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| Translated by Agnieška Leščinska | |
Sigitas Parulskis. Kaip aš mečiau (How I Quit). Vilnius: Alma littera, 2024.
Sigitas Parulskis is one of the most prolific and widely translated contemporary Lithuanian writers. Literary scholars and critics classify his work as postmodernist, highlighting his ironic, grotesque style and his exploration of the traumatic experiences of a nation and a generation.
Parulskis’s eighth novel, Kaip aš mečiau (How I Quit), stays true to these themes. Readers’ engagement with the novel will vary depending on their familiarity with the author’s work and their receptiveness to its frequent edgy interludes and characteristic humor. One of the main aspects of the novel is pleasure, depicted through numerous sex scenes, contemplations about sex, and the use of alcohol and drugs and their influence on a person. However, the novel also introduces another perspective, which, while less universal than pleasure, adds depth to the narrative.
While reading Parulskis’s new novel, I couldn’t help but draw parallels with Eminem’s single, “Houdini.” The concept of the song and its music video is straightforward – Eminem’s controversial alter ego, Slim Shady, is transported from 2002 to 2024 via a time portal. His initial reaction is “The fuck is this shit?” followed by a series of shocking and controversial lines. Professor Skye from the YouTube channel “Professor Skye’s Record Review” offers an intriguing analysis of the song using the model of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. According to Professor Skye, the thesis is that the song is bad, filled with the complaints of a middle-aged white man. The antithesis is that the song is good. The synthesis suggests that perhaps it’s satire, intended to lure in those people who criticize the modern world.[1]
It’s possible to discuss Kaip aš mečiau in a similar manner. Thesis: The novel is irritating, and its protagonist, also a writer named Sigitas, is portrayed as a perverted misogynist. Antithesis: The novel is brilliant and humorous; it effectively portrays social norms and sensitivities and how the blunt protagonist is out of touch with them. Synthesis: While certain parts of the novel can indeed be irritating, and it portrays a perverted misogynist as a protagonist, all this is intentional. The novel creates a space where different generational viewpoints clash (the zoomers are supposed to be appalled by the boomers and vice versa). Just like Eminem, who’s stuck between the more conservative groups that wanted to cancel him 20 years ago and their liberal offspring mocked in the latest single, in the novel, Sigitas seems to be sitting on a fence. He rants about modern technology and the younger generation with regards to what he sees as their misplaced values: “The current and future generations, they’ve decided that looking at a woman’s ass and lusting after her is wrong, that it’s a violation of rights, dignity, and some other shit. They sit in front of computers, jerk off, and educate others on tolerance” (p. 84). He discriminates against vegetarians and women and likes to flip religious narratives and literary classics indicating how alienated from “traditional values” he has become.
Sigitas’s modern view is best portrayed in the novel’s scene depicting the reading of a script. Older-aged committee members found the idea of depicting Lithuanian literary classics in a sexualized manner in a film for schoolchildren appalling (e.g., Antanas Baranauskas having sex with mushrooms in the forest and Žemaitė engaging in oral sex). Meanwhile, a young literature professor considers it progressive and relevant, until Sigitas starts expressing views that even she finds unacceptable. In the end, he is not accepted by either group. Even after having sex with Sigitas, the professor finds him repulsive both inside and out. This raises the novel’s fundamental questions: How did Sigitas become who he is? What shaped the identity of a writer born and raised in the Soviet era, who spent his youth during the period of independence, who was once progressive but now finds himself stuck somewhere in the middle?
This is important not only for the reader but also for Sigitas himself. However, the question of identity is explored indirectly in the novel, focusing on how he started smoking and his attempt to quit. The plot is simple: A character with a health problem tries to live a healthier life. Yet the reading process is complicated by an incoherent narrative structure, with frequent jumps between past and future events, making it difficult to determine the sequence of events. The story includes visits to doctors, meetings with a dying childhood friend, Zenius, conversations with his friend Sara, and love stories.
The first third of the novel portrays the present-day Sigitas, who is dealing with health issues. While the writing style is smooth, readers must navigate through numerous peculiar similes (“her voice already reminds me of Uncle Aloysius’s testicles in the refrigerator of the oncology ward” [p. 10]), seemingly idiosyncratic reasoning, repetitive thoughts, the protagonist’s intrusive chattiness, edgy humor, and coarse language. In other words, it reflects Parulskis’s usual style. The novel itself slightly unmasks the reasons behind this style of writing, hinting to the reader that the questionable passages serve a deeper purpose and are worth pushing through: “Sigitas, we know you are a sensitive and sincere person. Why do you always want to show the ugly side of things? Postmodernism, the aesthetics of ugliness, and political, economic, and social transformation – it’s all understandable” (p. 70). After you push through this part of the novel, finally, it becomes apparent how the novel explores those issues.
Sigitas’s journey toward quitting smoking is marked by flashbacks to his childhood and adolescence in a small town. These chapters could stand alone as short stories. They focus more on the environment in which he grew up instead of Sigitas himself. The narrative describes the current affairs of a small town where everyone knows each other, highlighting theft, alcoholism, characters with interesting nicknames, and the lingering effects of World War II and the Holocaust. While the collapsing outskirts of the communist system are a common theme in Lithuanian literature, these episodes are neither moralistic nor didactic. Instead, the town and its inhabitants possess a certain charm. It seems as though the narrative focuses on the traces of the Soviet experience instead of the slow decay of a period or place. It depicts the impact of this environment on the locals, how they cope with it, and, indirectly, how it impacted Sigitas, who reflects on these memories decades later. Unlike the locals, Sigitas must grapple with the experience of the Soviet era after it collapsed. He realizes that his constant partying and drinking were forms of escapism. It worked, but was not sustainable. As we age, these means of escape might still work, but the body begins to deteriorate. Sigitas, shaped by two different systems, finds himself caught between two generations. He is neither young nor old, never fully escaping his negative experiences. The past lingers, as summarized by a homeless man named Soya: “If we were not afraid to look into the abyss of our souls, we would realize that deep down, a Russian soldier, an invader, still lives, that the terrible music of war is still playing in our subconscious and the shells of hatred are still exploding” (p. 177).
Parulskis’s latest novel is marked by his distinctive style and the issues he addresses. Alongside the theme of pleasure, the novel explores the present life of a generation that came of age at the turn of the century. The protagonist finds himself caught between two fully mature generations and struggles to fit in completely. Kaip aš mečiau is a journey through memories that helps us better understand the character and his generation, which dominates the first third of the novel. It depicts the identity-forming experiences of the late Soviet era in a small town, reflecting on what it means to escape from these experiences in a person’s youth and return to them later in life.
1. Professor Skye's Record Review. Is the new Eminem song TERRIBLE??? “Houdini” analysis. 2024-06-01, accessed on the web: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_JuSLWk-Rk
