![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2019\/10\/ww_5cac6d96ef953_250x800r.jpg\")
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Our wild woman is introspective enough to be self-deprecating: she wanted to make a man fall in love with her by the sweep of her skirt and the intensity of her expression \u2013 but simultaneously wanted this to be a true meeting of minds, a relationship that (as any self-respecting young existentialist in the 1970s would wish) emulates Sartre and de Beauvoir. Lofty ambitions, and she is not above poking fun at herself for having had them: \u201cBut like all stupid twenty-year-olds I had decided to get my way, because you\u2019re indescribably stupid when you\u2019re barely twenty and haven\u2019t yet experienced anything except in your imagination, based on the stories you\u2019ve read in books which you see as real, though they\u2019re not, and you project yourself into the story as if it\u2019s going to be yours\u2026\u201d With the perspective of her newly single state, she is able to see every point at which she was na\u00efve, oblivious or overly forgiving \u2013 but this is not a story of self-flagellation, for her greatest disdain is rightly reserved for her \u201cbeloved\u201d, her \u201cone and only\u201d \u2013 a man never named, but only called by various terms of endearment which, with the benefit of hindsight, are dripping with irony and contempt.<\/p>\n
The first thing that struck me about both the story and the translation was the length of the sentences: there is a breathlessness here \u2013 not a vapid one, but rather one that conveys the narrator\u2019s need to vent her anger after a lifetime of censorship, an outpouring which mostly happens in multiple clauses that crash urgently towards a conclusion. This must have been quite a challenge to translate: the information structure as well as the syntax may shift between languages, and content-wise there was a lot to keep on top of within each sentence. Christina Pribichevich-Zori\u010d has pulled it off superbly, though, keeping the narrative voice consistent in both cadence and tone and revelling in a variety and depth of vocabulary that was a joy to read.<\/p>\n
Another strength of this novel is the cast of unremittingly loathsome supporting characters. From the widowed mother \u2013 beleaguered by poverty under communism and the loss of her deceased husband\u2019s meagre pension \u2013 who can summon up compassion for almost anyone but her own daughter (\u201cPoor man, my mother whispers in my ear, my mother for whom everybody is always poor except me\u201d) to the excruciatingly awkward best friend hopelessly in love with the narrator and the feckless, self-absorbed man she chooses to marry, there is a humanity to every character (though mostly showcasing the less pleasant side of humanity, it must be said). Even the memory of the narrator\u2019s dead father is no comfort: he beat her throughout her life, and after his death she promptly moved her husband into the family home \u201cas if I couldn\u2019t live without being hit.\u201d But don\u2019t feel exasperated with her if a negative cycle is perpetuated, for in her world \u201cwomen don\u2019t choose.\u201d Trapped into silence by an older generation that thinks she must simply keep quiet and endure, she maintains the fa\u00e7ade of a happy marriage and a fulfilled life even though her internal monologue reminds us that this is far from a truthful representation. She even goes as far as to call herself a madwoman \u2013 though to any discerning reader, it is clear where the real madness lies. \u0160ur Puhlovski is not afraid to point this out, and has a penchant for doing it in a flash of lucidity at the end of a lengthy tirade: \u201cMy sense of direction is so bad that I wouldn\u2019t know where I was even if somebody dropped me down in the middle of Republic Square, I\u2019ve been known to say. People answer by saying that most women are like that, they have no sense of space. Interesting, because that means something, except, I wonder, why don\u2019t women have a sense of space, or of time, because time is space, so maybe it\u2019s because they have a sense of eternity.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was expecting the narrative to unfold in a slightly different way than it ultimately did: the hints at \u201cgoing wild\u201d had made me anticipate some sort of feral twist or return to nature via a rejection of \u201ccivilisation\u201d, but in fact this is not what the \u201cwildness\u201d represents (and the story is better for that). The narrator is constrained in the society of her time, but must \u201cshed the self-image they slipped on me like an invisible dress,\u201d and \u00a0Wild Woman <\/em>is the start of that transformation: it is a whirlwind ride inside the mind of a woman let down by society and by her own role within it \u2013 a ride with an uncertain destination, for she does not know if she will rise like a phoenix from the ashes of her past life, or simply turn to dust and disappear \u2013 but it\u2019s well worth accompanying her for the stage of the journey she invites us to share.<\/p>\n Review copy of\u00a0<\/em>Wild Woman\u00a0provided by Istros Books<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Translated from Croatian by Christina Pribichevich-Zori\u010d (Istros Books, 2019). Wild Woman is set in 1970s Yugoslavia, and we meet the narrator on the third day after the end of her marriage. She is holed up in her apartment, mess and disorder turning to filth and despair around her as she contemplates the three days that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[215,247,603,1049],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n