Villion (Vilikon), a novel by Jasna Horvat (book review)
Hello dear readers and fellow bloggers! In this post, I shall review Villion (in original Vilikon) a novel by contemporary Croatian author Jasna Horvat. Nomen est omen, so let's discuss the title first. Villion is the anglicized version of Croatian title Vilikon, hinting at words 'lexicon' and 'vila' (a Croatian word for a fairy or an elf). The original title in Croatian combines the words 'lexicon' and 'fairy', and this is indeed appropriate for the framed narrator of the novel Marco Polo will tell us stories about the (Croatian) fairy world and the novel itself feels like a fairy lexicon or dictionary at times. Beside the word lexicon the title also hints at Marco Polo's nickname (million), so therefore Villion. Why Marco Polo? Because he is the framed narrator of this postmodernist novel. However, before we get into more detail, let's say a few words about this contemporary author Jasna Horvat, and my experience with her books so far. This was not my first novel by Jasna Horvat, previously I have read and I reviewed one of her novels (the historical novel Az) on my blog.
Jasna Horvat is both a contemporary educator and a writer, an University professor and a novelist. That's quite an interesting combination, isn't it? The best way to characterize her literary opus is methodological and planned. Never have I seen an author who seems to have planned her entire literary opus in advance, and in such a mathematical and scientific way. As I review more of her books on my blog, you'll see what I'll mean. It is really extraordinary the way her books are simultaneously interconnected and genre spanning. I would describe Jasna Horvat's postmodernist novels are an unique blend of captivating narration and of scientific facts mixed with trivia. In her writing I feel a presence of intense curiosity and an obvious interest in Croatian culture. Some of Horvat's novels feel like mini encyclopedias, some are more plot driver, but all are characteristically hers in tone and atmosphere. I'd say that Jasna Horvat's writing style is easily recognizable and quite appropriable to the reader.
When I did a bit of research about Jasna Horvat for the purpose of this blog post, I found out her novels are close to the principles of Oulipo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), a literary group founded in France by mathematicians and writers, that uses mathematical principles in writing. Jasna Horvat's work is sometimes compared to Italo Calvino, and indeed I personally compared her with him in my head a number of times, and for a number of reasons, but most of all perhaps because of their joint interest in history. Italo Calvino was also a member of this Oulipo literary group. This information was something new to me, and I might look more into it more to learn about Oulipo writing techniques and philosophy. While Oulipo was somewhat unknown to me, I could recognize easily the postmodernist techniques and themes in Horvat's writing. Naturally, I'm no stranger to postmodernist literature, as reading it was a part of my education. Like Calvino and other postmodernist writers, Jasna Horvat employs framed and unreliable narration, as well as metafiction, reminding a reader that what they are reading is a work of fiction. Moreover, like other postmodernist works, Horvat's novel are marked by intertextuality, a reexamining of the past and self-reflection. There is even some technology in Horvat's book, her books often include QR codes, allowing the reader to scan and access for example a reading of Kubla Khan by Benedict Cumberbatch, thus closing the gap between a physical book and digital reality. The intertextuality in Villion is particularly strong, the novel opens with a quote from Jorge Luis Borges (Coleridge's Dream) . The novel contains a lot of quotations from both writers, works of fiction and literary critics making it a sort of encyclopedia not just about what was written about Marco Polo, Kubla Khan and the fairy world, but about literature itself.
“A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.”
The book actually opens with Jasna complaining how she felt betrayed by Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan, because just as she found herself in the palace of his imagination, the poem suddenly ended. Jasna says she does not like to imagine neither the beginning nor the end of a story. Of course, one could say the genious of Coleridge's poem is exactly in that it feels like a fragment of a vision or a part of a dream. Anyhow, Jasna Horvat goes on to discuss the nature of storytelling itself in this novel, and she takes us on quite a journey. She says she needs a narrator and one that she cares about, and recalls how Italo Calvino used Marco Polo in his Invisible Cities (that also happens to me one of my favourite books).
