Love and Obstacles (Hardcover) [Unknown Binding]

Aleksandar Hemon (Author)

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• Unknown Binding
• ASIN: B002UD856G
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lust and Obsessions, December 8, 2011

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Dr. Bojan Tunguz (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Love and Obstacles (Hardcover)

Alksandar Hemon is a Bosnian-American writer who immigrated to the United States at the beginning of the war in his homeland. His first collection of short stories, The Question of Bruno, was very well received and has launched his literary career. Most of the stories in his oeuvre deal with the issues and problems of immigration, cultural clash, and his youth in Sarajevo. "Love & Obstacles" is another collection of such stories.

Hemon has a knack for telling a good story, and he knows how to draw in the reader into his narratives. His style has gotten more self-assured over the years, and now for the most part he avoids unnecessary and self-conscious literary flourishes that were fairly prominent in his early writings. The stories in this collection seem to be largely autobiographical, and Hemon takes us on journeys into the situations and circumstances that are in general quite alien to the American audience. American short story has, in my humble opinion, gotten too focused on writing as a sophisticated craft at the expense of telling a good and interesting story. Hemon bucks this trend, and his stories are a refreshing alternative to what comes out of the writers' workshops.

In this collection Hemon explores the uncertainties of misguided youthful amorous adventures, and some of the things he writes about quite embarrassing. They are the kinds of stories that your friends and relatives tell about you at your wedding, while your in-laws jaws drop and you wish you could be about ten thousand miles away at that particular moment. So Hemon deserves some credit for wiling to divulge such intimate details from his past, especially since he is not doing this purely for the shock value.

There are a couple of things about these stories where I feel Hemon could improve on. First of all, Hemon seems to have difficulty with the endings. Most stories end abruptly, and even violently (both figuratively and literarily). This leaves the stories devoid of the sense of closure, or even the sense of what the main theme was to begin with. Second, with the exception of one of the stories, all the narratives deal with Hemon and his fairly solipsistic struggles and experiences. Even when stories purportedly revolve around another character, that individual is usually used to reveal Hemon's inner battles. He is a keen observer of other people's idiosyncrasies and foibles, and I would have liked him use those skills and apply them to construction of a large variety of colorful central characters.

Overall, this is a very well written collection that takes the reader on some interesting journey. The stories are entertaining as well as literary. It is certainly worth reading, especially if you are looking for a fresh and distinct literary voice.