There is another review of abjective in the episode of pumpkin seed nibbling. The pumpkin seed nibbling (in the novel) is experienced as a reflection of the societies in transition. This unhygienic pleasure is a ritual of cleansing, via nibbling and spitting the seeds, talking and gossiping. Just as coffee cup reading, the nibbling of seeds is an interesting ritual. This is most present in the episodes of the stay in Romania, which accounts for most of the dairy records of Dimkovska.
On several occasions in the novel Lila discusses washing powders and bleach. She likes the scent that reminds her of the tidiness of her home and returns her to her childhood12F. An episode is related to the cleaning of stairs of a building during the first stay of Lila in Vienna, together with her friend Vesna. They had to clean the entrance of the building to have a rewards from aunt Vera, who would trick them anyway. In a western European environment cleaning and the other sanitary works are reserved for those coming from non-western European countries. It is interesting how the ultra right wing nationalism (present in some countries even today) aspired to “clean” the country from those who work on and exist from cleaning the toilets and entrances of their countries.
The aspect of the pure is present in the scene with Lila, where the small child, as the camera “states”, when she was at her grandmother’s in Šlegovo (the Eden place and tie of Lila) was wrapped and left in bed. The taste of milk attracted many ants which surrounded her body, but none entered her diapers. The ant, if we look into the interpretation of the Dictionary of Symbols13F, symbolizes: hard work, patience, modesty, far-sightedness14F. The ants symbolize order and the restlessness according to Chinese interpretations, and benevolence according to Biblical interpretation. Lila’s grandfather is the one with the bitten (by snake) finger, who chanted on Lila indicating her being special, protected and famous in the future.
The story of the Pakistani musician Joseph is also interesting. With him, the infantilism and ignorance of the rough and practical side of the world come to the surface. He is an expression of the ultimate honesty and naiveté, a true Pakistani Myshkin, who finds love in the erotic sense in Vienna. In the short love affair with Edlira (who is later forced to return home and be treated in the neighboring Greece because of damages on her liver as a result of Hepatitis C), Joseph finds love, but he constantly has a catholic pang of conscience, that he had betrayed God and would not go to Heaven. With Lila, the belief in God is also present, but there is a different representation of God. According to the Orthodox code, God is not revengeful, but he is forgiving and merciful. A dream of Lila is even presented in such a strong outburst of images which are very chaotic, but deeply related, which makes this dream remind of one of the opening dreams in the novel “The White Hotel” by Donald Michael Thomas. In her dream, the Orthodox church in Ljubljana has been turned into a public toilet, where all of her friends and their families waited in line, and when she finally managed to enter and to go to the bathroom, she saw that instead of a toilet seat there were candle holders, which she had to extinguish with her own urine!!! After such a dream, there is the question on where the relation between the church and the toilet is. Do both, in a deeper level, help a man get rid of his “burden”; of course physiologically in the toilet and spiritually in the church. Or, are the church and the toilet places where we can only be alone with ourselves. The popular Bulgarian poet and prose writer Georgi Gospodinov who often takes toilet and flies as the light motif in his work says that the only place where we are totally alone and free of others watching us is the toilet. The situation with the feeling of dedication to God is the strongest when a person is alone in the church (here we exclude those mass gatherings on Christian holidays, which are more live carnivals then celebrations of God). Although this is not our research theme, but more of a psychoanalysis provenance, we still feel it necessary to mention briefly the episode with Melissa Fondakowski, a poetess that Lila met at a poetic event. This poetess, in the poem dedicated to her girlfriend, equalizes the hole in a tooth with a yearning for joining.
Knowing that tooth extraction has an erotic connotation (as mentioned in Sigmund Freud’s legendary book “Introduction to Psychoanalysis”15F), the hole in the tooth here means un-fulfillness. Melissa Fondakowski feels the lack and incompleteness primarily because of the inability to fully become a man in a biological meaning of the word, although her appetites are directed to girls; on the other hand, there is her inability to fulfill a true corporal relation with her girlfriend (because of biological reasons), she stresses the lack of phallus. She further develops androgynous as a possibility for joining the duality in a unity, losing gender and sex differences (a tendency that the scholarly circles have identified as possible in the course of next centuries).
In this review, we managed to analyze but a part of the episodes in the novel and its issues from the aspect of the topics given in its subheading. Of course, it is far from covering everything. Such a complex, erudite novel written in a post-modern manner with an expressed symbolism and at times strong metaphors and interesting intertwining of several stories opens a broad specter of new readings and interpretations.
Biography:
Вулф, Вирџинија: Сопствена соба, Сигмапрес, Скопје, 1998;
Димковска, Лидија: Изгрицкани нокти, Култура, Скопје, 1998;
Димковска, Лидија: Нобел против Нобел, Блесок, Скопје, 2001;
Димковска, Лидија: Скриена камера, Магор, Скопје, 2004;
Котеска, Јасна: Македонско женско писмо,– Теорија, историја и опис–, Македонска книга, Скопје, 2002;
Котеска, Јасна: Санитарна енигма, Темплум, Скопје, 2006;
Котеска, Јасна: Постмодернистички литературни студии, Македонска книга, Скопје, 2002;
Сјоран, Емил: Оглед за распаѓањето, Култура, Скопје, 1996;
Шевалие, Жан; Гербран, Ален: Речник на симболите, Табернакул, Скопје, 2005;
Freud, Sigmund: Uvod u psihoanalizu, Matica Srpska, Novi Sad, 1979.
Translated by: Elizabeta Bakovska
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12. Но дека белилото не секогаш успева да донесе Чистост, укажува еден расказ од бугарската писателка Елена Алексиева, наречен „Синот“, каде една група научници сака да го клонира Исус Христос, за да го спаси светот. Користејќи го како генетски материјал велот со кој Исус се избришал пред Св. Вероника, и со тоа го направил својот лик на истиот, оваа група научници се стреми кон репродукција на еден нов Исус. Но, куќната помошничка на главниот научник, не знаејќи за вредноста на велот, го става за перење и потоа со белилото ја уништува и последната трага од Божјиот Син.
13. Шевалие, Жан; Гербран, Ален: Речник на симболите, Табернакул, Скопје, 2005
14. Ова е интересно во една симболичка смисла, заради фактот што Лила низ целиот роман укажува на својата кратковидост и диоптрија од околу – 13/- 14. Далекувидоста би ја поврзале со профетската улога на уметникот, во нашиов случај тоа е поетеста Лила.
15. Freud, Sigmund: Uvod u psihoanalizu, Matica Srpska, Novi Sad, 1979.