* Quoted from Vilicon (Vilikon) by Jasna Horvat!
Now, that we have established who the author is, as well as the literary genre and the cultural background for this novel, let's get back the experience of reading novel itself. When did I read it? How? Why? Not that I need any motivation to read anything, for reading is one of my favourite things to do. However, the reason why I wanted to read more from Jasna Horvat was simply because I liked what I read so far. So, when a saw there were a lot of her books in library in Jelsa, I picked up about five of them. I didn't manage to finish them all, but I might have had the chance to do so this Summer. Fingers crossed. Anyway, I read this novel maybe one or two months ago. I really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you. I like contemporary literature as much as I like the classics.
I always remember a quote that criticizes literature teachers for ignoring new authors:
„ What about- the story? You asked, almost shyly. He glanced at you. Did you, perhaps, bring one of your own stories to show to him? You’re not crazy, you said. He seemed relieved: for nobody despises young, new literature more than a professor of literature. For them, after Ulysses no passage is worthy of attention. Despite of that, they will continue debating the future of the novel. But not your novel. Mild interest, if there was any, dissolved together with cocoa.” Don't speak Ill of the Living*, Milana Vuković Runjić
I'm not that literature teacher who despises new authors and I hope I will never be that literature teacher. I do not despise new authors, I often like them a lot. I read new authors. I buy both 'new' and 'old' books. I go to book promotions and I talk with authors. I believe in contemporary literature just as much as I believe in the classics. The literature has always existed, and hopefully it will always exist. There isn't a point of history when literature stopped existing. Art will exist as long as artists exist. If you have to wait two centuries to be able to call a book literature, what kind of literature teacher are you? Are you afraid to go into the unknown? Do you have any real opinions of your own or are you just copying other people's homework? Do you need centuries of thought and research to hide behind? The value of a work of art is obvious to all who can see it. Those who have to wait for centuries to pass to do it make me suspicious. Are they even seeing the real value? Maybe we need to remember that the value of a book is in the enjoyment itself.
*quoted from Seven Nights by
However, I digress. The photographs I'm sharing today were all taken in Jelsa, some in caffe, some while walking near I remember reading this novel in Jelsa, sitting on my terrace, in the company of a black and white cat I dearly miss. The book itself was quite approachable read. A lovely copy, too. Filled with nice illustrations and fragmented narrative, this novel reminded of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. Not without reason, for this novel actually cites and refers to Invisible Cities. It also cited the famous poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Have you read that poem per chance? If you haven't, you really should, and here is a link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43991/kubla-khan
Kubla Khan
A Poem by Samuel Taylor Colerigde
Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
Villion (Vilikon in original) uses framed narration. The author herself writes in third person narration, but we also have framed narrative, because Marco Polo narrates stories about the fairy world to Kubla Khan, and he narrates stories about Kubla Khan's court to us. So, one narrator is Marco Polo, narrating the stories about the fairy world to Kubla Khan, but as readers we are also privy to his thoughts. Why about the fairy world in particular? It seems to have been something that captured the Kubla Khan's imagination. I really enjoyed the talk of fairies, as mythology has always been an interest of mine.
I found the characterization of both Kubla Khan and Marco Polo interesting. Kubla Khan's life and court is described in detail. There is talk of China, and Mongolia. This novel takes place towards the end of Marco Polo's stay with Kubla Khan. The book describes Marco as wanting to go back home, but where is home?
Marco Polo was a Venetian traveller, merchant and writer. There are theories that Marco Polo was born on island Korčula, but they have not been proven or widely accepted. It seems that the author in this book refers to these origin theories in order to connect Marco Polo with the Slavic mythological themes.
Yes, there is a historical house on island Korčula that belonged to noble Polo family. However, at that time Korčula was under the jurisdiction and rule of Venetian Republic, so even if it is true, Marco Polo would still have been born in Venetian Republic. Yes, Marco Polo's last name was probably of Slavic origin and he himself often signed himself as Pol, instead of Italian version Polo, but that alone proves nothing. He wrote in Italian, he returned to the Venetian Republic and lived the rest of his days there.
