Reading Response #4

The end of this novel was quite nice. Admittedly it was much nicer than I anticipated. While the cellist survived, Arrow was almost willingly assassinated. The instant before Arrow is shot, she says “my name is Alisa. After adopting the alias Arrow for the duration of the novel due to her military connections, having her return to using her original name (for however briefly) shows that she momentarily became the person she was before the war. A similar experience was also had by Kenan and Dragan. Kenan motivates himself to go on yet another trip for water. This time he has a much more positive attitude towards the journey. When he first leaves at the beginning of the novel, he dreads the trip and is frightened to death of it. This time he admits many people are doing to save what they believe in. The most significant change is how he knocks on Mrs.Ristovski’s door to get her water bottles. This is a huge change from a few days ago when he nearly justified leaving her bottles behind, giving her no water. Dragan also returns to “the person he was before the war”. He does this when he crosses a street, completely exposed to snipers. Instead of waiting for “the right moment” and sprinting across the street, he walks at a casual pace. He no longer feared being shot. It’s interesting to see that the performance of the cellist let everyone return to their normal selves.

While reading the novel I was always curious to see if the different characters stories would intersect at the end. While the characters stories remained very much distinct, they all had the cellist in common. This is very effective in showing the cellist effect on the people of Sarajevo. Since they all had such a similar reaction, it shows that the cellist playing had a similar effect on the people who came and listened.

Reading Response #3

So Arrow defeated the sniper that was going to assassinate the cellist, which was a tad disappointing. However, the cellist still has one performance left which still leaves the potential for a dead cellist. However, with Nermin suddenly killed and Arrow randomly reassigned a new mission by a Colonel that was just introduced to the story, I’m not sure how we’ll end up hearing about it. This seemed like an awfully random twist for the story to take so close to the end. I hope they explain the series of events that caused this or even why it’s happened. Hopefully it won’t be a drastic attempt to transition into a different story last minute.

Despite this random twist in plot, there was one particularly interesting development. This was Kenan’s decision to leave Mrs.Ristovski’s two water bottles behind. This was foreshadowed near the beginning of the story when Kenan described his frustration with Mrs.Ristovski’s rudeness and apparent lack of consideration for other. When he first promised to take her bottles and fill them for her, he debated leaving them right on her doorstep to teach her a bit of a lesson. Of course he decided against this for one reason or another at the time. My guess would be that he thought this would be immoral or out of character. This is what makes his decision particularly interesting. Watching people being shelled quite close to him obviously changed something in him. Whatever change occurred, he no longer felt bad about leaving Mrs.Ristovski’s bottles behind. I really look forward to seeing the interaction he has with Mrs.Ristovski’s when he returns. I wonder if he will rationalize his leaving the bottles to her, or is he will return to feeling bad.

I mentioned in an earlier journal how seeing each person narrate their experience shows you a lot about their character, especially in a time of war. This has clearly continued to be a very effective way of describing the character and the setting. Galloway continues with this theme of revealing aspect of character through war when one of Dragans old friends is shot relatively close to him. In this time of immense pressure we see him shut down and fail to act. He described how he feels like an observer in the world around him, not noticed by anybody, or able to do anything.

Reading Response #2

One thing that has really been bugging me throughout the novel is how Kenan and Dragan are constantly risking being shot whenever they are exposed to the snipers in the hills. This usually occurs when they are moving between cover of buildings. Kenan, who is trying to reach a brewery to get water, has to carry 4 empty jugs of water with him whenever he makes a mad dash from building to building. This obviously slows him down a great deal, leaving his a target for much longer. What I would like to see him do, is attach a rope to all the jugs, so that he can make his sprints to cover without the extra weight of the jugs, and then simply pull them across the exposed area using the rope.


One character, who is clearly particularly interesting, is the cellist. After 22 people buying bread were killed by a single shell, the cellist decides to play a piece every day for each of the victims. The problem is that he decides to play right where the shell landed, making him a political bull’s-eye for a sniper. What I find interesting about this, is the emotion that persuades him to do this. He could be doing it out of anger, sorrow, frustration, hope, and possibly even happiness. As a musician, I understand the different emotions music can both appeal to and evoke, so I would really like to understand what the music is doing for him.

To be perfectly honest, I expected all the characters would have merged into one plot by now. However, they continue to remain separate (expect the cellist who is now being defended by Arrow). I’m wondering if all the characters will eventually come “together” at the end, or if there is a reason they will remain separate. It would be interesting if one of the characters who seems like a main character at the moment (ie Kenan or Dragan) would end up being somehow associated with an event involving all main characters, but only playing a very small role. There is definitely the potential for the story to take some interesting turns stylistically.

In terms of what will happen next in the story, I think the main question is will the cellist survive his remaining performances? If Arrow is able to protect him and he lives, then this would defiantly be an inspiration to the city. At this point it is looking like the other sniper has outsmarted Arrow and will succeed in killing the cellist, which is why I am predicting he will survive. This would be the obvious, inspirational, heartwarming ending. Personally I think there is the potential for a much more interesting story looking at the reactions of the characters after the cellist’s death. I think the chances of the book ending like this are fairly low, but we’ll see where it goes.

