PARANOIA IN PODGORICA

Balša Brković: Paranoia in Podgorica (Booka Belgrade; October 8, 2010)

by Nikola Đoković

Balša Brković’s second novel Paranoia in Podgorica is also, thematically speaking, his second novel about transition (the first one being Private Gallery), and an absolute commercial success with over 10,000 copies sold (!).

The plot features elements of thriller, crime novel and film noir, as the subtitle clearly suggests (noir in decade zero). Following the rules of the genre, there is a mysterious murder and light need to be shed on the motives of the murder. A distinguished professor and opponent of the existing political regime has been killed – the on-call paranoid, because, as the author points out, only a state of paranoia confronts a man with the truth about society. But not only has he been murdered, but also his body was found in a compromising company of a young, twenty-one-year-old drug addict.

The protagonist, who is also the narrator, is an interesting example of an amoral outsider (while he was teaching, he was also having a passionate affair with one of his students). He is constantly battling his own paranoia (that makes him assume that it was a political assassination) while trying to overcome and neutralise it.

He finds strong support in his sweetheart who is guided by her own, somewhat infantile and hedonistic reasons, under any social circumstances, in an artificial, isolated paradise of a romantic, two-member community (she says to her lover: You are the only one who matters to me). But the real circumstances in Podgorica that the protagonist is dragged into cannot be ignored (according to the well-oiled patriarchal scenario, women have no business in public affairs), so the voyeur-outsider becomes involved in a vortex of bizarre events, culminating in a direct death threat.

Paranoia, as a leading character, is analysed many times over, deciphered, from the introductory episode of the first man, a pre-Adam, who was allegedly paranoid, to many interventions by the narrator himself, in which he clearly states the reasons for being paranoid. According to the narrative treatment of the phenomenon, paranoia mainly functions as an analysis of a twisted, deviated reality in a para-country, such as Montenegro in transition. Therefore, paranoia turns into the most reliable means of obtaining medical history and clarifying the perverse scenario filled with assassinations, political intrigues, corruption in the police force, under-the-table deals… Marijuana, as one of the opiates that induces the protagonist’s paranoid states, has ambivalent characteristics. On the one hand, it provides a welcome escape by numbing the nerves to leave the paranoid reality behind, and on the other hand, it greatly intensifies his paranoia, leading up to a caricatured, absurdly grotesque plot twist.

Novel about paranoia only achieves its full capacity in the final scenes during a VIP party at   a hacienda, thrown by Ludvig the tycoon, who assembles politicians, literati, artists, singers, models… This is when all the insatiable urges and gluttony of the establishment come to the forefront. Nevertheless, this is also where the text contains an ideological issue that questions the government not as a nationalistic guardian (first and foremost), but as a new communist wave of kids-gone-wild political and cultural elite that live in a paradise for the libido. Everywhere in this newly constructed, newly pieced together villa, there are echoes of the unofficial anthem of the former fraternity and unity that Montenegrins, Bosnians, Serbs and Croats are screaming at the top of their lungs. So, the myth of communism as an indestructible system based on privileges is sustained (particularly supported by the nationalists in order to get rid of their own moral responsibilities). But, it seems the author skillfully withholds (or inadvertently neglects) that it is precisely the new elite that stands united, perpetuating the model which functioned so well in the past (wars of the 1990’s). It also represents a perversion, a kitsch esthetic of local manifestations of nationalism under the guise of fake cosmopolitan values. Instead of a satirical approach to the nationalistic craze, which still dominates Montenegro as an established behavioural pattern, the author chose to show us only the elite’s hedonism and orgies, that is to say, the facade, the caricature. The protagonist, a distant voyeur, experiences everything as a colourful, bright, postmodernistic carnival that serves the elite to deconstruct itself, simultaneously enthroning and deposing itself, becoming a laughable and benign caricature. The novel confirms this, with a cliche of a naive, fairytale end. The author appears to strongly believe in love, demonstrated by an unbreakable symbiosis between the protagonist and his girlfriend. He also believes that justice prevails, since all the criminals and corrupt moguls are arrested and the establishment completely exposed for what it is! We face a fantastical notion that a book can change the world (imagine what miracles could more books like this one do!).

Summa summarum, Paranoia in Podgorica is an attempt at deconstructing the Montenegrin society, although it seems that a more lucid and far-sighted critique of deviant moral principles calls for a more in-depth and astute perspective rather than the one we get from an amoral and therefore, immediately discredited paranoid professor.