Slobodan Tišma is a mysterious personality of the authentic Novi Sad art scene. The general public got to know him in the Yugoslav "new wave" days of the 1980s, as the frontman and poet of the bands La Strada and Luna, two lost gems of the original new wave / post-punk / gothic rock expression, originally from the northern province. Observed today, Luna and La Strada absolutely stand in the same row not only with the most important SFRY musical groups of that time, but due to their momentum and foreboding of the melancholy of a future era, they can be ranked with the world bands-heralds of the same sensibility that we know by name today emo i bedroom rock. The mentioned criteria should, of course, be taken with extreme caution. The same applies to Tishma's innovative writing endeavors, once crowned with the NIN award. After all, he made every life-artistic project unusual in relation to anything that had ever been or was yet to become. Both in music and in literature.
The occasion for this conversation is Tismina's autobiographical book from Friska The life of a poet (Neuzac). Between the EXIT festival - when it was unobtrusively handed to us by the author himself in Novi Sad - and this issue of Vremen, we read it very carefully, first in chronological order, and then completely upside down, from the middle, from the end, back to the beginning, in odd order. or even chapters, and then according to any indescribable mathematical scheme - but, always with impatience, not letting it go. We suffered with Slobodan Tišma and immediately fell off our chairs laughing, drank with him the set drinks of love breakdowns, drunken beatings, swirling nature, youthful disorientation, that painful breaking of the head in forced leisure with the question "where to next?", faced again with early woes which everyone in his generation lived through, feverishly groping in the darkness for that glimmer of light that could lead him out of the monastic horrors of the labyrinth of growing up, to some new version of himself, whether better, whether worse, whether defeated, whether triumphant, do you…
Miroslav and Božidar Mandić, Peđa and Mladen Vranešević, brother and sister Branislav Babić Kebra and Biljana Babić, Čeda Drča, Božidar Zečević, Judita Šalgo, Dušan Makavejev, Ljubiša Ristić, Tibor Varadi, Sreten Marić are paraded here as fellow citizens or people who influence the events. , Nikola Milošević, Dušan Kovačević (in a particularly attractive cameo role), Novi Sad and Belgrade poets, actors, musicians, general practice artists, all turned outside their public personas and presented as they are privately and in the not-so-visible parts of their lives.
Eh, Tishma is in her element The life of a poet wrote with a master's pen, blood and humor, all those trials of a long-ago youth and a mature man, not allowing his youth to go silent and dishonorably dismissed. When tragedy seems imminent, he somehow eases it by forgiving the sins of others, including himself. The truth has indeed been spoken, see, but it is not at all caustic and fatal. Life goes on, all its manifestations are a form of love anyway, sometimes imperfect though, where witty puns have their elegant dignity, and real horrors emerge like unfortunate ghosts, to be appeased anyway by the compassion of time. Wicked reading.
TIME: Here is your new book by name The life of a poet before us - it has very interesting "decorative" additions to the title: astal tis riba frish i political nigredo. Can you explain each one to us?
FREE TISHMA: Astal tiš riba friš is the title of a trilogy consisting of three novels, respectively: The life of a poet, Bass guitar genius i Pastry chef. Subtitle political nigredo is a kind of poetic proposition. The poet is a political being, but without power, as it were, he is the social bottom, the most despised. Although, Friedrich Helderlin claimed the opposite, that the poet is the most powerful. But that was a long time ago. He is a publisher of novels Neusatz (Nojzac) whose owner and editor is my friend Relja Dražić. I chose this publisher because I really like the books it publishes, mainly translations of Austrian literature, which is very close to me.
The concept is autobiographical, but the book functions practically as a subcultural history of the city of Novi Sad, from the fifties onwards. So what kind of city is it, from the first line of sight?
It would be better to say that it is a kind of autograph, leaving a mark. In all my novels, Novi Sad was a kind of stage, but the scenery changed. When it comes to To life poet, that scenography is the closest to a real city. Of course, it is autofiction, in which the share of reality strongly suppresses the fictitious. The mood, the literary emotion is changeable, unstable, from horror to indescribable charm - that is, Joy of eternity, as I defined that feeling. It is all the more pleasant as we go deeper into the past. Time transforms everything, even the ugly things become dear and pleasant.
And what is your place in it?