Reflections

This ISU has been quite the experience to say the least. It is the first time I have really studied a novel so thoroughly. As I started looking at the novel more and more, I continued to discover many new “deeper meanings” that could be extracted from the text. My ISU only focused on a few of these meanings, but I have a feeling there are still a few more to be discovered, despite a thorough study of the novel. It definitely gives you a lot of appreciation for the book. Now knowing that I have this ability to see so much more value in a book than what there is at first glance, I plan on trying to recognise these meanings early when reading a book. This way I’ll be able to get most of the meaning out of it, without having to pick through the entire book.

There was one thing that I did differently when writing this ISU. After I read the book for the first time, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to write my explication on, so I went through the book and put sticky notes wherever a useful quotation was. This technique made writing and supporting my points very clear, since my book was now a rainbow of sticky notes. I wish I had thought of this before.

One of the meanings in the novel that has really stuck with me is how important art is in our lives “to evoke feeling and remind us we are human”. Music has been a part of my life more than any other art form. One of the things that initially drew me to this book was the fact that music seemed to be an important theme in it. Keeping this theme in mind has definitely given me a heightened appreciation for music. When you consider that the music you’re listening to is reminding you you’re human, you can’t help but grow slightly more grateful for it. I now find myself trying to devote more time to my music related projects.

Links

Book Reviews:
Brief review

Another

CBC review

SMH review

Nice review with author comments!

Academic Essays:

SarajevoCould be relevent

Interviews:
Interview about the novel
"What he's reading"

Autobiography:

Author's Website

Biography:
Very Brief


Context:


THE cellist of sarajevo
The siege of Sarajevo
The siege

Death toll

Works Cited

Bibliography

Galloway, Steven. Telephone interview. 16 June 2008. Interview.

Galloway, Steven. The Cellist of Sarajevo. First. Toronto: Random House, 2008. Print.

Grace, Gillian. "Music for a broken city." CBC. 22 APR 2008. CBC. 21 Apr 2009 .

Zoephel, Christopher. "The Siege of Sarajevo." Then Again. 21 APR 1997. The Web Chronology Project. 21 Apr 2009 .

N/A, " 1996: Siege of Sarajevo is lifted." BBC On This Day. BBC. 21 Apr 2009 .

Explication

The character Arrow in “The cellist of Sarajevo” is based on Polti’s dramatic situation of self-sacrifice for an ideal. Arrow is an incredibly gifted Sarajevan sniper. While most snipers need to take every variable into account when making long distance shots, Arrow “doesn’t take measurements or calculate formulas” (Galloway 10). Instead she is just able to make the bullet go where she wants. Despite Arrows gift, she tries to keep her military connections to a minimum in order to allow her to fight for her own reasons. While driving through the country side when she was just 18, Arrow had a beautifully simple experience that she describes as stumbling “into the core of what it is to be human” (Galloway 12). When Arrow sees the “men on the hills” shooting innocent men, women, and children, she fights back only because these people are robbing her and every other Sarajevan of the gift of understanding “that your life is wondrous , and that it won’t last forever” (Galloway 12).

The first way in which Arrow fights for her beliefs, is through physical sacrifice of herself. Arrow never has enough food to eat, and what she does have barely provides enough nutrition for her to survive. As a soldier she spends most of her energy fighting, but instead of earning food or money “she gets paid in cigarettes” (Galloway 195). Now, “the very thought of rice revolts her” (Galloway 195) since it is all she has to eat. While this lack of proper nutrition would concern most people, it does not compare to the danger she encounters during her job. When she is assigned to protect the cellist from an enemy sniper that will be sent to assassinate him, she is in a life or death dual. During one of the cellist’s performances, she narrowly avoids death when she realizes the assassin “has now found her, and a bullet is on its way” (Galloway 146), with just enough time to spare. Even when Arrow is the one shooting she is still in a great deal of danger. Whenever Arrow shoots at an enemy sniper, they will instantly “begin to search for her” (Galloway 14). If she is spotted but manages not to get shot by a sniper, then “they’ll shell the building into the ground if necessary” (Galloway 14). These shellings normally terrify most civilians, but Arrow is “in more danger during her average day then she is during the worst night of shelling” (Galloway 192).

The other type of sacrifice Arrow makes involves her doing things she knows to be unethical. When Arrow is initially approached by the military she explains that she “[doesn’t] want to kill people” (Galloway 70) .Up until this point she had only shot targets, she tells her unit commander that she “wants to be able to go back to the life [she] had before” (Galloway 71) and that she “wants her ands to be clean” (Galloway 71). When Arrow spots the cellists assassin she admits “she doesn’t want to pull her trigger” (Galloway 154), because “she can see that he doesn’t want to pull his” (Galloway 154). Despite all this Arrow shoots the assassin, compromising her morals.


