Herbarium of Souls

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Yugoslavian-Canadian Vladimir Tasic makes his English-language literary
debut with a short-story collection that was originally published as
Radost Brodolomnika in Yugoslavia in 1997. This fact should not mislead
readers; Herbarium of Souls is totally apolitical and ignores the recent
Balkan wars.

Tasic prefers to deal with personal concerns—the lives of Slavic
scholars who live abroad. He uses his “reality,” but in his stories
it is a relative concept. The book’s theme is the intellectual tension
between rationalism and mysticism. Unfortunately, the author who draws
inspiration from “classical culture” may win a back-cover blurb from
an Argentinean academic but will not guarantee positive reviews, let
alone popular success.

An extraordinary storyteller might overcome such limitations, but
Tasic is not that skilled. This is illustrated by the title selection,
which deals with an old artist’s attempts to adjust to his
colorblindness and his younger girlfriend’s inability to deal with his
consequent spiritual erosion. This tragedy registers intellectually, but
fails to create a significant emotional impact.

On the positive side, academics may identify with characters who have
to cope with university politics, academic conferences, and scholarly
journals. However, it would not be advisable to endorse this book on
that basis; after all, no one recommends a dull Canadian detective novel
because it contains interesting descriptions of Montreal’s east end.

The aforementioned Argentinean academic, Guillermo Martinez, and author
David Albahari place Tasic “in the great tradition of authors such as
Danilo Kis and Jorge Luis Borges.” Such an endorsement allows Tasic to
occupy the same literary territory as these old masters, even though he
is not yet their equal.