First of all, the question arises: Who am I? A question of identity? It's hard to bear yourself. We live, that is. we survive by having a deflection through other beings, through difference. Until that moment of the most terrifying intimacy comes, when we are definitely with ourselves, we are definitely who we are. There are relationships between people, they leave a mark, they write history. Fernand Braudel said that history is written by the vanquished, although the ancient Latins claimed otherwise. And it is not only written by human beings, but also by animals, for example, horses, but also by machines and viruses. At one time, the childhood disease scarlet fever was a powerful agent, not to say a subject, until Fleming came along with penicillin. It is not without reason that the Indians say that an evil spirit has entered someone who has fallen ill. As a weak subject, i.e. an intellectually and morally inferior person, I left a weak mark. I was always taken aback, I got into trouble, everything was just written into me, but a good spirit saved me, I was very lucky.
It would be said that you personally knew everyone who contributed to Novi Sad's subculture, from poets to bums, and that you are not ashamed to, describing life situations, lay bare the good and bad sides of all those heroes, especially yourself. Who are the main positive characters in that story, are there any at all?
It is difficult to say who are positive and who are negative characters, since in writing everything needs to be reversed, to surprise. Negative characters often contribute much more to writing than positive characters, they are more picturesque and stronger actors, they drive the narrative more. Therefore, they contribute more to the reading experience. Heaven is boring, Hell is interesting. A modern writer, at least that's how I see things, shouldn't be concerned with ethics, that's the job of a journalist. Art glorifies life in its totality, and most of all when it negates it. Everything in life is polemos, any kind of war is the decisive event, but art elevates us to eternal peace. As Goethe says: Above all hills is peace. That is the consolation of art, to raise us above polemos. And it's not nirvana, it's contemplation. Anticipate High Noon. To attain wisdom, even momentarily, is the essence.
Are you nostalgic for that long-ago time and the described events that marked your youth and, previously, your childhood? In the book, the beauty of that era is often overshadowed by the insecurity of your existence?
I'm nostalgic. I need an evocation. There is no more Pavlov Street, actually, there is, but it is not the street from the fifties of the last century. That experience is stored in me and I need, from time to time, to revive it. Urvidek sank in the scenes of eternal evening, but it exists in the depths, therefore, writing is a kind of archaeology. In my childhood and youth there was a lot of pain and suffering, but joy was stronger, I was carried by eros, the thirst for life. This is why my writing and my music are filled with melancholy, that pleasant mixture of sadness and joy. One would say: nothing original.
In a way, this book could also be read as a catalog of your shameful actions, which you list precisely: you stole girls from other young men, turned your head away while your friend Red Sudarski was being beaten, deprived your band La Strada of the last fee? How have you lived with that knowledge until now?
Now it's all long gone and I can look at it without looking away. I am an inferior person, I am tormented by various fears, I was sick in my youth, but am I healthy today? However, I have to justify myself a bit: I was not someone who could defend my friends from bullies, I was too weak, clumsy. They always protected me, I had friends who took care of that, so I suffered violence again, they couldn't keep up with me. Or my father, no one could protect me from his anger, although I was guilty of a lot, I often scolded him a lot, I did more violent shit. I've never kidnapped anyone's girlfriend. I was completely incapable of such a thing. I was being teased by some of my friends' girlfriends, and I just couldn't stand up to them. Of course, there is exaggeration in all of this, it is literature and you should not take anything for granted.
Language is a special hero here. You are a man of very refined expression, both in your songs and in your books, as well as live. Nevertheless, here, in several places, you reach for the so-called "indecent words". We are thinking, for example, of the following: "Let everyone in k. Astal hebe mater to everyone”? Or to the completely unsophisticated use of terms such as "impotence", "outraged usurer", "peer violence", "family violence", "lunatic", "cellulite", "hashish", etc. Are these echoes of the jargon of your former rock and roll persona, or is it a matter of the final release of the literary language, after a sufficient historical distance from the mentioned events and personalities?
I am not a linguistic purist. I despise purity! I don't like strong identities, patriarchal stereotypes, I shy away from that. Everything that has to do with institutions is foreign to me. Thank God, I had almost nothing to do with the institutions, the fact is that I was not employed for a single day. I was always free. I always say that I write in the language that my parents spoke. That language is graphic and expressive enough, but they were polite, they almost didn't use swear words. Do young people today know what astal is? U The life of a poet I promoted Bećarac, a local linguistic and musical idiom. In the old days, I came to understand that literature is blasphemy, pure rudeness, therefore, a provocation. You must always be on the counter and make fun of the crisis. Bećarac is made for it. The Greek hero Thersites was an example of the first barker, he spoke openly about everything, he criticized Achilles, it is known how he had a good time.
