J'ai beaucoup aimé retrouvé son écriture mais j'ai moins aimé que les autres à cause d'une scène de violence un peu gratuite dans la bouquin et un peu trop de citations.

#readthworld21 Balkans

I have never been in danger of losing my heritage. The US existed long before I was born, and will in all likelihood still be standing long after I'm gone. English is not going to split itself up into a hydra construction anytime soon, barring a disturbance of apocalyptic magnitude. And even if this language chimera did phase into being, there's little chance of the different strains hating each other to the point of genocide. I take this intrinsic stability for granted. You'd be hard pressed to find a citizen of the US who doesn't.

For all those who share my sentiments, and cannot comprehend in the slightest what it means to have your native country pulled from under your feet, your language dismembered into warring partisans, and your people spread to the farthest corners of the globe. This book is for you. Well, if you have an interest in that kind of thing, that is.

The book does a very good job of plunging you into a world without absolutes, reflecting the mindset of one of the many refugees from the recently disintegrated Yugoslavia. There's so much confusion regarding language, memory, past, present, all slickly pulling and pushing together like so many snails on the streets of Amsterdam. It's a fantastic read, and does an excellent job of immersing you in the uneasy existence of one ripped away from all that one knows. You may find yourself taking lots of breaks between pages, though, as it's easy to feel increasingly disturbed by the toy comparisons and saliva metaphors that the author loves to use. Disturbing or not, if I had just come to a new country after the destruction of my homeland, I'd definitely be extremely off balance in my current reality. Distrust of reality, as well as nausea, are givens.

шкода, що так мало перекладів з неї можна знайти, – дубравка угрешич мені подобається в усіх своїх іпостасях: іронічній, інсайдерсько-літературній, публіцистичній, феміністичній, міфотворчій (чи то пак міфоперетворювальній) – і в цій новій, трохи сумній і трохи жорстокій, присутній у "міністерстві болю".
емігрантський досвід із війною за плечима (здається, балкани – це моя нова канада) – саме по собі діткливе, але вона розмотує цю тему в зовсім проникливий бік, коли "не знаходити собі місця" стає перманентним модусом існування, і чого тільки ми не готові зробити, щоб ненадовго цього відчуття позбутися.
гірка й хороша книжка вийшла, може, особливо хороша тому, що резонує з оберемком речей, які я собі іноді думаю (а хто не?).

I’m currently in the process of reading the books on my bookshelves that I haven’t read and am not sure how they got there. This one was very literary and often beautiful and strange. The narrator is depressive and unreliable as she deals with the disappearance of her country through war and displacement, while living in Amsterdam. I didn’t understand some of the references, but I found it compelling.