So, to hear Marco Polo talk about returning to Kingdom of Croatia in this book seems odd. The Kingdom of Croatia did exist at the time ( in alliance with Kingdom of Hungary), but wouldn't it have been far away from the area he might have been born? Do we even know if Marco Polo ever visited it, yet alone longed to return to it? Or by this does she mean the present day territory linked to his supposed but not proven birthplace? This part was a bit unclear. Yes, Marco Polo might have been born on island Korčula, and his family probably had Slavic origin at some point, but it is all speculation at this point. What we do know for sure is that he was born and died in Venetian Republic and was a subject of Venetian Republic. The historical records on that subject are pretty clear.
However, Marco has travelled a lot, so it is possible he would have been familiar with all kinds of mythologies, Slavic mythology included. I really enjoyed the park of this book that was about mythology and fairies, and it was a big portion of the book. I feel like the author is really knowledgeable on this topic.
Furthermore, I really liked the part that focused on Marco's personal thoughts and reflections. I felt like there is a special kind of understanding between Marco Polo and Kubla Khan. You can feel they belong to different cultures, even different generations but somehow they speak one to another, and I liked that.
I enjoyed how you can feel they belong to different cultures and continents, Marco Polo being European, and Kubla Khan being Asian, but they are both human beings who despite belonging to different cultures share a certain bond. Often in historical writing, the individual characters all feel the same, and very much like people nowadays. Not so in this novel. You can feel that Marco Polo is an European man, with European education and views of his time. The same goes for Kubla Khan. You can really feel both of these characters belong to past times, and are quite
Another thing I like is how this novel subverts the typical East West narrative. Kubla Khan is a ruler, a person in position of power. Marco Polo is his employee in a way. It is Marco's job to entertain the ruler, the Khan. So, Marco Polo is not presented as this great explorer who 'discovers' Asia, rather he is a humble guy who for most part quietly observes and interprets events to himself.
When I reviewed Il Milione or The Travels of Marco Polo on my blog six years ago, I wrote that the favourite part of the book for me was the part where Marco Polo describes his time at Kubla Khan's court. Now, I got the chance to read a wonderful fictional account of it as well! Jasna Horvat imaginative interpretation of Marco Polo's visit was very interesting!
Why is Kubla Khan interested in Marco Polo's stories about fairies? Perhaps simply because he does not rule over them. Kubla Khan rules over many people. Presently, he also rules over Marco Polo. Everyone at Kubla Khan's court is at his mercy. However, Kubla Khan does not rule over imaginary lands. Over invisible cities. Over invisible people. So, it is this invisible, this thing far beyond everyone's reach that fascinates the great Khan.
Marco Polo tells him of the fairies of the Slavic mythology. They are many and belong to different elements. They live in the skies, sometimes in rivers, they are carried by winds, and they visit our lands. They are beautiful, sometimes visible, and sometimes invisible. They charm people, and often they help them. However, if people are not nice to them, the fairies can turn deadly. Sometimes they can be cruel even when not provoked or when provoked intintately.
Fascinated, the Kubla Khan listens to Marco's stories about these ethereal women who are not really women even if they resemble them, rather they are fairies. There is some mistrust between the two individuals, Marco longs to return home, and it is uncertain whether the Kubla Khan will allow it to him. Kubla Khan distrusts Marco because he is after all a foreigner, so he does not let him out of his sight sometimes. The writer tells us all this as if she was watching them, informing us when she decides to write it on her notepad, thus introducing an element of meta fiction.
The book is divided into fields, instead of into chapters. There are a lot of numbers in the book, statistical overlook of the book itself and perhaps even a hint of numerology. When Jasna Horvat describes Kubla Khan's passion for hunting, she includes a QR code with Mongolian hunt into the third chapter that is the third field.
