photo: Goranka Matić...
Every Thursday, I first look in "Vremen". Theophilus "Side effects". I've known for a year that I won't find them, but still, just in case: what if Theophilus found a way to get the text to us? Death won't stop him from writing, will he? He was in worse situations. In Prijepolje, for example, ten years ago, an experienced traveler was waiting for a bus to Beograd at the Prijepolje bus station: namely, buses usually arrive at bus stations and depart from bus stations, which was also Teofilo's assumption, sealed by experience. It was getting close to the arrival time of the bus just before midnight, he waited patiently, the bus was a little late, he didn't get nervous, then it was a little more late and he still got nervous, and when he went to ask when the bus would be, they coldly informed him that the bus arrived on time and left on time, the only thing they missed was to inform him, the passenger, that the bus was not (actually) coming to the station - which he had naively hoped for - but the passengers bought on a nearby overpass, after which he sent me messages full of anger all night about the staff, the bus, fate, drunken station rowdies, and especially himself, which, of course, would be painful if it weren't hilariously humorous, Theophilus. And I didn't delete his number from the directory either. What if he calls? Maybe on his own initiative, he finds an overpass (and gets on it), or an old phone booth, like the ones in the Matrix, and calls.
Not a day goes by that I don't think of him. And I'm not the only one.
Teofil began to write newspaper texts in a sentence that no one had written in this language. Long, elegant and unstoppable, that sentence defied all journalistic dogmas, especially the first one: write simply and in short sentences. Neither did he write simply, nor were his sentences short. Such an approach to writing and life took him among the columnists, but there was no one like him there either. He learned from Veselko Tenžera, Igor Mandić, Bogdan Tirnanić - he had a lot to learn - but his pen took a path that, in fact, did not exist before him. The most in that sentence was Krleža and cold Krležian anger, a ferocity that never got out of control, but that sentence was able to change the register and find a tone that suited the circumstances. Teofilo's texts written for NATO interventions against Milošević regime, for example, at the time when "Vreme" was published in the format of the former red "Borba" (so when a newspaper spread its wings, one could hide behind it), there were small masterpieces in which the writer would say everything he had to say, despite censorship and danger, with a style he did not give up, but also with a tone set so that even the censors could not reach him. Teofil was a master craftsman.
Teofil Pančić's language is most like an avalanche: it moves with enormous speed and breaks everything in front of it. If it overwhelms you - you're done. However, it will only come down on you if you deserve it. No one was observed to have been swept away by the avalanche who did not invoke the avalanche through stupidity, recklessness, creepiness, or a choice to reek of fascism. Of course, Teofil was not the only one with a keen sense for recognizing the banality of evil - or, as he said, the evil of banality - but he was the only one (along with Boris Dežulović) who introduced ugly words and expressions into his linguistic arsenal in such a way that they lost their vulgar substance and became precise linguistic functions. That sentence in swing hit like a sledgehammer, except when, especially in literary criticism, it became less prickly and softer.
Those who studied literature learned Theophilus literary classify criticism as impressionistic. Apart from the fact that such a definition is, I guess, part of some kind of classification, it is also somewhat offensive: a person writes based on an impression, not on the basis of some schemes and with the help of scientific apparatus. yes, newspaper these are criticisms, they can be so little, nothing, impressionistic. But they were (and remain) very interesting. Therefore, unlike learned critics (who will kill you with boredom), Teofil wrote with passion, dedication, humor and intelligence, so his texts about books were able to be more interesting than the books themselves. Thanks to his specific taste and focus on contemporary literature, domestic and translated, he drew our attention to dozens of writers who, as a rule, remain beyond the reach of those who, as we said, study literature (so they don't deal with trivia, but only with eternity). For Teofilo, literature was first and foremost a joy, so he read Nick Horby and Helen Fielding, Martin Amis and Mikael Niemi, Gaita Gazdanov and Sergej Dovlatov, Erland Lu and Karl Uwe Knausgaard (and hundreds of others), finding in his readings exactly what makes literature a joy.
