Book 159: (Northern) Macedonia (English) – Spectator (Zarko KUJUNDZISKI)

He waited for the light in the hall to go off and then he took the bundle of keys out of his pocket. He sighed, relieved, when the long grey metal key entered completely in the lock. He unlocked the lock gently and pushed the door without making a sound. He closed the door. The eyehole lit up again, and the outer gate banged, which indicated that somebody had entered the building. Gertie Finsches waited for the things to become visible contours in the dark. Only then did he lean the suitcase against the umbrella holder and enter on tiptoes into the next room. In his hands he was holding something wrapped in decorative paper for wrapping presents.

I’ve been really lucky with my choices for this project so far. But despite the blurb on the cover (”The BEST selling debut novel in contemporary Macedonian literature”) and five pages of glowing reviews inside, Spectator, which I picked up when I visited Macedonia in 2014, didn’t grab me. As always, I’m happy to blame myself…

Although billed as a novel, it is effectively a chain of short stories, almost all of them in separated pairs. Normally I would expect a novel to have more unity in theme and plot. It was hard for me to detect a common note in the stories, unless it was voyeurism or watching others (spectating?). There seemed to be little depth to the stories, which seemed to go nowhere – as you might perhaps expect if they recount only what can be seen on the surface.

I was also disappointed because Spectator told me nothing about Northern Macedonia – the stories take place in Germany, Italy, Russia, France, England, Czechia, and Slovenia. I’m always hoping to learn more about the country I’m reading.

As always with a work translated from a language I don’t know, there must be a caveat about the unknown quality of the translation. Some words seem to make no sense – what is a car-tower? (If it is a multistorey parking station, it makes no sense in this context). Likewise, “For how long are we going to we know, with him not aware that he didn’t know?” seems devoid of sense. There are some apparent typos – “A Boeing 732-300 took off from Tegel” – presumably it should have been a 737-300.

But some of the writing just seemed to me to be bad. (’”Say one more thing and I will strangle you, get it?” This was a threat.’)

So – for me, I felt that Spectator had little depth, despite lots of minute detail, and I didn’t find the quality of writing impressive. But you might think otherwise.

Kujundziski, Zarko (КУЈУНЏИСКИ, Жарко) (1980 – ), Spectator, translated from Macedonian by Nikolche Mickoski, Skopje, Antolog, 2011, ISBN 978-608-4507-11-6