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A review by jamorley
My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci
5.0
What a great way to round out a year of reading. Displacement and alienation, loneliness, trauma, love and war, absurdity and allegory, ritual and tradition, faith. It’s terrifying, moving, and enlightening. Statovci repeatedly knocked the air out of my lungs. The translation is excellent—the language cohesive and economical. The more surreal moments reminded me of Bulgakov’s [b:The Master and Margarita|117833|The Master and Margarita|Mikhail Bulgakov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327867963l/117833._SY75_.jpg|876183], grounded in a more sinewy, visceral narrative.
The cat wanted a story whose protagonist’s life began from a set of impossible circumstances, a story that would be so heart-wrenching that it might make him shake his head at the state of the world. But he wanted the story to end in such a way that he was able to applaud the protagonist’s ability to take matters into his own hands—despite the fact that the protagonist had learned that skill specifically so that he could shake off the burden of other people’s pity—and in order to reaffirm his own beliefs. Anyone can change the direction of his life, any time at all, if only he has enough motivation: that was the moral of the story. The cat found it easier to believe this than to think about what it actually meant: that the word anyone actually referred to a very small group of people, that time has no direction, and that motivation is rarely the salient difference between people.
The cat wanted a story whose protagonist’s life began from a set of impossible circumstances, a story that would be so heart-wrenching that it might make him shake his head at the state of the world. But he wanted the story to end in such a way that he was able to applaud the protagonist’s ability to take matters into his own hands—despite the fact that the protagonist had learned that skill specifically so that he could shake off the burden of other people’s pity—and in order to reaffirm his own beliefs. Anyone can change the direction of his life, any time at all, if only he has enough motivation: that was the moral of the story. The cat found it easier to believe this than to think about what it actually meant: that the word anyone actually referred to a very small group of people, that time has no direction, and that motivation is rarely the salient difference between people.