Sigh....Yet another negative Serb image....

I was all set to like James Hynes THE LECTURER'S TALE, a book about a failing academic at a prominent Midwestern research university (that sounds a great deal like my alma mater) who gets a new career boost when his reattached severed finger acquires the power to bend others' will to his own. I had read one of Hynes' earlier books, PUBLISH AND PERISH, in graduate school, and I loved his quick wit and his dead-on read of the petty, yet often brutal, politics of academe'. So, what's the problem? Should be a great read, right? Things were going along well, actually. Then, they introduced the character of Marko Kraljevic', intially, as a postmodern literary theorist who was in exile from Milosevic' regime. GREAT! I thought. Finally, someone is writing about those "other Serbs," the ones who did not support, condone or participate in Milosevic's policies and who paid steep penalties for their "lack of loyalty." Since I know such Serbs exist and have worked and studied with them, I was not shocked to see the character portrayed that way; it seemed a normal leap. My joy was not to be, however. Kraljevic' began acting more and more erratically as the book progressed, in homage, no doubt to his status as enfant terrible of pomo theory. THAT, I could have handled; I have known some weird theorists in my time, and some of them were European. What REALLY chapped my hide, though, was the ultimate, secret revelation: the man pretending to be Marko Kraljevic was really Slobodan Jamisovich, a Serbian war criminal known as Captain Dragan, the Butcher of Srebrenica. GIVE ME A BREAK, people!!! Is it just impossible for anyone in the Western hemisphere to admit that there is the slimmest possibility that maybe ONE Serb in the world was not directly responsible or a participant in the atrocities of the 1990's.? Must they ALL always be on Slobo's payroll, covertly or overtly? How many decades will have to pass before we can see "Serbs" as a diverse population of people, not a stereotype associated only with atrocities?

I thought about burning the book, but I have added it to my all-too-large collection of Serb stereotypes. I am thinking about cancelling my outstanding order for Hynes latest book in protest. A small gesture, but a fitting one, IMO; why reward him for continuing the work I am trying to undo?