'THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO': A Book Review of Sorts

By Steve Novak, Coeur d'Alene

As a young man I traveled through Europe encountering many interesting people; among them a young fellow about five years my junior whose name was Zoran. We met in a raucous bawdy Amsterdam with the music of the Doors wafting eerily through the surreal smoke and mirrors summer of 1971. Zoran had spent his last two high school years as an exchange student in San Francisco where he was totally radicalized by the counter-culture and he'd taken this home with him to Banja Luka, Yugoslavia.

That next summer I met and married a Norwegian woman and we decided to take our honeymoon through Southern Europe. I had mailed Zoran and he greeted us at the train station in Zagreb, took us to his hometown driving like a madman in his Mini, installed us in his parent's home and showed us his city. He played guitar in a rock band and we met dozens of his friends; it was a great but exhausting adventure. Eventually Zoran announced that he had to get back to the university and since his parents were in Germany, he lent us their summer home on the island of Korcula where my bride and I spent a relaxing week in the sun; life was good and I will always remember that glorious summer and my friend Zoran.

Everywhere we went the town's people would wake at three in the morning, work all day, nap at noon and as the sun went down they would promenade down the main streets of each town dressed to the nines; adults arm-in-arm and teens holding hands. Groups of men would walk together singing acappella, sounding like barbershop quartets. It was truly a magical summer - but summers end, and so did mine. Twenty years later I was living at Lake Tahoe when war broke out in the Balkans and like Sarajevo, Banja Luka was brutalized. When the war ended in 1995, I sent a letter to Zoran but never received a reply; forever, left wondering.

Our book club selected "The Cellist of Sarajevo" for December and for me it was an especially tough read. The novel tells of deep despair and human perseverance, of cold hard facts and introspective soul searching. It is a heart wrenching read about the inhumanity of war and the desperate attempt to preserve civilization; a novel too true to be fiction and too honest to be non-fiction.

HIGH BEAMS

Hit me with your high beams, Honey.

Show me you know what it means

to laugh, full on, throaty,

when the Sad Man comes to town.

Ain't no magic but you, Sweetie.

No can-do but what you decide.

Pull the rug out from under bad times.

Have a joke on you.

Play the wise fool.

but Play.

Play, Honey.

Play every day.

Make it a rule.

- Jan Sarchio, Coeur d'Alene

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