RoundBlog Take 3 -- Melville on The Cellist of Sarajevo

The Cellist of Sarajevo was a deeply affecting novel for me.  It was not a book I wanted to read quickly -- and, as you can tell, my schedule certainly ensured that I would follow through on that wish.  It was also not a book I could reflect on immediately as I wanted to see what ideas or images would stay with me even now, almost two weeks after I finished it.  As someone with Yugoslavian relatives, I picked this novel since it was a rare opportunity to learn something beyond the minor details my grandparents mentioned or the dry facts that I've read in history books.

I think what struck me most about the plot was the focus on seeing things through a new or a different perspective.  Each of the characters, by the end of the novel, changes something in their view -- whether about themselves or Sarajevo or both.  There are also constant references to observing others as they go about their daily business of survival while being watched by the eyes of the snipers in the hills, ready to change their fates forever with a twitch of their trigger finger or the tossing of a bomb.

While these instances of "seeing" may seem small at first, they begin to hint at what I believe is the overall question and purpose of this novel:  How often do we observers "see" what happens in a war-torn nation?  How often do we pause to consider the human toll?  Have we become immune to others' suffering?

Of course, if we do learn to empathize with those who are suffering, the next question would be: How would we see or understand ourselves in this situation?  Would we lose our own humanity?

With that idea in mind, I started to realize that it is on these two levels that this novel operates -- with the characters constantly considering the outside world and the luxuries others enjoy while they remain oblivious to Sarajevo's plight.  It is made even more poignant that as these characters ponder the uncaring nature of others,  they too become almost indifferent to their "daily war routines" which involve creating elaborate routes around the blasted-out city to procure water for their family that may end up costing them their lives. 

I also found it particularly poignant that besides the Cellist's playing to memorialize the fallen he saw from his window, many of the characters are also moved by the plight of the dogs struggling to survive.  When the characters are particularly raw, Galloway brings in an animal who also seems to mimic their pain, but in an even more pitiful way.  Do they see their own crawl or ragged jogs between protective buildings similar to animals trapped in a cage?  While it is unclear how deeply this siege will ultimately affect all the characters in the long run, it is certainly clear that they have more and more trouble remembering the Sarajavo they once knew and loved.   

I was struck most by the following passage towards the end of Cellist.  (It's a bit long so bear with me...Here, Dragan, an older man who has witnessed several people wounded/killed by snipers notices one of the dead bodies is still in the street.)

[....] A dead body won't bother anyone.  It will be a curiosity, but unless some viewer knew the  hatless man it will mean nothing.  There's nothing in a dead body that suggests what it was like to be alive.  No one will know if the man had unusually large feet, which his friends used to tease him about when he was a child.  No will know about [all these things that make us ourselves ...]

[...] But these are the things that make a death something to be mourned.  It's not just a disappearance of flesh.  This, in and of itself, is easily shrugged off.  When the body of the hatless man is shown on the evening news to people all over the world, they will do exactly that.  They may remark on the horror, but they will, most likely, think nothing of it at all, like a dog with somewhere else to be. [...]

He won't allow this man's body to be filmed.  He remembers what he told [another character who was wounded earlier] about the cellist, why he thinks he plays.  To stop something from happening.  To prevent a worsening.  To do what he can.

As he looks at the cameraman, however, Dragan realizes that he's missed the point.  It doesn't matter what the world thinks of his city.  All that matters is what he thinks.  In the Sarajevo of his memory, it was completely unacceptable to have a dead man lying in the street.  In the Sarajevo of today it's normal.  He has been living in neither, has tried to live in a city that no longer exists, refusing to participate in the one that does . (208-9)

It is in these moments of clarity and new vision that Galloway sweeps me away.  When the character risks his own life in the line of sniper fire to move the body away from the newsjournalist watching across the street, he is doing it not just for himself and his re-awakening sense of humanity, but also for the Sarajevo of before, a place so beautiful in their memories that even I can see it for what it once was.

If nothing else, for me, this book was an invitation to rethink our reactions to others' suffering and to imagine our world as a better, more amiable place where these realities do not have to exist.  In the midst of this bleak novel, I also recognize a sense that if we can actually SEE and not just glaze over atrocity, we would find a way to peace, just as the Cellist sees a way to offer comfort and dignity in the hearts of great darkness.