De hemel is bloedrood : verhalen

Four harsh, violent even, stories set in war-time Montenegro. Very rough characters, strong egoism and very few human feelings are rendering the first two hard to read.
The third is much better, suddenly veering into completely surrealistic and psychotic territory. A dotted bowtie is the main figure here and leads the owner into a mental catastrophe.
The last story makes a surprising use of completely unexpected repetitions of textblocks, that pop up sometimes in the middle of a storyline, creating a severely alienating atmosphere. Italian soldiers seen through the eyes of the Montenegran people alternate with Montenegran people seen through the eyes of Italian soldiers. A disturbing kind of prose, actually, especially with the show more omnipresent combination of pending violence and confused humans. show less