Ispod Majice: The Brutality of a Modern Woman
If you’ve been feeling down lately or can’t seem to find a silver lining anywhere, before you start exploring some desperate options, grab a copy of Ispod majice by Marija Ratković. It may not give you hope, but it will sure teach you there are worse things to be feeling down about—like cancer and everything rotten that goes with it.
YuBiblioteka has already had the pleasure of interviewing the author of this sensational book with an atypical happy ending. Go check out what Marija herself said about her novel, before we delve deeper into what we have to say.
And boy, do we have things to say about this one.
Worry not, we hate spoilers and would never spoil anything for you—let alone a masterpiece like this one—so feel free to read on.
Istinu niko ne kaže iz dva razloga. Prvi, zato što su ljudi kukavice i potrebna im je laž do prvog ćoška. Potrebna im je vera ili nada—ali pošto veru nemaju, a nada je nepouzdana—potrebna im je pouzdana laž, laž nekoga kome veruju. Drugi razlog zašto istinu ne kaže je zato što je istina potpuno nepotrebna. Nije bolje i neće biti bolje, ali i dalje moraš da ideš na posao, izgoriš na suncu ili imaš seks. Previše je besmisleno govoriti istinu, kada nju niko zaista ne želi.
Marija Ratković is a publicist, theoretician, and activist. She’s also an outspoken feminist and a kickass writer. After her doctoral studies at the Department of Theory of Art and Media at the University of Arts in Belgrade, she engaged in artistic and scientific work in the field of culture of memory, biopolitics and forensic architecture. In other words, she’s mighty smart. You’d expect someone with a doctor’s degree in art and media to write about that, art, media, biopolitics, or forensic architecture (whatever the heck that is). But Marija chose something more personal, something more private, more outrageous, more provocative, more visceral.
That could be an excellent one-word sum up for this novel—visceral to the point it ingrains in your mind and leaves you dealing with all those unanswered questions. But make no mistake, this novel does not raise any questions about life, love, or illness that it does not explain. The only questions left unanswered are those we raise about ourselves.
If you watch any interview with Marija, you’ll see that she’s not just a pretty face behind all those “impossibly honest” narrations in her book. Very rarely—especially in these modern times—will you find someone, a man or a woman, who has something fundamentally important to say. An important idea to entertain. A crucial message to deliver. Thrillers and romance novels are great, sure, but it’s literature like Ispod majice that takes everyone’s breath away with simplicity in language and complexity in the subject.
Womanhood is a complex subject. Being a woman and what a woman should be is complex. Cancer is a multifacetedly complex conversation to carry. Love, whether man-to-woman, self-love or any other type, has always been an elusive, convoluted idea that thousands upon thousands of books throughout history have tried to capture and explain.
And guess what—we still don’t know what that is. Marija, in the book, seems to love everyone at once and no one at all, not even herself.
Često se pitam da li sam dobra ćerka. Mislim da nisam. Ali mislim da svako ima decu kakvu zaslužuje.
The good thing about this novel is that it is pure fiction—except for one huge chunk of the story. The bad news is that you’ll recognize very real parts of yourself or your relationships with friends, family, or loved ones.
This fictional Marija from the book opens many traumatic windows into her own self. Her every relationship is complex, and it almost feels made up—how many toxic, undervalued relations with people around us can we possibly have—until the reader starts digging into their own relationships. There’s nothing made up about a broken family, about bizarre happenings from childhood, first sexual awakenings, and first realizations that we are actually different from others.
We’re not like other girls and boys in the class, we’re not like other women and men we see in the streets or work with. There’s something deeply unsettling about how ordinary we all want to be yet what we feel and what we are seep through holes in our souls that other people don’t seem to have.
The brutally honest—yet often unreliable—narrator battles on two fronts: love and life. Sadly, losing one sometimes means the automatic damage of the other. Marija raises essential questions: can we love while suffering from an illness, and can we overcome an illness without love?
Yes, there’s much talk about love, but this is not a love story. This is a story of a woman in the midst of discovering herself, her worth, and her strength in the most defenseless ways. There’s the feminist aspect of it, the everlasting crusade of recognition and respect, and it funny how all this simultaneously melts and galvanizes in the face of cancer and heartache.
Underneath it all, underneath cancer, surgeries, toxic relationships and love/hate friendships, there’s a troubled young woman who suffers from—or revels in—antisocial behavior. This type of antihero is too common in the 21st century, whether in literature or real life. At the end of her book, author Marija pleads with everyone who might feel isolated, either by choice or circumstances, who might struggle with mental issues, who are sad or going through trauma, to step forward and ask for help.
The real Marija Ratković never ceases to highlight the collectivity of our suffering, that we’re not alone in whatever we’re going through. Via the fictional Marija Ratković, she tells the story of a woman who desperately needs and wants help but is incapable of asking. That’s who we all are, deep down, introverts, extroverts, antisocial individuals, or social butterflies, we are all struggling with asking for help when we most need it.
Gotovo mi je vulgarno koliko se ljudi grabe za život. Sve sama stoka, to se jede, to se pije, to su sise i podvaljci, čvarci od ljudi koji onda posle sedmog špricera, uplašeni za svoj život, počnu da cvile i govore Pomozite mi, doktore, izvadite iz tela tog skota! Seci, doktore, vadi šta treba, samo da se što pre vratim za sto. To su oni ljudi koji vole život, a u stvari, to je onaj šljam što leži i cepa pivo, kečap svaki dan.
Speaking for Vice Serbia, Marija said that she wanted to start with a huge problem for her main character—a woman she lent her name—and that the first revelation of the problem was simply an introduction to the story. She called her story an “emotional anatomy,” and that’s exactly what it felt like reading it: like an anatomy class of human emotions and roller coasters, of all our fears and hopes, of all the love we have and are incapable of giving.
Marija says: “The first ten pages of the novel will tell every reader about what type of book that is and whether they want to continue or not.”
That was my exact sentiment before stumbling upon her own description of the book. I started the book months ago, thinking its title and book cover would be enough to persuade me to read it (and like it). But those first ten or so pages took me forever to read through. I even entertained the idea of abandoning it and focusing on something more “appealing.”
I’m so glad I didn’t, as the author quickly picks up the pace and promises to deliver the most potent narration you’ll find in modern Serbian literature.
Thank you, Marija, for delivering on that promise.
Truly yours,
Vanja