The main reason I thought the story "Love and Obstacles" was so compelling and well-written was because the author was clearly able to deliver his point that no matter where young people grow up, they will go through exactly the same phases their parents and grandparents did before them when they were the same age. Lust, rebellion, and spontaneous forays into uncharted waters are what young people live for. It is quite easy for the protagonist in this story to turn an otherwise monotonous journey to secure the purchase of a family freezer into a drunken adventure in which he plays the role of the desperate teenage boy seeking physical gratification. He writes down every scenic detail he can find in the world around him; his need to document every aspect of his life and creatively use every plot twist as poetic inspiration shows his unquenchable thirst for life, and his refusal to let anyone else tell him how to live it. He is determined to make his own mistakes, and to have the time of his life while doing it.
Although the author makes it clear that this young man's journey is by no means a safe one--he encounters some thugs on the train and the town he stays in is run-down and not at all modern or secure--the boy is excited rather than anxious at this sense of danger, for it makes the journey all the more intriguing.
Unfortunately, not all youth were able to experience their late teenage years quite so freely. Growing up in Srebrenica during the massacre robbed the children who survived of their childhood innocence, and forever changed their lives in ways adults aren't able to understand.
Although "Love and Obstacles" ends when the war begins, it can be assumed that the boy's life was never the same after the war started; all we know from this excerpt is that the electricity was cut off and all the food in the beloved freezer rotted.
Here is a link to an interview with a young woman who grew up in Srebrenica; she knows that the Srebrenica massacre will be a part of her for as long as she lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment