Finally, the question about the literary values always includes the literary criticism. I do not like it personally, even if it is potentially important for a culture, especially for the small cultures. My unclear intuition is that the literary criticism is like a pill that did not pass the test, and it can bring you a potential harm or potential benefit, more the former than the latter. Tell me, who can nowadays, in this narrow culture in which we have been crushed like Matka rocks, write a relevant criticism for any writing? Even if one wants to write a negative criticism, it will be read as a daily political clash. When there is a real absence of a market and critical mass, criticism in our country is limited to a positive opinion only and the readers are taught that the phrases like “excellent book”, “read breakthrough”, etc. mean absolutely nothing. If I had to choose personally I will always vote for a free market, self-regulation of values, with some necessary interventionism, if things sink really low. The readers are not idiots, at least not always.
It is good that this narrow Macedonian literary circle was destroyed, the one that write, criticized and read themselves at the same time. “Gilgamesh” did not remain because it was glorified by a priest close to the king, but because it spoke about the problem of immortality, which concerns both the kings and the servants. It is why the test audience is good. Be it as it may, it manifests the taste of a time, repulsive as it may be. I watched a movie of late Tarkowsky in Swedish: although it was Tarkowsky, the movie is a “popular” medium, and Tarkowsky, even if he does not want it, can not always do what he wants with the medium and then blame the test audience, because it has an impeccable instinct. The movie was a fat, avant-gard-like packed stupidity. If something is genial, it will be genial for the simple people and the “intellectuals” as well; if not, it will be for ones of the others, but not for all. And to have a genial work, you need the interest of the both. At least most often. Somebody told the story of a girl who sent a text written by Nabokov to the paid critics of bestsellers from the USA, on anonymous basis. She was advised to cut down the dialogues, shorten the prolonged parts, etc. So, Nabokov could not be sold today, and back then he was. All of this means that the field of literary values is unclear, but the way out of these dilemmas is to create trends rather than follow them. It can be dome only if the canon is not important to you as a writer, if you don’t take it into account, only if you are authentic to yourself, but not on the principle of the “Macedonian” authenticity. I have seen people who work what they think is important. In any area. They don’t care about the test-audience, the golden toilet seat, they work out of an inner instinct, they do not bargain. One hundred thousand of them would fail, one would pass. The world canon is also made of the biggest stupidities. Several months ago in a bookshop in a big city, together with the books I also got a plastic bag which read: “The Best Writers in 2007”, and it listed the names of: K.J. Rowling, John Grisham, Jamie Oliver and Shakespeare. This is what is being sold, so that is the canon. It is also not right. Even the Nobel Prize, a par excellence canonizing institution, is problematic – let us notice that in the years of world crises, for example during world wars, this award was always given based on political parameters.
The province confuses, immediately and easily conquers with its answer. The immortality is added to the writing as a mysterious category which is actually not there. There is a genial cartoon, “Kung-fu Panda”, when Kung-fu Panda’s Father says: “All of my life I have had only one spaghetti recipe which I sell to everyone, and everybody thinks that there is a secret ingredient in it. Before I die, I will tell you the secret of my success. There is no such a spice. All I did was making spaghetti all the time.” I had a friend from Moscow, the most brilliant mind I had ever seen. When she came to visit me in Skopje, several years ago, she told me confused: “This is the best director in Macedonia, this is the best painter, you are all the best, but I don’t know you. Do you know how many people in Moscow, a city of 10 million inhabitants, work on genial, avant-garde techniques and methods every day, they think about everything, and they don’s think that they are the best in Russia, simply because there are ten thousand more geniuses like that, because there are too many people.”
Writing is actually hard work, and in Macedonia the people are not used to work hard. When Kierkegaard says that he does nothing for days, and we read about that in a book of 1,000 pages, who is making a joke? These pages are written with some work, even if he was in bed all the time, it was, nevertheless work. Our literature is lame, not only because the people have no idea how to oppose the dominant dictate of the provincial culture, but also because the people do not work, it is that simple. There is a 1970 movie with Donald Sutherland, “Alex in Wonderland”; the main character in it, Alex, is a crazy director, he had an instant success with his first movie, but he had a creative block and could not make his second movie. He went to Italy to ask Fellini what was the secret of his inspiration, he found Fellini, who played himself in the movie, in a small gray room, dressed like a real bureaucrat, next to a grandmother, they hurry with the movie editing, he wants to help the young director, but has no idea how. After several attempts, he apologized that he was really tired, they had been working for 15 hours every day, he had no time or luxury to think of those big inspiration issues, even if he wanted. What I want to say is that literature is also work, there are no secrets there.
I especially detest it when somebody attacks those who had left Macedonia. When they attack Goran Stefanovski, for me this is a provincial revenge. If somebody can rattle on about the American porn movies from Macedonia, why can not he write about the Debar Maalo demon from Canterbury? Personally, I do not have such an attitude towards literature, be it general, or national. For example, my father left me a clear message: never come back to Macedonia, stay as far as possible from this country. And I returned. Not because of nostalgic reasons, but because I thought that I would be useful here, because I had accounts to settle with this culture. I can also leave tomorrow. I don’t see how it is being creates, except in this liberation, and it is exactly in the name of your culture.
Finally, I think that our post-communism displays bad aging of the whole generation, not only the writers, but they are the most exposed. Deceived that they were coryphées of a culture, the Internet showed them that they were actually insignificant not only for the global scene, but for the local one as well. But, even bad truth is better than the untruth. Not to be political idiots, we should also say that our past was not ideologically the happiest one. It had a political tone that shaped everybody and everybody owed their rhythm to this ideological sup-rhythm. It is different now, it is the time to face our deceptions. We have already obtained the recipes of the global culture. If you want to be read, try hard. If you insist on being obscure, don’t complain that you are not read. And if you are really lucky, you might succeed in the world. I once watched Paul McCartney who said in an interview: “While we were making the music, we knew exactly that it was very good” and I do not believe that a person does not have such a measure, so that the success would surprise him, you somehow feel where you are while you are making your work. Even where you are in the world market. We desperately need this blow. So that we can rise from this esthetic (but it also means ethic) mud… Even when the world market, and the world canon not always follow this feeling all the way…
Translated by: Elizabeta Bakovska