"Love and Obstacles" by Aleksander Hemon

Love and Obstacles
Aleksander Hemon
Riverhead Books
ISBN: 978-1-59448-864-1


As a young writer, Aleksander Hemon has already accumulated a lifetime of writer accolades: he’s a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant recipient, he’s been a Guggenheim fellow, and both of his recent books (The Lazarus Project and Nowhere Man) have been short-listed for the National Book Award. So expectations for Love and Obstacles, a collection of short stories, was high. Aleksander Hemon did not disappoint.

It takes a little while to immerse yourself in the autobiographical world of Bosnian Hemon if you’ve never experienced his writing before. Somewhat jarring, too, in this volume is that the first story is set in Africa, where he tells his own Heart of Darkness tale about disaffected youth and a rogue CIA type. It’s a good story, but once the book moves on to other, more typical Hemon fare--stories of Sarajevo, transplantation to North America, and stories of family life--it’s easier to see what all the fuss is about.

Hemon writes with humor and pathos. He is able to poke fun at his own writerly ambitions, as well as those of his father (who writes the story of his life via a movie script that he then wants his son to act out), a Bosnian poet who haunts the cafes of Sarajevo (and mistakes the Hemon character for a conductor), and a visiting Pulitzer Prize winner whose life’s trauma (Vietnam) mirrors that of Hemon’s (the fall of Sarajevo). It’s all fodder for the vagaries of life and the impossibility of living in an absurd world when you aspire to see its truth and beauty.

Two factors will leap out when readers attempt to decipher just what it is that makes this writing so potent. One is the way in which the writer is able to bring his characters to life. In each of the eight stories told in Love and Obstacles, the characters are larger than life, strong in personality but vulnerable and frail, too, from the life experiences they have suffered through (yet are reluctant to reveal). The second strength Hemon brings to his writing is his unexpected use of language. The twists and turns, the play on songs and other cultural motifs, the odd phrasing that cuts to the quick--these are the heart and soul of Love and Obstacles.

Finally, the key turn that brings most stories in Love and Obstacles to their climax is done with a poetic phrasing that’s almost startling. Caught up in the humor of the situation, readers don’t see the vulnerable punch line coming. It’s magic when it arrives. And that is the reason Aleksander Hemon is worth reading.