wiolettame's review
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
fast-paced
4.5
the author had such a great ability to communicate the futility and confusion felt in the face of war even to someone who has never experienced it + a great sense of clarity and understanding of the nefarious ways in which it seeps into your life and manufactures more war-mongering
armina_salemi's review against another edition
5.0
به شکل شگفت‌انگیزی، الان که دارم ریویو می‌نویسم متوجهش شدم، که جنگ ناگهان رخ نمی‌ده. و تمام طول کتاب داشت تصویر گاز مسموم و خزنده‌ی جنگ رو و ناتوانی آدم‌ها از تشخیصش تا وقتی که دقیقاً وارد خونه‌شون بشه، ترسیم می‌کرد.
جنگ چیز عجیبی نیست.
پشت دره.
جنگ چیز عجیبی نیست.
پشت دره.
avthenas's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. This was a such a powerful and immensely important book that touched me deeply. Slavenka Drakulić (who’s quickly becoming a safe bet for me) once again shared her personal experience with post-communism in short fragments, this time focused explicitly on the Yugoslavian conflict in the 1990s, gruesome accounts as well as daily life during wartime and reflections on the ”war only happens to other people“-mentality. It can (and should) also be read as a timeless document against prejudice and dangerous political speech and nationalism. If you‘re not sure if this might be your thing, check out the prologue and the very last chapter, ”High-heeled shoes“.
some of the passages I underlined:
”At last people in the West began to grasp what was going on. It was suddenly clear that Europe hadn’t learned its lesson, that history always repeats itself and that someone is always a Jew. Once the concept of otherness takes root, the unimaginable becomes possible. Not in some mythological country but to ordinary urban citizens.“
(I visited a concentration camp memorial site just last week for the second time, and considering the state of national and international politics as of right now, these words are so impactful.)
”I’ve read in the newspapers that you refugees are getting more money per month from the state than we retired people do’ (...) I felt an almost physical need to explain to him that I am not ‘we’ (...), I think I have never experienced such a terrible urge to distinguish myself from others, to show this man that I was an individual with a name and not an anonymous exile trying to steal his money.“
*
”The truth is that everytime the word refugee is pronounced, in my mind it recalls pictures of women covered with black scarves and poorly dressed, their faces wrinkled, their ankles swollen, dirt under their nails. One can see them wandering through the city in groups with that particular look of lost persons. Some of them beg in restaurants or at street corners or just sit in the main square. Who are these people, I asked myself, realizing at the same time what a strange question it was, a question poised between the cliché established for us by the media and the fact that they are no different from us, only less lucky.“
*
”What I am starting to do is to reduce a real, physical individual to an abstract ’they‘ – that is, to a common denominator of refugees (...). From there to second-class citizen - or rather, non-citizen - who owns nothing and has no rights. Now I think I understand what I couldn‘t understand before: how it happened that people who lived near German concentration camps didn‘t do anything, didn‘t help.“
*
”Why should they bother with the screams of thousands of people being bombed or simply dying of hunger, when those screams can hardly be heard?“
some of the passages I underlined:
”At last people in the West began to grasp what was going on. It was suddenly clear that Europe hadn’t learned its lesson, that history always repeats itself and that someone is always a Jew. Once the concept of otherness takes root, the unimaginable becomes possible. Not in some mythological country but to ordinary urban citizens.“
(I visited a concentration camp memorial site just last week for the second time, and considering the state of national and international politics as of right now, these words are so impactful.)
”I’ve read in the newspapers that you refugees are getting more money per month from the state than we retired people do’ (...) I felt an almost physical need to explain to him that I am not ‘we’ (...), I think I have never experienced such a terrible urge to distinguish myself from others, to show this man that I was an individual with a name and not an anonymous exile trying to steal his money.“
*
”The truth is that everytime the word refugee is pronounced, in my mind it recalls pictures of women covered with black scarves and poorly dressed, their faces wrinkled, their ankles swollen, dirt under their nails. One can see them wandering through the city in groups with that particular look of lost persons. Some of them beg in restaurants or at street corners or just sit in the main square. Who are these people, I asked myself, realizing at the same time what a strange question it was, a question poised between the cliché established for us by the media and the fact that they are no different from us, only less lucky.“
*
”What I am starting to do is to reduce a real, physical individual to an abstract ’they‘ – that is, to a common denominator of refugees (...). From there to second-class citizen - or rather, non-citizen - who owns nothing and has no rights. Now I think I understand what I couldn‘t understand before: how it happened that people who lived near German concentration camps didn‘t do anything, didn‘t help.“
*
”Why should they bother with the screams of thousands of people being bombed or simply dying of hunger, when those screams can hardly be heard?“
telahe's review against another edition
5.0
جنگ نه باشکوهه، نه حماسی و نه قهرمانانه، جنگ فقط یعنی مرگ و قتل، اگر غیر از این فکر میکنین این کتاب رو بخونید.
amalia1985's review against another edition
1.0
Balkan blood runs in my veins and I am proud of it. I have read extensively on the subject of the terrible war that left a deep, bloody mark on the Balkan region during the early 90s. This book is probably one of the worst I've ever read.
Most writers try to provide an honest, balanced, level-headed account of the conflict. This book was full of cheap sentimentalism, hysterics, prejudices and hate speech. She claimed that ''nationality'' creates dangerous boundaries, she preaches against authoritarianism and violence and yet she does not forget to include every offensive remark uttered by citizens against other citizens. She creates an extremely one-sided account of the conflict and her writing reads like a lecture. Or a melodramatic gossip. Not to mention that she is sarcastic towards films that depicted the Nazis as monsters. Yes, sure. They weren't monsters at all... Those films probably hurt her feelings...
No, simply no.
Most writers try to provide an honest, balanced, level-headed account of the conflict. This book was full of cheap sentimentalism, hysterics, prejudices and hate speech. She claimed that ''nationality'' creates dangerous boundaries, she preaches against authoritarianism and violence and yet she does not forget to include every offensive remark uttered by citizens against other citizens. She creates an extremely one-sided account of the conflict and her writing reads like a lecture. Or a melodramatic gossip. Not to mention that she is sarcastic towards films that depicted the Nazis as monsters. Yes, sure. They weren't monsters at all... Those films probably hurt her feelings...
No, simply no.
rhodered's review against another edition
3.0
A collection of essays. Imagine you were a baby boomer woman, but instead of being born in the West, you were born in Eastern Europe (in this case the former Yugoslavia, which was not a soviet state, but enormously influenced by the soviets.) Now imagine that you're in your mid-40s, when your life should be stable, established and becoming easier, when instead your country falls into civil war.
That's what this book is about.
That's what this book is about.
More...