Customer Reviews

Yolk

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Anybody who has a poor assessment of this book must not have a funny bone in their body. Many of these stories, I have to say, for me, don't really pan out to be what I expect from "traditional" stories. They read almost like stand-up routines. Still, I was laughing so hard that I quickly set aside these kinds of expectations and just had fun with it. These are highly inventive, quirky stories, and, somehow, they still manage to be seeringly honest about such serious topics as politics and religion. In his later books, Novakovich does handle the structual "story" aspect (which he definitely knows how to do) a little better, while keeping the humor intact. But you won't necessarily find all these jokes in his later stuff, either. If you want, read his later stuff first, then come back to this one. But if Novakovich's humor, imagination, and insight happen to strike you half as much as they strike me, I wouldn't pass this one up.

I'm ordering this book because I fell in love with the story "Apple" which appeared in a book on turning life into fiction by Robin Hemley, the Univ of Iowa Creative Nonfiction guy.
I found this story so touching, so beautifully woven, that I think it will always be among my very very favorites. The word "poignant" is overused, yet this was the very definition. I love how he weaves resonant images throughout the story, and I'm astonished that this story isn't anthologized all over the place. In its innocence and lack of judgment, such a relief from the brand-name dropping junk that so much American fiction has fallen to.

The gentle fables in Josip Novakovich's collection occassionally work, but mostly fall flat. Most of the stories reach trite conclusions and plod along. Besides the exotic locale---the former Yugoslavia---most of the people are dull. The recent ethnic conflicts serve as a constant subtext, but is never addressed successfully. The few gems in the book ("The Address", "Petrol and Chocolate", and "The Eye of God") display a charming sense of cultural displacement and near surreal occurences, where American culture serves as a common denominator and everyone dreams of heading West. But these gems are few and far between. Most of the work is safe and unchallenging, the types of stories literary journals love (most of the pieces appeared in respected little magazines). It's interesting that English isn't Novakovich's native language. Whereas Nabokov stretched and revealed English, Novakovich has a more subtle approach that's unengaging.