Marijana Čanak's collection of stories The Red Brick Road is a large-scale endeavor in gathering the historical, sociological, and cultural contexts that have framed the idea of what can fit under the comprehensive coinage of "female experience." To put it most precisely, in the realm of recognition and reflection, her book is the autobiographical of every being.
Interviewed with the writer: Šeila Djindo
Although fragmented and individualized events are given space in the form of a collection, in the case of The Red Brick Road, they all seem to serve the purpose of prioritizing a common ground – the problematization of female manners as expected by certain social contexts. Each protagonist finds a mirror in the other; although there is a very present generational and historical gap; suggesting that the framework within which society defines women, and consequently herself, is to some extent immutable. How would you characterize your intention then – is it literary as much as it is critical, reflective or commenting?
When we talk about the creative process and writing, my intention is always literary. The intention to write a good story, exciting and convincing. To rediscover language, the seduction of language, the magic of the linguistic symphony behind the combinations of words that create new meanings. I am driven solely by the passion for the story, without any ulterior motive that the story should achieve anything. A real story cannot be tamed by the author's intention, it is more powerful and wiser than what the author thinks he knows. If that is not the case, then we are not talking about literature, but about sociological studies, pamphlets, proclamations, and none of that interests me. I am interested in art as such. When we let art be art, then story can postpone death, the way myth unlocks archetypes and offers us the possibility of changing our destiny.
The collection is divided into four sections, meaning that it corresponds to the four phases of the menstrual cycle, which in turn are based on the four seasons. And the three changes of the moon: young, full, last quarter; they would be equivalent to the stages of girlhood, maturity and old age. In several places, you confirm and emphasize the biological and cultural inseparable connection of women with nature. From the reader's perspective, I see it as a kind of ode to the strength, persistence, and perseverance of a woman; but why did you decide to emphasize it almost at the leitmotif level?
The indissoluble nature of this connection does not only apply to women, but to all human beings who are part of nature. A woman has a built-in cyclical rhythm in her body and everything in life happens in cycles: the change of day and night, the seasons, sowing and harvesting, life and death. This is a fact of life, and many frustrations arise from the denial of this fact. Each phase of the menstrual cycle corresponds to a season. It is natural that in the middle of winter we do not behave the same as in the middle of summer. Winter is a time of rest, hibernation, death. Awakening comes with spring, summer is a time of maturity, and in the fall we harvest fruits. The terror of productivity demands that we live in eternal summer, forcing us to function mechanically, eliminating our time for leisure, rest, and self-reflection. Without this, we cannot give birth to anything new. The idea of a summer frozen in eternity is contrary to life. The society in which we live is generally inclined to linearity and a black-and-white concept, which demonizes night, death, the feminine, and even the Earth in the name of heaven. Life is a balancing act of opposites, and it is not a question of whether something is good or bad, but rather whether it is in the right place. At a collective level, we tend to preserve the past and glorify suffering, which is also an expression of a misunderstanding of cycles. Faithfulness to outdated cycles spoils our time.
The collective/societal memory of the cult of women that preceded patriarchy seems to have faded or even been eradicated. Old Europe, before the clear establishment of ancient Greek principles, offered the first sacrifices to goddesses by slaughtering young men; and the hearth as the external realization of the womb was the most sacred social center. When the kingship was driven out by the rebellion of the kings, an era of the deepest belief in subordination to men began. With the fact that you address the presence of that thought in the book, what would be your assessment of the intensity in which, in this region, we agree to the "black and white" position that clearly maintains and protects the male right to authority?
Only false authority is based on the oppression of the other. We can speculate whether patriarchy arose as a response to the abuse of power by matriarchy, in any case they are two ends of the same stick, because such power games usually arise from a sense of fear and insecurity. Patriarchy placed women in the possession of men, literally beheaded us and declared us incapable of thinking, and in some eras it was believed that the female body was so weak that it could not function without support, so they squeezed us into corsets and girdles (the bra is a famous descendant of these shackles). The only archetype that a woman was allowed to live was the archetype of the mother, and her value was recognized only if she gave birth to a boy. When she achieves this, her revenge begins. Everything that was denied to her, she will try to achieve through her son. On an emotional level, she will take her son as her husband, castrate him and control his head. A son who has been enslaved by his mother (with the best of intentions) must hate women. His revenge on his mother will manifest itself as oppression of his partner. Thus the circle of absurdity continues and can be repeated indefinitely. This scenario is more common than we are willing to perceive.
A detailed analysis of elements in the matriarchal line of inheritance is also present: from appearance, through habits, to images of insecurity; and above all the ideological answer to the question - what does it mean to be a good woman? And the not-so-old educational matrix claims that a "girl" must not be wild, that she must have a man to be complete, that she must give when asked. Was your intention to bring awareness to that phenomenon in self-definition? How do you think that kind of legacy should be broken?
