Customer Reviews

How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

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I picked up this novel after attempting (and then giving up on) a couple of others that I felt I was wasting my time on. I wanted to read a valuable book...and then I found one.

This starts out happy. And then it gets a little bleak. And then it comes together in a manic fit of emotion.

This is Aleksandar's documented memory and it provides so much insight to his shattered world. At times, we are as disillusioned as he is-but then he enlightens us with his deft storytelling... His sporadic thoughts...

"If I were a magician who could make things possible, I'd have lemonade always tasting as it did on the evening Francesco explained how right it was for the Italian moon to be a feminine moon. If I were a magician who could make things possible, we'd be able to understand all languages every evening between eight and nine. If I were a magician who could make things possible, all dams would keep their promises. If I were a magician who could make things possible, we'd be really brave."

Sasa Stanisic is a truly innovative author. This was spectacular.

Whether the term "migrant literature" is justified in its existence is a question that is, hm, existential. Sasa Stanisic may not think it is, but whatever the theoretical basis, DO READ this book, please! Even if you think you've read about all the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tales sparkling with magic realism, pop-culture, wayward tragicomedy and lyrical interludes you can take, read it. In the author's adopted home country of Germany, it's a much publicized fact that he came as a refugee from Visegrad, Bosnia-Hercegovina (engraved in literature by 1961 Nobel Prize Winner Ivo Andric) at age 14 without speaking a word of German but started publishing to great success years ago and pulled off this poetic, inventive masterpiece when he was all of twice that age.

Anthea Bell's translation is certainly competent, though occasionally she doesn't quite hit the offbeat tone. But, in fairness, that's tough to do. Even in the original there are chapters where it takes pages to grasp what's going on, and I strongly hope that readers will apply some patience where necessary, because it will be rewarded. The most poignant example is the tour-de-force chapter (too long to quote) between pages 256 and 276 about a soccer game between warring factions turned bloody, which is based on a true event.

So why should American readers care about mental pole vaults on a part of the world with rituals, wars and sports they may not understand? Because the book makes a mark. Clever? For sure. Think Jonathan Safran Foer getting drunk with Gary Shteyngart, and I said this before I saw that the latter threw in his praise on the back flap. Biased reviewer? Maybe, though only to the extent that I hold writers whose vita bears any resemblance to mine to a higher standard. But find out for yourself.

I well remember the frustration I felt when I would sit and listen to the news about the war in Bosnia, about the snipers, the mass killings, the ethnic cleansing (I hate that term), and the destruction of the beautiful city of Sarajevo. I was hoping, young that I was, that the world would set this all straight. Boy was that bubble burst in an instant.

This book brings all of that back. With a staccato almost like a machine gun, he lets the memories of the war, and the time before, shoot the reader. Its a heartbreaking book about a heartbreaking war, but it could be about any war, any time, anywhere.

Caveat - his writing style is not for everyone. Some people may find the twists, turns and cloverleafs a bit daunting. There were times I had to put it down and read something else for a bit to get my balance. Others might be put off by the stream of consciousness. My suggestion to you is to just read and not worry about the style. I know for me, despite some confusion here and there, the time spend was well worth it!

This is the fictional story of a boy, Aleksander, growing up in Visegrad in Bosnia as the war begins in 1992. He and his family escape the violence to live in Germany and 10 years later Aleksander returns to see what has changed, find people from his past and capture his childhood memories. The story is told in an unusual way with flashbacks and imagination. As the story begins, Aleksander's beloved Grandpa dies suddenly and through the book there are references to him and to other characters in the town. As a child it is hard for Aleksander to make sense of the changes in his life as the "ethnic cleansing" begins in his town and he learns that your name determines whether you survive or not. Based around real events, the author has written in a beautiful and innovative manner, (sometimes challenging - but stick with it!), whimsical at times, as the reader understands better than Aleksander (as a child) what is happening. When he returns as an adult, he finds change but his love for his town and the River Drina on which it stands, remains constant.

There's something to be said for the linear story, a tale that has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and progesses from one to the next with certainty. However, some stories don't fit into the linear format; rather, they can be understood only in circular form. Sasa Stanisic's "How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone" is of the latter variety. It's only in its disorganization that its true meaning can be found.

The book revolves around Aleksandar Krsmanovic, a young boy living in Visegrad, Yugoslavia. He is close to his grandfather, Slavko, and delights in all the things that engage a young child - being with friends, playing soccer, fishing, enjyoing stories. After his grandfather dies of a heart attack, he promises that he will continue Slavko's storytelling. Unfortunately, Aleksandar's stories quickly go from the innocence of childhood to the reality of war that soon strikes Visegrad, a town caught up in the Yugoslav civil war.