Your fascination with the world of classical music could also be a very interesting dimension of the book. Operas, Schumann, Mahler, Shostakovich, Ramo, organ, bassoon, lute and many other things flow through it, almost more often than the names of rock songs. Given the "real" potential of these chapters, maybe someone will declare you our Charles Bukowski. And he, as far as is known, adored "serious" music, just as much as women. Do you like his literature, do you notice parallels?
Bukowski is a nice writer, of course it's not God knows what. I think he is a better poet than a prose writer, his prose books are alike, always the same story. His love for classical music is evident, but it is more of a kind of ambience for him, he listens to music while writing, as it were. For me, music is the essence, I create from music, it is present in my literature, not as some kind of environment, but as a basis, an inner feeling (inwardness) from which words are formed. Of course, it's funny to compare myself to Bukowski, he's a world writer, and who am I, a provincial scribbler. As for sex: in his prose he advocated promiscuity, even debauchery, which could not be said for me, I rejected it with indignation. I was a hippie in my youth, a contemporary of the so-called sexual revolution, but I didn't feel good about it, it frustrated me, I was inferior to my peers who mostly threw themselves into debauchery, without any leeway, I hated orgies, for example, I never participated in group sex , which was often practiced at that time. Also, when it came to drugs, I didn't have the courage to go beyond hashish, fixing was out of the question.
Women... in the book The life of a poet you described several of your key loves – from Helena, through Zhana to Jasna. Each of them, in its own way, offers you a lamp to look deeper into yourself. Why did you want to share your historical intimacy with us strangers?
That is absolutely true. These are the so-called types. anime, my inner female character. Helena was the love of my youth, therefore, the erotic anima. Human depravity and malice let loose the worm of doubt and it tore us apart. Although, it is a classic story, commedia dell'arte, that's how it had to be. Jeanne is Egeria, that is. Artemis, goddess of innocence and death, who watched over me when I was living in the afterlife due to illness. She saved me. Jasna was finally the right one, the woman of my life who united eroticism with spirituality and contemplation, reconciled it and gave everything a realistic framework. She is my wife, with whom I have lived for almost forty years and without whom there would be none of my literature.
What is most fascinating about The life of a poet is a totally distorted chronology and a basic disruption of time perspectives. How did you originally come up with that idea?
I have a theory of "crumpled time" - imagine, I have a theory, that a man bursts with laughter - this is defined in my previous novel Abomination or… All theories of time are spent, simply, time is incomprehensible. Science has come to the conclusion that time does not flow at all, that it is a collection of pulsating points, in fact, just one single point. But what are we going to do with that? Carl Gustav Jung gave a very good theory of synchronicity, that everything happens in parallel, multiplies without any cause and effect connection. But it is noticeable that there are a lot of irregularities. Time is reversible, jumpy, disproportionate, in a word, chaos, at least that's my experience of time and that's the chronology in the novel. A special complication is that time is inseparable from space, Einstein drew our attention to this fact. Kant nicely said that space and time are a priori givens in themselves (ding an sich) and as such inconceivable. Of course, time is not the measurement of time, as laymen usually think. I wrote something about it in my novel Four Seasons.
Now, the relationship between Aleksandar Tišma and Slobodan Tišma? You were often confused, many of those witty misunderstandings accumulated over the years - which may not have been too funny to you. Are you related in any way? In your book, you distance yourself from your namesake, stating in several places how you haven't read his books?
Nomen est omen, as the old Latins said. When I started working in literature, I wanted to take a pseudonym - because Aleksandar Tišma was already a famous writer - but I was not allowed to offend my father, to give up my surname. My father expected a lot from my pursuit of literature, unfortunately, he died, he did not get to see me as a winner of the Nino Prize. In the trilogy, there are a lot of those funny situations"error in person". I always say that Alexander is the great Tishma, and that I am the little Tishma, which annoys some people, especially his devotees, who would most like me to not exist. By the way, our literatures are incomparable, he is a European writer, and I am a scribbler from Novi Sad. Of course, apart from the last name, we are also connected by the fact that Novi Sad is the stage of our novels, but everything else is absolutely different. For example, literary procedure: he is a realist, historical discourse is very important, his experience is different, he lived in a different time. My attitude towards language is completely different, it is something very important in my case, one could not say that I am a realist, travesty, persiflage is the basis of my literary procedure. Otherwise, we are not related in any way. My ancestors are old Vojvodina people who moved from Dalmatia to Vojvodina, in the so-called Vojna Krajina, at the end of the eighteenth century, and Aleksandar's father came from Lika to Vojvodina at the beginning of the twentieth century, in order to get an education. When I went to high school, I read Tišma's novel in Letopis Matica Srpska For the black girl and I liked it very much - I even had discussions with my father, who also read the novel, he liked it too, but he had some objections about the scene of sexual intercourse that was shown in the novel. It wasn't until I was on the threshold of old age that I read his novel Remember Vala many times and I liked it very much. Of course, I knew Tishma and he even published my first poems in Letopis Matica Srpska. He had a strong persona, a strong signature, like all modernists - which could not be said for me, I don't know why I even sign my books.
We can't resist asking you something about your career as a gastronomic connoisseur: in your The life of a poet Diplomats, sahers and cake reformers are flying in from all sides. Recently, when we met in Novi Sad, you mentioned to us the "rigo janči" cake, the disappeared interior of once famous pastry shops and similar memories. Do you intend to deal with the menu and the metamorphoses of your Novi Sad table, from childhood to the present day, in a future book?
Me and Ceda Drča, my artistic companion and brother, for years, in the sun and the rain, in the frost, almost every day we sat on the sims in front of the samishka (supermarket, prim author) in the red tower, on Liman 1, and ate crunch chocolate, drank Coca-Cola and Russian kvass, we considered it some kind of secret performance. We were addicted to sugar, which is the most terrible drug. Were we waiting for someone? My mom was a big cake maher. I told you how she made a Pushkin cake for Jasna's and my wedding, a masterpiece of taste and appearance. Jasna also knows how to make wonderful cakes, but unfortunately I am not allowed to eat them, everything that was assigned to me in this life, I have already eaten. When we recently talked about the "Rigo Janči" cake, I told Jasna that I would buy her this delicacy at the first opportunity. Walking around the city, I entered various pastry shops and searched in vain, but no one had ever heard of rigo janchi. Only one woman told me in the newly opened pastry shop, on Valentina Vodnika Street, that she knows what it is, but unfortunately it is no longer made, because these new customers are not interested in cakes with strange names. By the way, that cake was named after a famous musician of Roma origin, and an unknown confectioner from Budapest came up with it at the end of the 19th century and was the first to make it. Unfortunately, pastry shops where you could once buy it rigo janchi they no longer exist, I mean "City" in Jevrejska Street, and "Nešić" in Pašićeva Street. I would hardly be able to write some kind of pastry chef, it goes like this by the way, desserts are just a kind of metaphor, a literary decoration. By the way, the third novel in the trilogy is called Pastry chef.
Finally, did you learn something important about yourself and other people, accomplices in those exciting decades that you explain while writing The life of a poet? Have you tried to justify or condemn them? Who is the main villain in this work, in the words of a literature professor?
Well, I don't know, I don't write to find out. I don't solve any mysteries by writing, I'm not Dan Brown. In my opinion, writing is a kind of epiphany, the publication of something that may or may not have happened a long time ago, or is yet to happen. I'm not judging anyone. My father, who was a judge, always told me: "Don't judge anyone." But it's hard, we keep talking da i huh, we raise something and we bury something. The main villain turned out to be an ex-friend of mine, but that's just an illusion. I may have offended him, but if he reads the novel carefully, he will see that he didn't have such a bad time. After all, literature is blasphemy, pure insolence, as I have already said. We all live with an idea, we are tolerant, we respect the other, and then we realize that there is no reconciliation, the truth must come out, it becomes known that we are ideologically on opposite sides, and then a war begins, a war of words, a soft war that threatens to turn into something much worse. At the end of the day, it's all about words. Achilles killed Thersitus under Troy, because the latter criticized him, said what was not desirable.
So, sequels are coming?
The sequel has already been written, that is, two sequels. As I said before, the second novel is called Bass guitar genius, and the third Pastry chef, and they will be published next year, I hope. ¶
