Andrej Blatnik - You Do Understand

MISUNDERSTANDING

“You're even more beautiful when you come,” he said.
How would you know? she thought.

It goes without saying that throughout an individual's life, he or she will grapple with many competing and conflicting desires. Some are achieved, and others are not. And some of our desires we don't really want to attain because we prefer the struggle for them, and the disappointment in not receiving what we wish. One great aspect of our desire stems from a single concept, easy to define but hard to achieve – being understood.

Andrej Blatnik's collection, You Do Understand, comprised of fifty short pieces spanning 94 pages, grapples primarily, though not exclusively, with the problem of being understood. The above quoted section, Misunderstanding, is the tenth story, and is indicative, in capsule form, of the thrust of many of the pieces. In it, one character – he – is certain of something about their shared experiences, and the other – she – knows he is wrong, but doesn't tell him. And that, in fifteen words, supplies the essence of the work as a whole.

I know it's hard to wake up and find an empty bed when the night before you were so sure it wouldn't be empty in the morning, to wake up to an empty apartment when you thought it wouldn't have to be empty anymore. But I had to leave, I couldn't sleep, you do understand, don't you.

The stories range from a few sentences to a couple of pages, and in none of them will you find a name or explicit location. Blatnik eschews these identifiers to add a sense of universality to the stories. Sex, sexuality, identity, desire and disappointment are primary concerns for most people during much of their lives, and there's always this niggling sensation that, no matter how close you might come to your own personal truth, even then you'll never be able to properly explain it. Blatnik indicates that our lives are lived at dusk, with objects and people difficult to make out clearly, and that any flashes of insight are generally limited in our ability to explain them, first to ourselves and then to others.

A good example of the communication at cross-purposes that forms many of the stories comes from this, which appears about halfway through the piece:

DISCOURSE

The professor looks at her student, thinking: He wants me, I'm still beautiful. The student looks at his professor, thinking: She'd have me, I'm smart enough. The professor thinks about her years of attractiveness running out. The students thinks about the smart people accepting him sooner than he'd hoped. The professor tells herself she could lock the door, it's late on a hot afternoon, exams are over. The student tells himself everyone has gone home, exams are over, nobody would notice. The professor considers whether she should ask anything else. The students wonders whether what happens or doesn't happen will affect his grade. The professor does not want allowances made. The student does not want allowances made. The professor only wants to be sure that it happens because of her and not because of her position. The student only wants to be sure that his grade is what he really deserves.

We can understand this situation readily, and most of us would have been involved in similar circumstances at some stage of our lives or another, first as the student, and then as the teacher. Blatnik shows, with great skill and economy, the essence of what it is to be young, ambitious, confused, sexually attracted and curious, but hesitant to move too soon too fast for something that isn't true, and also to be older, fading, unsure of one's position in life after having lived so long in surety. The repetition of many of the phrasings is genius, showing us that the two characters aren't really all that different, while the student and professor, to each other, remain wholly unknowable.

Other stories deal with the individual on their own terms, though often before or after a successful or failed sexual interaction. At these times, particularly with people we “know we shouldn't” (for whatever reason), there is a tendency to reflect, to gauge our behaviour on the moral standing we hold for ourselves. How do we measure up? And if we've failed, why?

These are melancholy stories, sad, lonely snippets from moments that sometimes seem defining and other times not, thematically held together by a strong sense of disappointment. A man reflects on his life, how it seems to have all worked out, with the wife, the children, the job, the home, the friends – and then he hears a thud and discovers he's hit a child. The child isn't breathing, but nobody's about. Can he just drive on and leave the body? Ten minutes ago, no! Never! But now, when it's become an actuality? His moral compass disappears, and he discovers that, when tested, the foundations of his self really aren't all that strong. The story ends with him lamenting the wife, the children, the job, the home, the friends – because now they won't ever hold the same flavour they once did. Life has changed, mistakes have been made, and disappointment has settled in.

Blatnik's You Do Understand is, as mentioned, a deeply melancholy collection, but the brevity of the stories alleviates the deepening feelings somewhat. Taken individually, these stories pack a surprising amount of characterisation into their few paragraphs, and on top of that the collective whole possesses a cohesiveness of purpose too rarely found in collections. There's a lot to like here, and a lot that will make you sad. Think of all the missed opportunities, broken promises (to yourself and to others), failed resolutions and confusing interactions in your own life, and you've got You Do Understand.

Author	Andrej Blatnik
Title	You Do Understand (Original Title: Saj razumeš)
Translator	Tamara M Soban
Nationality	Slovenian
Publisher	The Dalkey Archive Press
Published	2010 (English) 2009 (French)
Pages	94
Availability: ---Amazon (US)

See Also

Other titles by Andrej Blatnik under review include:
---Too Close Together

List of titles by The Dalkey Archive Press under review.

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