The Memorials - Dejan Ognjanović

 Autumn memorials.

November morning.

Serbs bring offerings to their dead to the cemetery.

The dead rise from their graves.

But they don't care about those offers...

The dead rise from morgues, from autopsy tables, from coffins, in the middle of funerals...

The wail for the dead turns into a wail from the dead.

Chaos begins.

But, in Serbia, chaos is natural state.

At the beginning of the reading, I said that The Memorials / Zadušnice is a novel that should be transferred to the big screen by Romero, with the condition that Lakobrija does the masks. After reading the book, I stand even more firmly behind that sentence. It's just a pity that Romero is no longer among the living... Although... You never know... ;)

Jockes aside, I'm thrilled. This is not the kind of novel we are used to when it comes to Ognjanović, but in my opinion it is as good as Live / Naživo, Seducer / Zavodnik, Prokletije and Dejan's short stories.

When I started reading The Memorials, I was expecting knee-deep blood, butchery on every page, shock after shock and similar things that we are used in Dejan's writings. I got all that, but not in the way we are used to from Ognjanović. The moment the dead begin to rise, we realize that these local zombies of ours are not like the evil American ones, they just walk around and stare at the light. They simply reminded me of insects that are attracted to street lamps at night. Someone would now say, "well, what's so interesting about it, it seems boring". But Dejan wouldn't be a horror doctor and a genius writer if he didn't give us a surprise and a shock. The point of The Memorials as a novel is not in the classic zombie cliché - the dead rise, go around and eat lunch. Nope. Here the emphasis is on living characters and events that are triggered by the mass raising of the dead.

Since in the novel The Memorials / Zadušnice Serbia is a unique case in rising of the dead, quarantine and everything that goes with it is imposed on her. That part is very reminiscent of the period we lived with Corona, not the beer, but the virus. Of course, there are also politicians. And the president whom I don't want to mention here, with his famous statement "The cemetery will be small for us." Literally everything that happened to us during the quarantine, isolation, curfew, and even what is happening to us today, is in this book. All of that was processed and combined in a wonderfully satirical way, so that while I was reading something happened to me that I thought was impossible when it comes to the Serbian horror doctor - I burst out laughing, I laughed like never before, I giggled so much that my family thought that I had finally and completely lost my mind. I had the impression that they were ready to call madhouse and reserve a room for me.

Another thing that struck me about The Memorials / Zadušnice was that the characters from Niška Banja and Niš do not speak literary Serbian, but use the local dialect. I like such books and stories, when the author does not try to please the masses, but uses local dialect and expressions. In my opinion, there is no point in writing a book with a plot in Niška Banja, and a peasant who has never gone further than Niš speaks pure and uncorrupted literary Serbian. If you don't like it, buy a dictionary and study. Or get up from your ass and come to Niš to hang out ;)

To summarize, The Memorials / Zadušnice is a very good and interesting novel that deals with modern themes through horror satire. Certainly worthy of attention and a place on the shelf. One of the books I'm packing in my suitcase and take with me to Canada and one of the first that will be putted the shelf there.

If you have not yet acquired The Memorials / Zadušnice, here the author personally explains the easiest way to get them. Or, if you are from Niš, Niška Banja or the surrounding area, you will surely find the novel and the author at the Niš Book Fair, which started today. You'll probably meet me there too, but that won't make you overly happy or surprised.