe life. She portrays life in such
a way that her reasoning receives it and gives it in a particular context. It
seems that Biljana knows the anatomy very well, the anatomy of the soul.
And if man and his soul cannot
survive in a particular environment, he’s finished. Biljana demystifies the
soul. Her bitterness is nothing but insisting to describe man who loses his
identity when he loses his soul.
Man affronts bad and good things
in life. And at a point of saturation, he feels the need to be sincere,
spontaneous, pure, clean. Those are psychological moments, crucial for the
survival of the soul. In the same way we cannot comprehend the Universe in its
entirety, we cannot comprehend the soul. Should that happen, it would be
absurd.
The novella is full of temporary places:
cafes, train stations, terminals, airports, hotels, hospitals. These are places
of passing over, of transience, where lots of people stay only momentarily and
pass happy or sad hours, parting, arriving, healing, dying… And these edifices
are universal, their function is uniform the world over, and that’s why the
lost souls find an anchor here, to serve for their existence or non existence.
Man is tested before all the norms of
existence. In the distance between time and space, between life and man, it
seems that there’re both the points of beginning and ending. This is where the
deep rummaging of one’s own soul begins, the hearing of the categories of the
general and the universal notions.
The book consists of fragments of life of the
characters, yet it is a whole, rich and impressive, a diary of a person, in
good times and in bad, where the common mortal man is created.
That’s the philosophical contemplation of
Biljana P, for the man who relies on a kind of realization that one must follow
a certain road and find satisfaction in life through his soul, until death
comes inevitably.
The book is not very big in volume, yet
“Bureau of lost souls” offers the opportunity, when one is alone and finds time
for themselves,, to take it and read it in silence, patiently and slowly. It’s
partly autobiographical which shows knowledge and experience of the permanent
values of the wandering on the roads of life.
Reviewer, S. Arsova, writer
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