Once Arrow kills someone, she also kills herself in a sense. She says “the woman who sat in this office on that day and said she didn’t want to kill anyone was gone” (Galloway 71). Now she has sacrificed herself, and become Arrow. She is driven to this alias because of the hate she has for the men on the hills. Whenever she is addressed by her real name she says “I am Arrow because I hate them” (Galloway 13) and that “the woman you know hated nobody” (Galloway 13). Gradually throughout the story we see her become Arrow more and more. This is until the very end of the novel when Arrow’s apartment is about to be broken into, and her, shot dead. Arrow knows that if she were to fight back “the men on the other side of the door would die” (Galloway 256). She realizes that this would only make her need to kill more after that, eventually contradicting the very thing she was fighting for. So instead of fighting back, she becomes herself again for the moment before her death. Right before she is shot, her last words are “My name is Alisa” (Galloway 258). This shows how Alisa has been sacrificed, and only Arrow would be able to survive within her.

Apologia

Steven Galloway is a Canadian author most popular for his recent novel, “The Cellist of Sarajevo”. At the age of 33 he has written three novels in addition to being the Cliff Writer in Residence at the University of British Colombia and the Fiction Mentor at Simon Fraser University. With the release of “The Cellist of Sarajevo” in 2008, Galloway burst into the scene of famous Canadian authors. The novel has received many glowing reviews and “has critics’ keyboards fluttering with synonyms for “moving” and “humane” (Grace). Clearly Galloway has a lot of potential still to be discovered as a relatively young author.

The Siege of Sarajevo took place from 1992 until 1996 and is the longest siege in the history of modern warfare. When the siege began all roads and means of escape from Sarajevo were destroyed or shut down. With no means of escape or refuge, “400,000 residents were trapped in the siege, and they were cut off from food, medicine, water, and supplies of electricity” (Zoephel). During the siege targets were rarely discriminated, so there was literally no safe place within the city. To further ensure this, “Red Cross trucks which were given clearance to enter Sarajevo, were raided and destroyed” (Zoephel), leaving minimal aid to civilians. When the Dayton accord ended the siege over 15000 people had died, and countless crimes on humanity had been committed in nearly every variation. Of those 15 000, “Some 1800 of the casualties were children” (BBC). While “The Cellist of Sarajevo” was entirely a work of fiction it was largely based on this siege. This novel was very effective in showing what the siege was like through the eyes of a civilian. Since many wartime stories follow only people who are directly involved in the war, this novel follows two characters who are just trying to go about their “normal” lives. This offers an alarming perspective on the realities of such warfare. Galloway expressed that one of his goals was to show “what high-pressure, wartime situations do to ordinary people — not professional soldiers, or generals or politicians” (Grace). In this sense the novel has helped raise awareness of the realities that are war. As this novel grows in popularity more people will be made increasingly aware of the realities of this siege.

While this novel is about the siege, the politics of the situation are removed from the novel entirely. Galloway does this by referring to the attackers not as Serbs, instead he “described [them] only as the men on the hills” (Grace). In doing this Galloway is able to not only show us the horrors of this siege, but to also incorporate his own plot into the story without it being “historically inaccurate”. Having the story take place during the siege makes us ask ourselves questions about the way we treat other people. To further continue with this idea, Galloway uses the cellist’s music to show us how art can “evoke emotion and remind us we are human” (Planta). Seeing the effectiveness of the cellist performance, definitely does “remind the characters they are human”. Even the Serb sniper (or a “man from the hills”) who is sent to assassinate the cellist cannot help but listen to the music, even though he has a clear shot he could have easily taken twice. When Arrow (the sniper sent to kill the man sent to assassinate the cellist)sees that he is unable to shoot , she knows “she does not want to kill this man, and that she must kill this man”(Galloway 153). Seeing how the cellist music is able to make peace and remind the soldiers how simple life can be when the struggles of life are put behind them is very important message in this novel. It shows us just how essential the arts are to our lives.

Reading Response #1

So far in the novel, “The Cellist of Sarajevo”, four different characters have been narrating their day to day lives during the siege of Sarajevo. Having the story told by different characters is a very effective way of describing the setting and the characters at the same time. The narrations of their experience and experiences during the war show you two different things. First you get to see the differences between these characters experiences. Seeing how these people react differently in a time of war, tells you a lot about what defines them as unique individuals. Having one of the four narrators being a sniper for the defenders really shows you their contrasting characters. What’s equally important is the similarities between the characters. This tends to tell you more about the setting than the characters themselves. It gives you a good idea of what the general population is experiencing during this time of war. Clearly this is a great way to reveal aspects of each character, while describing the setting at the same time.

One thing that really has stood out for me is how the main characters seem to not care about the politics of the situation anymore. They all just want the war to be over, so they can start trying to build back what they can of their normal lives. Even the sniper isn’t fighting for her country; she is simply killing those who are “robbing people of the gift of knowing how wonderful life can be”. They have all lost too much to even be concerned with anything but surviving the next few minutes, and hoping for a better life. In addition to this all the characters describe the struggle to move anywhere, since snipers have nearly every street in their sights. These two things describe quite effectively what it is like to live in a city under constant attack.