Sašo Puljarević o zbirki kratkih zgodb Leteči ljudje Ajde Bračič

Človeška želja po letenju, osvajanju neba je verjetno stara toliko kot človeštvo samo, a kot v svojem prvencu, zbirki kratkih zgodb Leteči ljudje, spretno ponazori Ajda Bračič, ne gre le za dobesedno željo po preletavanju višav, temveč se že v sami želji skriva nekaj inherentno človeškega.

V začetnih zgodbah se delo morda res nekoliko očitneje poigrava z letečimi metaforami, a se nato suvereno spusti tudi v različne psihologije, ki jih zaznamujejo manjše ali večje travme. V dvajsetih zgodbah, tako formalno kot tudi vsebinsko raznovrstnih, avtorica prepleta drobce, prizore iz življenj nekih posameznikov, a kot to napove že prva zgodba (»Nikogar ni, ki bi ti bil podoben«), si avtorica perspektivo, skozi katero zremo v resničnost likov, povsem podredi in se z njo lucidno poigrava. Najsi gre za dvojnice, katerih poti se v že omenjeni zgodbi cepijo (ali pač križajo?), ali pa za tako vsakdanji vzpon in spust duha rajnkega Svetozarja (zgodba »Svetozarjeva smrt«), pripovedi v kontrastu z izrazito izdelano, jezikovno bogato, a sočasno trdno realistično pisavo, niansirajo resničnost ter kažejo na širok diapazon možnosti ubeseditve in še pomembneje percepcije.

A če povedano velja za določene zgodbe, je hkrati skozi celotno zbirko očitna nekakšna dvojnost, neenakomerno izmenjevanje tovrstnih interpretacij resničnosti ter nekoliko konvencionalneje in fabulativno razkošneje zastavljenih zgodb. Takšne se zdijo predvsem zgodbe »Jama, Si upaš?« ali pa »Daljnogled«, resničen potencial tako zastavljene pripovedi pa avtorica razvije predvsem v zgodbi »Hiša spomina«. Gre za pripoved o dementni tašči in snahi, ki sta obe vdovi in sami živita v družinski hiši. Avtorica domiselno izkorišča vrata v hiši kot simbol prehajanja. Ta se odpirajo v različna pretekla obdobja taščinega življenja, s čimer celotna hiša postane vozlišče miselnega sveta dementne tašče. V hiši se torej časovna obdobja prelivajo iz enega v drugo, a še vedno ostajajo – tako kot stanovalki – zataknjeni v hiši, »ozkem grlu človeške usode«.

Čeprav bi si upal reči, da iz zbirke veje rahla afiniteta do slovenske podeželskosti, pa je tematski razpon vsekakor veliko širši. Avtorica zgodbe povsem suvereno umešča zdaj na Škrlatico, zdaj v Južno Ameriko, na slovensko podeželje, nato v Pariz, Turčijo ipd. Če k temu prištejemo še demografsko raznolikost, ugotovimo, da zbirka teži k nekakšnim univerzalnim točkam človeškega bivanja, poudarek pa leži predvsem na pripovedni tehniki. A ta skoraj nikoli vsiljivo ne stopa v ospredje, temveč gre z roko v roki z vsebino, na raznolikost in preigravanja pa nas opozori šele kasnejši premislek. In ne gre le za raznorodnost pripovedovalcev, temveč se ključ skriva v tem, da zgodbe pred nami rastejo predvsem kot slike, intenzivne atmosfere, ki nas v nič ne poskušajo prepričati, opozoriti, nam ničesar prodati, pač pa učinkujejo zaradi načina upovedovanja. V tem kontekstu gre vsekakor izpostaviti zgodbo »Prisluškovanje«, v kateri se celotna kulisa, nato pa tudi okruški zgodbe, razvije iz drobnega začetnega motiva, glasov, ki iz nekega stanovanja prodirata v kopalnico pripovedovalke. S tem zgodba korespondira z bolj fragmentarnimi, ki jih prav tako najdemo v zbirki. Te se morda celo približujejo formi kratke kratke zgodbe (»Akvarij«, »Trenutek nepazljivosti«), saj s premišljenim naborom motivov, po načelu manj je vsekakor več, razkrivajo ravno toliko, da zaslutimo obris zgodbe.

In ko že govorimo o pripovednih tehnikah, ne gre spregledati najbolj očitnih variacij, kot je na primer zgodba »Efekt Kulešova«, napisana po vzoru filmske montažne tehnike, ali pa zgodba »Dekle v modri jopici«, napisana v obliki elektronskih sporočil. Tudi pri slednji lahko vidimo, da ne gre za preigravanje forme, saj takšen zapis ni nikakršna invencija, temveč bi to zgodbo avtorica težko podala drugače. Če pojasnim: seveda bi lahko tudi drugače organizirala in nanizala dogodke, a učinek ne bi bil isti. Da lahko predstavi perspektivo, v miselni sklop junakinje Tee Klobučar stopi na določen način, potrebuje formo elektronskega sporočila. Gre namreč za to, da Tea vztrajno pošilja pisma podjetju, ki je po opravljenem razgovoru ni zaposlilo, a ji nihče ne odgovarja, vse dokler njenega naslova naposled ne blokirajo. V tej enosmerni komunikaciji si Tea zamisli in poimenuje domnevno prejemnico njenih sporočil, prav v tej prismuknjeni vztrajnosti pa se pred nami plast za plastjo razkriva kot travmatizirana oseba, ki nenazadnje zgolj hlepi po človeškem stiku.

