The Lute and the Scars

July 23, 2012
Conversely, this vigorously inventive story collection, transcribed from manuscripts after Kis’s death, clearly shows that promise fulfilled. In “The Stateless One,” a man spends his last years living in hotels and writing in cafes and finds that “language is a person’s only real home.” “Jurij Golec” traces the title character’s reaction to the death of his wife, from whom he had lived apart for 20 years—though an “elemental” bond remained. “The Poet” concerns the fate of Steva Licina, a pensioner who wrote and posted verse critical of the ruling party. In “The Debt” a dying man remembers people who have been important to him and what he owes them, assembling a list that is movingly long and varied. “A and B” contrasts a “magical place” with the extremely small and modest dwelling—“the worst rathole...?”—where the author lived from 1942 to 1945. In the standout title story, the narrator describes in loving detail his student lodgings, years during which he lived with an older couple. The wife was stern and sickly while the husband, though deaf, is resolutely cheerful, teaching the narrator lessons that prove invaluable. These are stories to savor and ponder in equal measures.