EXCLUSIVE! LJILJANA PEKIĆ WRITES FOR KURIR:'Living with Pekić was never boring. Borislav was larger than life, curious as a child'
I simply cannot come to terms with the fact that it has been 30 years since the passing of my husband Bora Pekić. When you say, 30 years, it seems like an eternity, but in fact, it feels like it was only yesterday. At any rate, it does show how our perception of time is relative. Having said that, how does that even compare to the 62 years of Pekić's life? There was always something happening in his life – in terms of his entire literary oeuvre in particular. During these 62 years, more was created and experienced than other people create and experience in a lifetime that is twice as long.
There was always something happening
There was always something happening in his life. Whether it was positive or negative, it depended on its intensity and your views on things. What is certain is that living with Borislav was never boring. I knew that in advance when I decided to attach my life to his. Living with him was an adventure – if you weren't ready for adventures, you really shouldn’t have embarked on that ship. No, it wasn't a luxury yacht – it was more of a boat that could capsize at any point if the sea was rough, but you needed to put your trust in the person you were with. If a peaceful life is what you wanted, without precipices, without stress, you shouldn't have embarked. In comparison with his days of youth, you could say that his life was always full of surprises. When you're reading his Godine Koje Su Pojeli Skakavci (The Years Devoured By Locusts), you expect such a development throughout the five years of his incarceration. However, I have always thought that this name wasn't appropriate. Those years were not devoured by locusts – he had learnt a great deal and gained immense experience, so the years did not go to waste. It's true that the price was high, but when is it not?
He could have gone into psychology or philosophy, but he realized that this wouldn't have fulfilled him or been enough for him. He did venture into those areas early in his life, but each of the areas felt too narrow. He wanted something universal, something that wouldn't constrain him. Literature seemed most appropriate in this sense, as it put no limits on imagination. It would encompass all of the above and more. For him, literature was one of the possible ways to know the world. He says at one point: "I have learnt a great deal from France and Mann, and got my education from Dostoyevsky and Kafka, Huxley and Orwell, Krleža and Domanović. I have been taught by Plato and Kant, by Nietzsche, Spengler, and Berdyaev."
He learnt from other people's knowledge. He was taught by ancestors, parents, friends, and enemies. Respect for ancestors and learning from them becomes understandable if you believe that they are always by your side, and that they influence your life as much as when they were alive. The feeling of a past that is alive, present, and active is age-old, ancient in spirit.
Literary passion
He was as curious as a child. Whenever he'd be writing about something new, he wanted to learn everything there was to know about that subject. He ended up using just a portion of that, but only then did he feel safe. For example, just as he dedicated himself to the study of the life in Istanbul during the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror for the purposes of writing Zlatno Runo (The Golden Fleece), he also investigated everything that could happen during the epidemic that he describes in the novel Besnilo (Rabies). His aim was to get a sense of how people would behave if they felt pressured from all sides – how many of them manage not to lose their humanity when the future holds no hope, what personal traits of theirs come to light when they find themselves in an unknown environment and their conscience and temperament are laid bare. Without such literary passion, it wouldn't have been possible to describe either the times or the people as faithfully as he did in his novels, stories, or plays. This is why his Diaries, in addition to his novels and stories, are proper goldmines, and yet to be examined. Whatever page you turn to, you come across a gem or a jewel. People who like and read his works can feel it, and their numbers are increasing. They feel they can trust him. That he is not faking it.
It is quite fortunate that the publishing companies Službeni Glasnik and Laguna have managed to put in print most of his works piecemeal. This will allow researchers to study them in an appropriate fashion. When the entire family joins forces to work on his legacy, it is bound to eventually cover that enormous amount of material.
Why we live, what we are like, where we are headed …
Whether we accept it or not, his presence is still felt. Even more than before. He is larger than life. For it is not only his spirit that still lingers over his writing desk and imbues the books lined up in shelves, which he read and studied, and even over the chair in which he would spend hours and days at his typewriter, looking for the most apt way to express what he wanted to get across. He didn't write stories about imaginary people and situations for the sole purpose of entertaining us. Through these images, he always tried to paint a picture of his philosophy and clarify – to us as much as, perhaps, to himself – what our existence is for, what we are in this world, why we live, what our purpose is. What does all this lead? What are we like? Where are we headed? He says: "Writing is a way of thinking about the world." However, thinking includes not only inspiration, but also provocation. Not everyone is able to reflect on reality without any help, or learn and come to understand the world without the help of an intermediary. It is often necessary for other people's thoughts on the world to inspire us, for the actual problems to be pointed out to us by those wiser than ourselves. You shouldn't strive to attain originality as an essential feature of your work at all costs. You shouldn't despise human experiences, but use them instead.
The characters of his novels are so alive, so precisely and faithfully portrayed, that we see them as people from our own environment, no matter whether we like them or laugh at them. We can get into discussions with them as if they were part of our surroundings and people of flesh and blood.
In addition to human nature, he had a keen interest in the animal world and the way we relate to it – at a time when this was considered rarely and to a small extent. How horrible are the experiments done on animals for the purposes of finding a new medication, because as people, we are allowed to do anything! Do we ever stop to think about the crimes we commit and the pain we inflict on these innocent creatures – our very ancestors – because we are now the "masters of the world" and can do anything? What it would be like if we were to become someone else's guinea pigs.
He gave a lot of thought to the environment as well. He'd say that we had come to a point where even an ordinary technological invention poses a potentially grave danger to the future of our planet. Not to mention the invention of plastic, which we are now unable to destroy. How modern it all appears – as if it had been written yesterday.
The question of morality
One of the most important ideas that he was concerned with was the question of morality. He thought that morality can and must be discussed under any and all circumstances. He speaks of morality in the broadest sense of the word, as the sum of all the effects of our life on other lives. He says that morality doesn't exist in and of itself, or for itself, but rather that it persists solely in relation to others, to all the effects our lives have on other people's lives.
He reflected on the fact that a spiritual life alternative existed in our distant past, but we headed down the easy, materialist road, neglecting our spiritual idea, which was much older. Doublethink has become the content of our history. Our civilization is paradoxical as it was aware of its failed choice, and then it forgot that such an alternative had ever existed, only to forget that it had forgotten that too, which we have achieved by the doublethink system. Our spiritual culture is an elaborate system of doublethink, through which we hide from ourselves our own sins: Each and every one of us, though Christian, breaches at least one command out of the ten every day, although in the meantime we swear by them and consider them the foundation of our moral culture.
Pekić details the extent to which writers are schizophrenics who live off of this view and approach as they treat it in their works. In their books, writers must advocate opposite views, even those that they dislike, and experience them from within, because otherwise they probably couldn't describe both the executioner and the victim at the same time and as veritably. As a result, writers are condemned to understanding, which is why those who understand everyone in fact understand no one. Consequently, we should believe books and not their writers.
Writer of ideas about reality
He saw himself as a writer of ideas about reality, not a writer of reality. That he actually never described life, but only reflected upon it in terms of images. It is these images that his novels and plays consist of, and the laughter which is part of his works shows at one and the same time both understanding and rejection.
Due to all of the above, Pekić should be read and re-read, as we always find a nugget of gold that we missed reading the book the previous time.
This article was authored by Ljiljana Pekić, the late writer Borislav Pekić's wife