However, this book isn't about any particular battle. It's not about soldiers or troops or which side stood for what. Rather, it's the story of one child, caught up in a world he doesn't understand. Told from Aleksandar's viewpoint as a young man ten years after Slavko's death, it's an attempt to comprehend what happened to the town he called home, the people he called friends. It's his trying to make sense of what it means when neighbor turns against neighbor, family member against family member. It's about trying to reconcile the past with the present, the world as it was and the world as it is now.

Throughout the book, we are drawn into Aleksandar's storytelling, as he reflects on the distant past, the war, and the present. The novel often changes from one time period to the next without warning, which initially irked me. But when you accept that this isn't a linear tale, it's okay. In some ways, it reminded me of Markus Zusak's "The Book Thief" in its abstract-ness, but the World War II work has much more of a concrete tale than this one. "How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone" is more about impressions, feelings, emotions, than it is about a series of specific events. It's not the type of book I imagined liking, but it's one I'm so glad I read.

My wife and I are posted to the Balkans for one year and have spent time in Bosnia. For this reason, the novel has a special resonance for us. Both of us have read it and admire the humor (one of the funniest I've read) and the craziness of life in war-time. It is unlike anything you will read this year. Give it, and the author, a chance.

This is a great book. It is also a very heavy one and frequently disorganized. It tells about horrible things that seemingly friendly and neighborly people could do to each other. It is also an emotional testimonial to what preceded and has happened in Bosnian towns during the war in the early 1990s (in this case Visegrad) from the viewpoint of someone who grew up there and witnessed most, and certainly not all, that has been going on. Some of the events he missed while being in refuge in Germany the author deftly describes from testimonies of survivors who told about it and some of it he leaves to readers to guess. The complexity of emotional dilemmas and everyday horrors confronting people is incapacitating, yet they have to carry on. The leitmotif of the book is the river Drina which was eternalized in the same surroundings by Ivo Andric some 40 years before. Ivo Andric was the only Yugoslavian recipient of Noble prize for literature and it was for the book "Bridge over Drina" depicting Visegrad bridge building during Ottoman times. History seems to repeat itself as cohabitance of Christians and Muslims produces same unthinkables all over again. The river Drina seems to provide the focal childhood point of grace, beauty and solace for the author and an almost Begninian "la Vita e Bella" effect even after the realization that his own family member may be implicated in the worst way.
The book is easier to follow with some previous knowledge about ethnic names and relationships they dictate. Without that knowledge it may be hard at times to follow and understand what is going on. But, nevertheless, this is a strongly poetic book. Sasa Stanisic is good at visualizing and writes with ease and grace. I enjoyed this book.

This special novel was written in a very unusual style. It was like being in the mind of a young boy as he watchs his world unfold in front of him. The descriptions are all on target with their language and reasoning of what may or may not be going on in the moment. Wonderful once you can think like the narrorator..

Read Chapter 1 and Chapter 4. They are both pretty brilliant, more as short stories than anything else. If you do not read the rest don't feel bad. What you miss is a hodgepodge of people and chronological ordering and a story that doesn't go anywhere in any meaningful way. Think of a gramophone playing a scratched record, interesting in a wonderful postmodern way, but how long can we listen before we crave more? As the main character changes and grows his language and thoughts remain too youthful. Finally it all ends up like reading a notebook full of sparks, some really bright, but nothing coalesces. I seemed to find nods to the style of Eugenedes' Middlesex and to Joyce (the soul of the river flowing through the characters) and to parts of the Grass' The Tin Drum. Still as a first book it's pretty good, perhaps full of influences and most likely a bit overrated in the press because of it's subject, the nationality of it's author, and the exoticizing of foreign writers by American reviewers. Most surprising to me: published by Grove and not Dalkey.

I've never done this... review a book without actually having read it. But, I'm extremely tired and nauseated with all the left-wing anti-Serbian propaganda that comes out all the time... What's next for this "promising" author. A tale of woe in a re-imagining of the birth pains of the Kosovo Republic? Blah blah blah... It's always nice to be able to just decide to create one's own country against the wishes of the majority of the population and it's rightful government. They love that story here in the U.S. Why not? I'm gonna tell all my Mexican friends to revolt and create a new country with Los Angeles as it's capitol...
Whatever the case may be...this story might actually be a decent one...but it's at the expense of demonizing the wonderful Serbian people. A people who, because of their strength and conviction, kept Yugoslavia out of the Soviet Union's embrace and made it a wonderful country to live in, communism notwithstanding. But, as always, Islamic fanatics are never happy unless everyone around them is miserable...and this is why that war started in Yugoslavia. And it's also why Europe has lost it's identity...and why America is next and will lose it's identity as well.