Walking through Zagreb on a chilly day around New Year seems like strolling through a gritty jumble of contrary histories. A whiff of the Viennese 19th century monarchy breathes through the old theatre and galleries, and clashes formidably with soviet-style amenities and the omnipresent, post- cold war coating of grey. Beauty does come into the picture, especially when strolling through the picturesque old city centre – but mostly, the city seems a palimpsest of memories and narratives. It is too perfectly torn between the past of old men frequenting fish bars at the market that don’t seem to have changed since the 60s, and the future of the unabashed girls in glitzy-kinky mini dresses already tipsy with their New Year’s partying.
Alas, though, it seems that the great Zagreb novel still needs to be written, or is so well hidden away in the depths of literary history and the idiosyncarcies of the croation langauge that the publishing industry hasn’t unearthed it yet. Writing contemporary Zagreb, therefore, is definitely on the gritty side, and is all the more authentic for it. Edo Popović proves this with hard-bitten grandeur. Zagreb, we learn, is THE setting to waste your youth and wreck your adulthood, all while trying to save yourself with pure “literary affectation” – and glorious self-irony on the part of the author. The “cheap street anecdotes and other trickery” certainly work, though, while the characters – Baba and Vera, Kančeli and Stjepan – smoke and drink their way through the heat of mid-summer Croatia.
This is post-Soviet flânerie, a twist on the 19th century elegance of Parisian, turtle-walking dandy, only that the figures here stumble their way into any dead end possible. What they lack in style, they make up for in melancholic gusto. The good news is: you can do just the same. Take a bottle of red wine or two, skip work, and get into the mood of the everyday absurdity of Exit South.
wordsandworlds.net 