From Publishers Weekly
Written in Serbo-Croatian, first published in Yugoslavia, already a bestseller in Germany and France, this whimsical "lexicon" can be read on many levels. Pavic, professor of Serbian literature at the University of Belgrade, cares passionately about literature and he teases us through the unusual format of this novel to explore the subject. Entries are alphabetically arranged and can be perused at random, read start to finish or back to front. The publisher is offering two different versions, designated "male" and "female," and differing by only 15 lines. The narrative purports to be the historical record of the Khazars, a fictional Indo-European tribe that vanished in the 10th century. According to legend, the Khazar ruler asked a rabbi, a monk and a dervish to interpret a portentous dream; the winner would gain the conversion of the Khazar people to Judaism, Christianity or Islam. The result of this contest was lost in time. Interest in the "Khazar Polemic" prompted the Serbian warlord Avram Brankovich to compile a dictionary on the Khazars with the help of his retinue in the 17th century. Codified by a monk, the dictionary subsequently was 99% destroyed; one copy was found and revised; now it has fallen into the hands of modern-day scholars. Pavic is a 20th century Scheherazade, spinning a series of interconnected folk tales, drawing on a vast source of literary references, eventually metamorphosing his narrative into a murder mystery. Readers who are intrigued by literary conundrums will enjoy entering this magical world with Pavic as their guide. 40,0000 combined first printing.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
Christina Pribicevic-Zoric. LC 88-45262. $19.95. f Yugoslav writer Pavic assures us that the Khazars were a nomadic people who settled near the Black Sea in the 7th century A.D. "But their origins remain unknown and all traces of them have vanished." A thousand years later a Polish printer incorporated surviving knowledge of the Khazars into a dictionaryalmost all copies of which were burned by the Inquisition. Pavic's interlocking series of witty and fantastic tales purports to update that edition, but by now all "facts" about the forgotten nation are doubly conjectural. As if the truth weren't problematic enough already, Pavic has even produced his lexicon in "male" and "female" versions differing by only a few (highly significant!) words. This congeries will delight readers of Borges and Calvino, although libraries will need to buy both editions to satisfy them.Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
