Writing about war: making sense of the absurd in Mileta Prodanović's novel Pleši, čudovište, na moju nežnu muziku (Dance, you monster, to my soft music)

Norris, David A.

Abstract

In the narrative of a mass conflict, the human experience of its effects may be subsumed into the rationalizing contours of history, or they may fall completely outside our comprehension. This article examines the intertextual strategies employed in Prodanović's novel about the war in former Yugoslavia. The text conveys the reality of the conflict by relating it through events and characters located in prior media constructions. The historical, documentary, mythic, and fictional sources focus on the signifying systems which drag the war into the horizon of expectations of those who were not there, closing the gap between reality and representation, life and art.

Citation

Norris, D. A. (2013). Writing about war: making sense of the absurd in Mileta Prodanović's novel Pleši, čudovište, na moju nežnu muziku (Dance, you monster, to my soft music). Modern Language Review, 108(2), https://doi.org/10.5699/modelangrevi.108.2.0597

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Nov 25, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 25, 2015
• Journal: Modern Language Review
• Print ISSN: 0026-7937
• Electronic ISSN: 2222-4319
• Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 108
• Issue: 2
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5699/modelangrevi.108.2.0597
• Keywords: Serbian literature, representations of war, intertextuality
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1002418
• Publisher URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/modelangrevi.108.2.0597