Pages

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Review: Death of the Little Match Girl by Zoran Feric

If you've never heard of Zoran Feric, you're not alone. Although he's published several novels in his native Croatian language, little other than the odd short story has made it into English. Autumn Hill Books corrects that with Tomislav Kuzmanovic's translation of Feric's darkly odd novel Death of the Little Match Girl.

The story opens simply enough. Fero is a pathologist who lives and works in Romania. The death of a childhood friend's daughter draws him back home to Rab, a small island in the Adriatic Sea, to attend the funeral. The opening chapter is a parade of odd characters as Fero reminisces about his past life in this small town. It becomes quickly apparent that this is not a normal funeral when the priest reads the wrong eulogy and the resident crazy man of the town---who looks like Balzac in flip flops--- insists on reciting a non-sensical bit of prose at the podium.


Feric2In150dpi



Things are all told through Fero's darkly comic mouth, which gives us an unending supply of comments that range from the funny to the unnerving. Pontificating on the fate of the little girl's soul in the afterlife, Fero thinks: What would happen to her now in heaven's open fields, where all sorts of wishes come true? Would she grow a tiny wee wee?.

A number of Fero's thoughts made me chuckle, others made me say "Huh?", and a few---like the above---kind of did both. Especially all the jokes about Auschwitz. I'm not sure America is quite ready for holocaust humor.

A death occurs shortly after the funeral and the island's police inspector, an old buddy of Fero's, asks Fero to lend his expertise as a pathologist. You see, it's not just anyone who's died. It's the towns only stripper and prostitute. But this stripper had a big secret, yes she did. Or is it a he? No one's really quite sure.

After that things just get weird.

The longer Fero stays the more involved in the general oddities of the island of Rab he gets. He meets more old friends, and meeting more old friends leads into more bizarre cases. We've get a a thief who steals the endings out of library books, a gravedigger, Franciscan monks performing exorcisms, strange metallic statues appearing across the town overnight and a snuff film making the rounds of everyone's VHS player that may or may not be evidence in the stripper's murder. A large part of what Feric's doing is lampooning the style of the crime novel by smacking it on it's behind and sticking his own tongue out at the same time. The hero stumbles into his cases and pretty much solves them in the same way---if you can really say he solves them. It's not Inspector Clouseau slapstick or hardboiled Philip Marlowe, but something indefinably between the two.

I get the same feeling from Feric's writing that I get from Terry Pratchett and Christopher Moore, that he's laughing the whole time he's writing. But his jokes are a lot dirtier and profoundly politically incorrect, at least by U.S. standards. The novel's title, for example, has nothing to do with the old folk tale of the little match girl. It's a bad sexual pun about the size of the dead prostitute's male genitalia.

I can't personally vouch for the quality of the translation, because I don't know the first thing about translating from Croatian. I can say it's phrased in a style that's descriptive and sometimes even thoughtful, but still easy to read in a commercial, mainstream kind of way. I have a nagging suspicion I'm missing something because I don't know enough about that part of the world. Some secret joke, some cultural reference, something that takes this to a higher level of meaning. But for the life of me I can't begin to tell you what it might be. While its lewd content prevents me suggesting this to just anyone, I can say I had a good time with this. It's all smartly written, embarrassingly funny and I enjoyed it despite myself. Readers with a thick skin and an open mind will have a good time, but sensitive souls would do best to stay away.

Excelsior

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great review. Thanks for exploring the kind of fiction that doesn't often make it into the mainstream. How did you find this?

Hebdomeros said...

I write reviews for a couple of different magazines, mostly library trade journals. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit the mold of the magazine that sent it to me (it's a journal devoted to teen's and children's lit). But that's why I have this blog-thingy here...to review stuff I wouldn't otherwise have a chance to write about. Thanks for asking!

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. Based on your description, it sort of sounds like teens might like it, some of the teens I know would at least. Maybe it was the journal that didn't think it fit? Anyway, thanks again and keep it up!

Hebdomeros said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hebdomeros said...

More the journal. I definitely know a few teens who would like it, and I know I would have liked it at that age. The journal didn't think it had enough broad appeal to review, though. Thanks for your comments!

Anonymous said...

Since it starts off in Romania, I may have to read it now. However, I've read some Christopher Moore who, though light-hearted, doesn't really do the sort of writing I enjoy reading.