This is my third taste of Zivkovic and the first novel of his I've read.

I have to confess to being a little disappointed. I suppose this book could be considered a novel (in the compilations of Zivkovic's fiction to date The Bridge is found in the novels anthology) but these stories are essentially only three loosely connected tales. If this is a novel then you could well say something like Murakami's After The Quake is a novel too.

That minor irritation aside, I was left disappointed by this collection because everything felt simply a little too odd. Of course Zivkovic is a fantastical writer but these stories just felt too strange; strange for the sake of being strange. For instance, does that man really need to go around the town with red hair swinging a bowling ball like that? Was there really a hidden point to that? I enjoy any decent surreal / magical realist fiction (including what else I've read of Zivkovic's) but this all felt too odd with too little point or meaning to redeem it.

That was my problem with the whole book. The writing was concise and as good as usual and there were nice ideas and the typical touches of deadpan, dark humour. Yet even the afterword essay failed to really convince me there was much substance behind Zivkovic's story. I think this one contrasts poorly to the short, The Teashop, which was an excellent short story and one which had its unusual elements but didn't make its meaning too obscure.

So, a misfire from Zivkovic this time around but I'm not deterred and I shall see if his other "novels" are better (or whether he's only good in his short story collections). ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2010/04/201031-bridge-zoran-zivkovic.html ( )