Buick Rivera
Buick Rivera is a novel by Miljenko Jergović . It first appeared in 2002.
content
Hasan Hujdur is an unsuccessful film director who emigrated from Bosnia to Toledo, Oregon. His most valuable possession is an old Buick Riviera , which he calls Buick Rivera and which for him symbolizes the American Dream . Hasan's wife Angela is critical of the car, especially since it uses too much gasoline and Hasan wastes too much time with it. One day Hasan broke down with the car and by chance met Vuko, a former bus driver and Bosnian Serb, who stopped at the breakdown site, also had marital problems and at the same time told Hasan his life story on the way home. The life stories of the other protagonists are told in flashbacks and everyone comes to the same conclusion that Bosnians and Serbs cannot actually hate each other. Vuko takes a liking to the old Buick, precisely because he finds out that Hasan idolizes the car and offers him $ 15,000 for the car. Hasan got involved with the business with a heavy heart. Vuko, who has since thrown away the key to his own SUV in a short circuit reaction, finds out that the Buick does not have an auxiliary heater, so that he cannot sleep in the car. He gets angry with Hasan inside. After a storm in Toledo, Hasan disappeared without a trace. Vuko started a rumor that he had joined the Taliban in Afghanistan and with the news he became rich and famous. In the end, Toledo is described as a neglected place and it is mentioned that the Buick is still in the ditch.
criticism
"Jergović's ability to combine tension with reasoning and to find a broader epic design from a minimalist scene is stupendous. [...] The constellation of the characters and their conflicts is often broken and darkly ironic."
literature
Miljenko Jergović: Buick Rivera . Novel. Translated from Croatian by Brigitte Döbert . Schöffling & Co, 2006, ISBN 3-89561-390-8