Marco sees himself as a prey to Kubla Khan, the passionate hunter and a powerful ruler. However, Marco Polo is not young and naive. He is forty at the time the novel takes place, and he knows how to escape the power of the great Khan- by telling him of the one thing not even the great Khan can posses, by telling him about invisible women and invisible world....
For is it not in our human nature to long for things we cannot have? To look for eternity? At the time the book takes place, Kubla Khan is old. He is looking for a cure that will allow him to live forever, but such a cure does not exist.
Marco Polo also tells the Kubla Khan of visible cities: Korčula, Šibenik and Venice. The QR links for different tourist boards can be seen on these passages. It has just now occurred to me that I haven't followed those links through QR codes. Well, I can always look them up later.
Marco Polo tells Kubla Khan how he has seen everything as a child, that is Marco Polo had a vision of his own life. He saw his life in Venice, his wife, his future daughters, everything...even falling in love with Khan's daughter. The vision ends with a future reader reading this novel- yes, Villion novel by Jasna Horvat. Again, we have a postmodernist self-reflection and the meta writing technique, what in films would be the breaking of the third wall.
Kubla Khan neither praises nor scolds Marco for his stories, but they do stir his imagination. What is more valuable to a man who has it all, than to have his imagination stirred?
It is not the voice that commands the story, it is the ear, said Marco Polo of Italo Calvino's creation. Wise words to consider. Borges said something similar in his Dialogues about Dialogue, his writings about the writing.
“I speak and speak,” Marco says, “but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. The description of the world to which you lend a benevolent ear is one thing; the description that will go the rounds of the groups of stevedores and gondoliers on the street outside my house the day of my return is another; and yet another, that which I might dictate late in life, if I were taken prisoner by Genoese pirates and put in irons in the same cell with a writer of adventure stories. It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.”*
*Invisible Cities, a novel by Italo Calvino
Does the story even exist without a listener?
“Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone.
'But which is the stone that supports the bridge?' Kublai Khan asks.
'The bridge is not supported by one stone or another,' Marco answers, 'but by the line of the arch that they form.'
Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: 'Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me.'
Polo answers: 'Without stones there is no arch.”*
*Invisible Cities, a novel by Italo Calvino
Marco Polo also talks to Kubla Khan about the Silk Road. In field seven there is a sentence that stayed with me that basically says that Marco Polo is a traveller, so he dreams of travel, but Kubla Khan is an emperor, so he dreams of his Empire, a home greater than all homes.
As the months and the big feast go by, time for hunting arrives. Marco Polo enjoys going on a hunt with Kubla Khan. They travel both psychically and in their imagination, into the past and the future. Marco Polo tells Kubla Khan about Constantinople, and about all the cities on the Silk Road.
The secret of Kubla Khan's fascinating with Marco Polo is simple. Marco gives him insight into the unknown, into something beyond this world, into a magical world, different from his own. Kubla Khan knows magic, he has magicians working for him, but this magic from another country, the story about invisible women, that is what truly stirs his imagination.
"Vlast i moć dali su mu slobodu, ali i spoznaju da je svemir ipak ostao ravnodušan spram njegove veličine. Zato mu je i potrebna priča. Neka drugačija od onih koje je poznavao. Treba mu priča s kojom se vrijeme zaustavlja, a ne ona koja vremenu pomaže brže protjecati.”
"Power and authority have given him (Kubla Khan) freedom, but also the realization that the Universe is still indifferent towards his greatness. That is why he needs a story. One different from the stories he had known. He needs a story that makes the time stop, and not the one that helps the time pass."
What does this mean, a story that makes the time stop? Kubla Khan has many people working for him. He can afford the best storytellers. But, he does not want a typical story. An interesting story. A well plotted story. He wants a story that comes from the soul. A real story. Something in Marco Polo's storytelling must be genuine. Maybe it is a longing for Marco's home. Maybe it is an understanding that there are many things under the sun that we do not know about. Marco is a Christian but he believes in the fairies. One belief does not cancel another. In between these beliefs and facts, there is something more. A connection between two different people. A chess party of sorts, but one between the souls. A dream both of them dream, perhaps individually and together.
