Review of Zoran Živković - The Bridge
This is a difficult book to fully describe. If you'll indulge me I believe I know the best way of summarising The Bridge. Imagine a drunken conversation between Franz Kafka and Salvador Dali, one in which Dali challenges Kafka to write a book based on a few compulsory elements suggested by the painter. Firstly each of the three linked stories must start with an impossible encounter (a man meets himself, a woman meets a dead former neighbour and a teenage girl meets her future son). Each story must feature an antagonist with red hair, a mismatched item of clothing, a pursuit (mostly on foot) and all must end at the same place - on the bridge of the book's title. Oh, and nothing in any of the stories must make any real sense, although the main characters must, in the end, accept everything. That just about sums this book up. It gives a better overview than a direct explanation of the plot could. For all its weirdness it is beautifully written - Zoran Živković's prose is alwa...