Monday, April 20, 2009

Apologia

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway is "a profoundly moving and universal novel about what it means to be human in the face of atrocity." (The Cellist of Sarajevo - Book Review) It’s the incredibly humane and realistic quality of this novel that gripped me as the reader. It wasn’t the setting or the plot, although they complimented the theme nicely. "The themes and characters [in this novel] exist wherever ordinary people find themselves caught in war. Sarajevo could have been Lebannon or Chechnva or Iraq or a half-dozen other places." (The Cellist of Sarajevo - Book Review) And the fact that the situation in this novel is so real and is happening in our world today makes it so much easier to be immersed in the story.

This novel is based on the events that occurred in Sarajevo in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The sniping from the men on the hills and the innocent deaths and struggles of men, women and children in the city are real tragedies from the past. However, it’s not this idea of it being a ‘true story’ that makes it so real and human. It is the way in which the characters are so imperfect, broken and accordingly real that they remind us of someone we know, or maybe even ourselves. It’s the theme of perseverance and never ever giving up and doing the right thing by reaching out to someone else even if it doesn’t benefit you. It’s the manner of which these brave people struggle not to give in, to let the war make their decisions and steal their humanity. In any ordinary adventure noel there are struggles, usually overcome by the amazing hero who is not wavered by anything. However, this novel is more human than any of those because the characters, try as they might, cannot always keep up their hope. They falter, and they are scared. Dragan doesn’t rescue Emina, he watches as someone else does. Kenan doesn’t help the wounded after the explosion, as he can’t even make himself move. Arrow kills the sniper when he was only enjoying the cellist’s music. They all make mistakes and they all lose and regain hope. This is what makes them so incredibly human and so much more real than the heroes of adventure stories.

Steven Galloway "really wanted to write a book about what high-pressure, wartime situations do to ordinary people — not professional soldiers, or generals or politicians." (Music for a Broken City) It is these ordinary people in his book that make the story so relatable. Readers can relate their lives to the situations of the characters. Maybe one reader is a cellist, or one works at a bakery, like Dragan. It might be easy for them to see how their lives differ from those in the novel. It might not be as easy for them to see what they would do in the place of one of the characters.

This novel and it’s author are each a prize in Canadian literature. It’s not hard to find a writer who can create exciting dramatic plots, or paint meticulous settings in your head, or make up charismatic and heroic characters. However, an author who can create a work of such humanity in a style in which mostly any age of reader can enjoy is a gem. The Cellist or Sarajevo is timeless. There will never come a time when suffering and struggles will not be a part of humanity, and so this book will always touch every person who reads it. The theme of reaching out to others and banding together to keep up each other’s hope will always inspire awe and grief and pathos in the reader, driving them to do the same with their life.

1 comment:

  1. This is a good defence of the novel and its place in the canon. Is it the multicultural character of Canada that is producing this very global subject matter in its literature? A question worth pursuing! There are places where I thought you could draw much more from the text to exhibit Galloway's style. Overall, a good piece of writing.

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