I will quote a part from Borge's essay of Coleridge, and I recommend you to read all of it. It is a really interesting meditation of literature, dreams, art, destiny and coincidence.
A thirteenth-century Mongolian emperor dreams a palace and then builds it according to his dream; an eighteenth-century English poet (who could not have known that the structure was derived from a dream) dreams a poem about the palace. In comparison with this symmetry, which operates on the souls of sleeping men and spans continents and centuries, the levitations, resurrections, and apparitions in the sacred books are not so extraordinary.
But how shall we explain it? Those who automatically reject the supernatural (I try, always, to belong to this group) will claim that the story of the two dreams is merely a coincidence, a chance delineation, like the outlines of lions or horses we sometimes see in clouds. Others will argue that the poet somehow found out that the Emperor had dreamed the palace, and then said he had dreamed the poem in order to create a splendid fiction that would also palliate or justify the truncated and rhapsodic quality of the verses. {At the beginning of the nineteenth century or at the end of the eighteenth, judged by readers of classical taste, “Kubla Khan” was much more outrageous than it is now. In 1881 Coleridge’s Erst biographer, Traill, could still write: “The extravagant dream poem ‘Kubla Khan’ is little more than a psychological curiosity.”} That conjecture seems reasonable, but it obliges us to postulate, arbitrarily, a text not identified by Sinologists in which Coleridge was able to read, before 1816, about Kubla’s dream. {See John Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu (1927), pp. 358, 585.} Hypotheses that transcend reason are more appealing. One such theory is that the Emperor’s soul penetrated Coleridge’s, enabling Coleridge to rebuild the destroyed palace in words that would be more lasting than marble and metal.
The first dream added a palace to reality; the second, which occurred five centuries later, a poem (or the beginning of a poem) suggested by the palace. The similarity of the dreams reveals a plan; the enormous length of time involved reveals a superhuman performer. To inquire the purpose of that immemorial or long-lived being would perhaps be as foolhardy as futile, but it seems likely that he has not yet achieved it. In 1691 Father Gerbillon of the Society of Jesus confirmed that ruins were all that was left of the palace of Kubla Khan; we know that scarcely fifty lines of the poem were salvaged. Those facts give rise to the conjecture that the series of dreams and labors has not yet ended. The first dreamer was given the vision of the palace and he built it; the second, who did not know of the other’s dream, was given the poem about the palace. If the plan does not fail, some reader of “Kubla Khan” will dream, on a night centuries removed from us, of marble or of music. This man will not know that two others also dreamed. Perhaps the series of dreams has no end, or perhaps the last one who dreams will have the key.
After writing all this, I perceive—or think that I perceive—another explanation. Perhaps an archetype not yet revealed to men, an eternal object (to use Whitehead’s term), is gradually entering the world; its first manifestation was the palace; its second was the poem. Whoever compared them would have seen that they were essentially the same.
– Jorge Luis Borges*
* Source: https://www.anomalogue.com/2014/10/01/borges-the-dream-of-coleridge/
Marco Polo bowed his head.
'Venice,' the Khan said.
Marco smiled. 'What else do you believe I have been talking to you about?'
The emperor did not turn a hair. 'And yet I have never heard you mention that name.'
And Polo said: 'Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice.”*
Venice was certainly a defying city for Marco Polo, at least in Italo Calvino's imagination, and quite possibly in real life. We are all defined in many ways by our surroundings, our origins and our roots. It is what shapes our identity. It is the ground we grow from, sort of speak. Strong roots make for strong trees, but what does it all mean?
“When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city. Finally he comes to Isidora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made, where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third, where cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the bettors. He was thinking of all these things when he desired a city. Isidora, therefore, is the city of his dreams: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isidora in his old age. In the square there is the wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are already memories.”* Quoted from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Ivana baš lijepe fotografije. Super. Hvala ti na pozdravu.. LP
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos, Ivana. I love your dress 👗 You look fantastic. 😍
ReplyDelete