Have a Nice Day [Paperback]

Dubravka Ugresic (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2000

A Croatian writer records her impressions of American culture, offering a fictional ""dictionary"" that simultaneously critiques the shallowness of America's cultural obsessions as it clearly views the current barbarism of Balkan politics. 10,000 first printing.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Croatian novelist and journalist Ugresic's quirky, razor-sharp essays comprise a wry look at American life and a jolting, sensitive self-portrait in cultural dislocation. Fleeing wartorn Zagreb in late 1991, she went to Amsterdam, then spent most of 1992 in New York City and teaching at Wesleyan in Connecticut. Americans, in her view, constantly "network," redesign their self-images and compulsively organize their lives, jobs and leisure. She writes that Americans aggressively work at being happy, imitating the synthetic images shown on films and television and in ads. Through a conversation, real or imagined, with her bleached-blonde psychiatrist, Ugresic deflates Western stereotypes of Balkan peoples' "mythic, tribal thinking." Elsewhere she charges that Serbian and Croatian nationalists use patriotic and religious symbols, slogans and kitsch to seduce the masses. Ugresic, who now lives in Berlin, wrote these pieces as columns for an Amsterdam newspaper; though they vary considerably in quality, her nervous, precise prose is a pleasure to read.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Fleeing the strife of her Croatian homeland, Ugresic found a place to live, teach, and write at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. While her wry observations on Western culture are insightful and amusing, they reveal as much about this particular exile's internal life as they do about American society's shallow obsessions. Ironic and pointed, Ugresic's short essays "defining" such topics as couch potato-hood also illuminate the differences and similarities between two cultures as seen through the eyes of a refugee. While not difficult reading, this collection of essays may not attract the average library patron; those who enjoy commentary on the current international scene will, however, appreciate it.
Pamela R. Daubenspeck, Warren-Trumbull Cty. P.L., Warren, Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Penguin USA (P) (September 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140244840
• ISBN-13: 978-0140244847
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,704,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Book of foreigner's impressions on USA, December 15, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Chicago IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Have a Nice Day: From the Balkan War to the American Dream (Hardcover)

This is the weakest literary work of one of the respected contemporary writers from former Yugoslavia. While I simply LOVED Ms. Ugresic's book "In the Jaws of Life", this book of her impressions on life in America is not quite worthy of her talents. In many of Ms. Ugresic's stories I could see myself - foreigner in thie huge country of choices, weird characters, people who mean good, but always say the wrong thing. It took me many years to get the answers for which Ms. Ugresic is herself trying to find answers to in this work. I can only think: a) Ms. Ugresic has not been in USA long enough to learn the "rules of the game" and b) she simply made wrong choice of friends during her stay in USA (like that superficial guy Norman, mentioned in several of her stories). I only hope that Ms. Ugresic will find better life and nicer impressions during her current stay in Berlin. While I admire Ms. Ugresic's respect for both Danilo Kis and Ivo Andric (she quotes both of these writers in her book; first at the beginning and the second in the last story of her book) - I must admit that "Have a Nice Day" does not deserve comparison worth the works of Kis and Andric. Ms. Ugresic's simple way of storytelling simply clashes with complexity of thought of both Kis and Andric. I sincerely hope Ms. Ugresic will focus on issues that make her work really good. It is painfull to loose one's country. That pain however should never interfere with great talent this writer has. I am looking forward to Ms. Ugresic's new work which, I am sure, will get to the world the best of her.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not quite on the mark, September 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Have a Nice Day: From the Balkan War to the American Dream (Hardcover)

I certainly agree with the previous review that this is Ugresic's 'weakest' work. Otherwise, Ugresic is perhaps the greatest living Croatian prose writer. I actually read the Croatian original edition, titled "Americki fikcionar," and while I did enjoy many of the author's observations and insights, I often found her brooding over her plight tedious. While I agree that Ugresic was grossly mistreated and maligned for her anti-nationalist stance by the government-controlled media in Croatia, she left Croatia, or the former Yugoslavia, basically unscathed with at least some certainty of being able to build a new life elsewhere. This stands in contrast to the thousands of refugees who left this region with absolutely nothing and little hope of any secure future for themselves or their children. A vast majority of them were/are as equally blameless for their plight as Ugresic. In addition, I found the scene in which Ugresic tells a black homeless man in Central Park that she "is a nigger in her own country" somewhat pretentious to say the least. However repugnant the hyped-up nationalism of today's Croatia may be to Ugresic, her alienation is the result of personal choice, not of birth. Nonetheless, Ugresic's book is still worth reading, for if nothing else, it reflects the feelings of confusion and estrangement felt by many intellectuals from throughout the former Yugoslavia.