NOT ENOUGH SPICE IN THE NOVEL CUBE

Ante Tomić: Tadpoles (Ljevak, Zagreb / Rende, Beograd, 2011)

By: Ivan Telebar

In his latest novel Tadpoles, Ante Tomić takes us back to 1975 through the eyes of a twelve-year old girl who spends another summer with her parents away from the heat of the city asphalt to have a few unforgettable days at her grandparents’ place. For the narrative backbone, the author takes an ordinary, not at all specific holiday situation of an average family. However, Tomić has become known in Croatian literary circles as a masterful painter of the everyday with a sharp eye for details which most of us often neglect to see.

Tomić’s biggest stronghold is textual fluency. Sentences flow one after the other with ease, allowing the reader to breeze through the text, while containing a potential for irony that leaves enough room for a completely different reading. Tomić generally does not have a tendency to be bold in terms of complex narrative structures, which we may consider a flaw, but with this text, the simplicity does not fall short, because it determines how unambitious the text actually is from the very beginning.

Alenka, the teenager, shows us the world as she sees it and within the framework of her cognitive abilities. This is where we find the first weak point of the text, because on several occasions, the author betrays that infantilism. It is obvious that from time to time, the twelve-year old girl speaks with a more mature voice, a voice that, for example, analyses the memory of her granny as an “image severed from the space-time continuum.” From this, we see that our Alenka has grown up a little, but then we can no longer treat the story as one of growing up, but rather a recollection of growing up. Tomić’s narrator is torn up between the two positions and it is impossible not to notice the incoherence that becomes evident during the melodramatic finish of the novel.

Threatening contrasts

Tomić manages to show a teenager’s point of view, but also her entire family and the boys from her inseparable gang. Certainly, he relies heavily on character speech, but sometimes, this also does not work at all. The fact that a girl born and raised in Zagreb uses the word auto in the neuter gender (which is common with southern Croatian dialects) sticks out like a sore thumb, and the Bosnian ‘toilers’ could have been portrayed more authentically in their linguistic expression. That is to say, Tomić could have used it to reinforce the position of the foreigner which is definitely one of the issues that the text tackles. A more detailed linguistic profile of Senad, Irfan i Emir would have pointed out the us vs. them situation, where, in fact, the issue of the Other and Otherness is merely hinted at.

The comical in this novel is achieved through family relations, but by switching positions. Grandfather’s child-like stubbornness on the one hand, and Alenka and Denis’s wish to grow up, lead to others finding themselves in comical situations. The character of the grandfather surely takes first prize, whose fierce anti-regime and pro-emancipation comments and docility in front of the women in the family, carry most of the humourist potential of the novel. It is precisely in these acerbic comments about the Party and communism that we recognize Tomić’s critique of the former state’s political system. Nationalisation of property and invisible arrests are only some of the common socialist trademarks that the author condemns through grandfather’s retorts.

Humour is not the only basis of the text. Tomić clandestinely introduces serious topics, such as, the contrast between the city and the province, and also the relation to the Other and Otherness. Big topics step into the novel by knocking on small doors, but they seem to get stuck in the lobby. From children playing and goofing around, suddenly there are cries like ‘city girl’ and ‘Bosnian-grossnian’ that fly as poison arrows towards the newcomers. Innocent wordplay creates unease, feeding the animosity towards ‘them’, and it all culminates in a far-from-innocent conflict. It is no coincidence that children are the ones who express the xenophobic bigotry, because only a child can, without any reservations and false mannerisms, say what the adults are thinking, but hold back and never say out loud. Alenka’s ‘sin’ is the fact that she is not from B., while Irfan is a double foreigner. Not only are his father, uncle and himself from Bosnia, they are also Muslims, which makes Alenka’s granny cautious. Opposed to these views and fear of the unknown, there is the grandfather who stands as the voice of reason that overcomes any ethnic or religious differences.

The problems that arise during reading are dealt with as abruptly as they are introduced. We could attach that to the superficiality of the text and the fact that the topics serve the purpose of the plot, more than they are aimed at articulating a certain point. Therefore, we are left with the impression that all of these issues are up in the air even after the novel is over.

Writing with a spoon

We must not forget (if only we could) that the common thread of the whole novel is as unlikely as it is unnecessary. It is a product placement within the literary text that is impossible to overlook. Products of one of the most famous Croatian food brands are somewhat of a light motif. It is not a revolutionary move, but it is, without a doubt, a degrading one, particularly because while referring to the soup cubes, goulashes and food supplements, there is no irony which would revitalise their appearance in the text. Literature has become an open field for advertising and we should not be surprised that this big company has decided to employ such an unconventional marketing strategy. It is more surprising to learn the author had agreed to such a collaboration, not only because he has often opposed capitalist ideas in his newspaper columns. So far, we have been able to witness radiophonic songs becoming jingles, but it seems a time has come for fiction to pay a toll as well. Do not be surprised if the next collection of short stories you pick up is dedicated to your favourite washing powder.

Ante Tomić did not manage to write a better book than Miracle in Poskokova Draga. Despite this ungrateful comparison, Tadpoles is a readable and solid book that will fill the void, but will not leave a lasting mark on the reader’s consciousness, let alone the author’s body of work. A bit of serious topics, a bit of not so serious topics, a little humour and commercials –  those are the ingredients stirred into this bland novel. Bon appetite!

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