Dramaturgija zbirke nas smiselno vodi do konca, kjer se nekaj smrti kasneje ponovno poraja tisti nemir, ki je »Leteče ljudi« z začetka zbirke gnal v višave, tisti nemir, ki v pogojnem naklonu poraja vprašanja, kaj če bi, ko bi … Naslov zbirke se tako izkaže kot metafora za človeško stanje. Kajti kot beremo v zgodbi »Izkopavanja«: »Že vse od začetka: strah pred smrtjo in želja po večnosti. Navzgor, navzgor. Zato kamen na kamen, opeka na opeko, zato katedrala. Stran od zemlje, kjer vse razpada, stran od zemlje, na katero ležemo, ko ne moremo več stati. Dokler iz nas ne izteče zadnja kaplja človeškega duha, silimo navzgor.«

Sašo Puljarević on Flying People by Ajda Bračič

The human desire to fly, to conquer the sky, is likely as old as humankind itself, but as Ajda Bračič skilfully illustrates in her debut literary work, the short story collection Leteči ljudje (Flying People), it is not just a literal desire to soar on heigh, but something inherently human is hidden in the desire itself.

In the first stories, the literary work may indeed play with high-flying metaphors in a somewhat more obvious manner, but then it confidently descends into various psychologies marked by traumas both minor and major alike. In twenty stories, diverse both in terms of format and content, the author combines fragments, scenes from the lives of individuals, but as the very first story (Nikogar ni, ki bi ti bil podoben (There Is No One Like You)) suggests, the author has complete control over the perspective through which we, as readers, view the reality of the characters and plays with it in a lucid way. Whether it is the kindred spirits whose paths diverge (or maybe cross?) in the aforementioned story, or the so mundane rise and descent of the spirit of the late Svetozar (the story Svetozarjeva smrt (Svetozar’s Death)), the stories, in contrast to the highly structured, linguistically rich, yet firm realistic writing, nuance reality and show a wide range of possibilities of wording and, more importantly, perception.

But if the above applies to certain stories, there is also a certain duality evident throughout the entire collection, an uneven alternation between such interpretations of reality and the somewhat more conventionally and lavishly structured narratives. This seems to be the case mainly in the stories Jama, Si upaš? (Cave, Do You Dare?) or Daljnogled (Binoculars), while the true potential of such a constructed narrative is developed mainly in Hiša spomina (Memory House). It is a story about a mother-in-law with dementia and a daughter-in-law, both widows and living alone in the family house. The author makes clever use of the doors in the house as a symbol of passage. These open into different previous periods of the mother-in-law’s life, making the whole house a hub of the demented matriarch’s mental world. In the house, therefore, time periods flow from one to the other, but they remain – like the two residents – stuck in the house, “the bottleneck of human destiny”.

Although I would dare to say that a slight affinity for Slovenian rurality emanates from the collection, the thematic range is certainly much broader. The author quite confidently sets the stories now on Škrlatica, then in South America, now in the Slovenian countryside, then in Paris, Türkiye, etc. If we add to this the demographic diversity, we find that the collection strives for some universal points of human existence, and that the emphasis is mainly on the narrative technique. But it almost never comes to the forefront in a forceful way, but rather goes hand-in-hand with the content, and it is only upon later reflection that we notice the diversity and the playfulness. And it’s not just the diversity of the narrators, but the key lies in the fact that the stories before us grow mainly as pictures, intense atmospheres that don’t try to convince us of anything, to warn us, or to sell us anything, but rather have an effect because of the way they are put into words. In this context, it is worth highlighting the story Prisluškovanje (Eavesdropping), in which the entire setting, and then fragments of the story, develops from a tiny initial theme, voices penetrating from an apartment into the narrator’s bathroom. In this way, the story corresponds to the more fragmented ones found elsewhere in the collection. These are perhaps even closer to the form of flash fiction, i.e. a short short story (Akvarij (Aquarium), Trenutek nepazljivosti (A Moment Of Carelessness)), since, with a careful selection of themes, according to the principle of less is definitely more, they reveal just enough to give us a glimpse of the story’s outline.

And speaking of narrative techniques, the most obvious variant should not be overlooked, such as the story Efekt Kulešova (The Kuleshov Effect), written on the basis of the film editing technique, or the story Dekle v modri jopici (Girl In A Blue Cardigan), written in the form of e-mails. In the latter story, too, we can see that it is not a matter of playing with form, because such writing format is not an invention of any kind, but it would have been difficult for the author to tell the story in another way. Allow me to explain: of course, she could have organised and sequenced the events differently, but the effect would not have been the same. In order to present a perspective, she steps into the mindset of the protagonist Tea Klobučar in a certain way, she needs the e-mail format. The story is about Tea persistently sending e-mails to a company that has not hired her after a job interview, but no one answers her until her e-mail address ultimately gets blocked. In this one-way communication, Tea invents and names the supposed recipient of her e-mails, and it is in this crazy persistence that she reveals herself to be, layer by layer, a traumatised person who, ultimately, merely yearns for human contact.

The collection’s dramaturgy leads us sensibly to the end, where, a few deaths later, the restlessness that pushed the Flying People from the beginning of the collection to such heights re-emerges, the restlessness that, in the conditional mood, raises a series of what if questions. The collection’s title thus turns out to be a metaphor for the human condition. For as we read in the story Izkopavanja (Excavations): “Even from the very beginning: the fear of death and the desire for eternity. Upwards, upwards. Hence, stone on stone, brick on brick, hence the cathedral. Away from the earth, where everything is falling apart, away from the earth on which we lie when we can no longer stand. Until the last drop of the human spirit flows out of us, we push ourselves upwards.”

Objavo je omogočila Javna agencija za knjigo