Adulterers by Vida Ognjenović : A Book Review
Adulterers is not all that might be implied by the book’s title. The break up of a marriage is merely the starting point from which an emotional process of exploration can begin within this award-winning novel from leading Serbian dramatist, author and diplomat Vida Ognjenović.
Indeed, the infidelity that kick starts this soul-searching confessional is of significantly less importance than the intense self-examination and subsequent discovery that it prompts in the book’s narrator. Adulterers is released as part of the much-admired Serbian Prose in Translation series from Serbia’s Geopoetika publishing house.
Written with a diary-like introspection, Ognjenović allows literary translator Amalija, known to friends as Bubica, to explore the effects of the past on a person’s nature and self-awareness.
The story opens as Bubica arrives home to find a simple note from her absent husband Boško. In the letter, Boško tells her that he has fallen for someone else and has gone for good. This clearly rocks Bubica’s boat and, as she tumbles in shock, she is encouraged to turn to medication to stave off the onset of depression. Preferring to deal with matters herself rather than wallow in self-pity, Bubica puts her life on hold to take a good hard look at herself. She shuts the door and shuns the advice of well-meaning friends. For Bubica, this is a problem she must solve alone.
But maybe Bubica isn’t as prepared as she thinks to deal with the fallout of the split. She is unprepared for the effects of shock and uncertainty, and begins to unravel as she realises that she must restructure her life, filling gaps left by the collapse of her marriage.
Adultery is clearly a turning point in a relationship, with both parties forced to make painful decisions about whether they can continue together or if the betrayal is the final breaking point. Like many people, Bubica begins to embrace her renaissance, using it as a time of critical self-analysis and eventual reincarnation as a more independent and self-assured woman. At this stage in the book, Bubica remembers time with her husband and is moved to meditate on the human capacity to genuinely consider and care about another, questioning whether there is really any concern beyond the potential benefit that person can bring.
The situation compels Bubica to evaluate the good times she shared with Boško, question her beliefs about their reality and confront her own identity. This introspective analysis allows the author to pose questions and propositions of identity as a self-constructed and shifting state rather than an agreed belief, accepted by others and set in stone.
When two objects come into contact, there is an exchange made. Some part of each is always left with the other. The same is said of a relationship, as Bubica has to accept when she realises that much of her life, including experiences and memories that made her what she is today, will always be entangled with Boško.
This realisation is hard to accept for Bubica, as she sees Boško’s presence in her life preventing her from moving on with a fresh start. Turning her back on friends, work and sometimes even food, Bubica increasingly reflects in on herself and questions everything about her own existence, as the novel gets into its stride with the key ideas of identity and self awareness.
Ognjenović has created a multi-layered character of great intensity, who is driven to grapple with concepts of identity and family. Predictably, there are pivotal surprises to be uncovered in Bubica’s past, which further force her to reevaluate her life, recognise the triggers, and begin to accept herself as the person she is now meeting for the first time. On the way, she must deal with some quite shocking realities about who she really is.
For me, some of this is effective, while at times it can feel like a crude tool to leverage the book’s themes. In the end, though, the effort pays off and the story wraps up quite well. Bubica – an intelligent woman, after all – wakes up to the fact that the collapse of her marriage should not be her main defining point. She is greater than the sum of her life’s obstacles, and her newly discovered reality and self-awareness imbue her with the strength and focus to move forward with clarity about her past.
Confessional in tone, diary-like in presentation and appealing in content, Adulterers is an engaging novel and I was keen to stick with it even through parts when the character of Bubica irritated me.
Clearly a master of her craft, Ognjenović employs some nifty literary tricks, and I was soon reeled back into the story at those few times when my attention flagged. While the novel isn’t necessarily as emotionally challenging as Bubica’s life, it poses enough questions to fulfill a purpose beyond that of being just a story.
Vida Ognjenović is a founding vice-president of Serbia’s Democratic Party. She is currently Serbia’s Ambassador to Denmark. She has written and directed many award-winning stage, TV and radio dramas, and has published six novels and seven books of drama.
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