My intention was to bring my characters to life, to give them a literary space and a voice to tell their stories. To express themselves, but it would not make sense for this to happen in a vacuum. Genetic inheritance, socio-historical context, time and space, rules of upbringing, all of this is inscribed in their characteristics. We all deal with it, our authenticity changes (enriches) in contact with visible life. The fact is that our female genealogy is often infected with shame, self-loathing, fear of ourselves and our own strength, that the mark of a curse is genetically transmitted from womb to womb, which is not a female curse, but a curse that is life itself. How to purify such a legacy? There is no universal recipe, it all starts with individual awareness, dealing with ourselves and our lives. When we take responsibility for our lives, and neither the Balkans, nor the authoritarian grandmother, nor the absent father are our fault anymore, that is a good starting point for change.
From the sanctity of the female figure, in the cultural and sociological code, especially in circumstances of strong conservative beliefs, a magical, surreal and witchy framework of interpretation of their actions has remained. Some stories are dedicated to flirting with such supernatural, phantasmal acts that result in remarks from society (specifically partners) about a woman's untreated hysteria, a spell or a curse. How many such ideas are present in modern times? Do we still rely on the crutches of superstition in the absence of the ability to understand hormones or emotions?
A man cannot fully understand the feminine principle, he can accept and respect it. Dry reason cannot understand the feminine principle, just as a linear mind cannot. And that is okay. It is sad when a woman herself does not understand the feminine principle, when she suppresses intuition, denies the witch in herself, devalues magic, and believes that she is a victim of her own biology. Behind biology is magic, the unknowable miracle of life. We can deal with the body as a hormonal biomechanism, we can witness cell division after conception, but that does not mean that we truly understand how life is created, nor the vital force behind the visible that keeps us alive. What we call superstition today is a remnant of old pagan knowledge, from a time before the arrogant mind broke away from the wholeness of existence. Wisdom has been lost, and empty ritual forms have been preserved, rigid rules without essence and understanding of their original purpose. However, by following the traces of superstition, perhaps we can come to something original. Literally, it is very exciting.
One of the dominant motives is the agonal nature that has never been recognized by women as much as by men. How much is a woman's sexuality, although factually its inherent need, still "dirtier" and more taboo in public discourse than a man's, and does it depend on the degree of "tension" of cultural contexts?
I am interested in sexuality in literature, and literature potentially arises where something is out of balance. Sexuality is a subject that has been deprived of respect, and men are not spared from this. The appearance of sexual freedom is far from a passion for life. The demonization of sexuality and the need to control it is one of the greatest deviations of the world we live in. The incorporation of the idea of sin and guilt into sexuality is an act of systemic manipulation of the human species, it is an exorcism of the soul from the body, an exorcism of man from visible existence. Women are given an impossible task: to give birth without sexual experience. The archetype of the asexual mother, the pregnant virgin, has been the only valid archetype of female existence for too long. We are slowly entering an era in which we can awaken memories of forgotten archetypes, from the time before deviation.
Throughout history, without exception, the power and privilege of the supreme authority has been the disposal of lives: in the right to decree death, and the control of offspring in the direction of the birth of social classes with a focus on military capability. In the dilemmas that fill the book; about contraception, abortion, miscarriages and fetal retention; the same parallel of “power” could be drawn to the decision that permeates motherhood. You write that the entire planet is a womb, in which life and death merge into one; however, as a rule of the examples given, a woman’s “rejection” of the fetus results in revenge for the mother’s sinfulness, whether in some caricatured, magical or real excommunication from the social environment. How accurate is the diagnosis of a society in which we are more willing to forgive politics for bio-power than women’s right to choose?
Pretending to own, as well as any attempt to control life, is an expression of degeneration, whoever its bearer is (the leader archetype, the mother archetype, it doesn't matter which archetype). Normalized pathology is still pathology. If as a society we accept, approve or forgive something, it doesn't mean we are on the right track, collective truths are often nothing more than legitimized delusions. The womb is a miniature planet, a woman has the power of the Earth within her. Where there is power, there is also the need to manage it. Flexible management is one thing, rigid control is another. Power is neutral in itself, the question is how will we use it: to give or to take life? Although she has the ability to give life, a woman is not the owner of the child born through her, the child is not an extension of her body, nor is she her eternal debtor. A woman can give birth, and then continuously abort the child's right to live according to her own choices. There are many imaginative ways to pathologize the mother-child relationship, because we have lost the reference of a healthy feminine principle. The same applies to the relationship of the leader to the community, the archetype of the healthy leader has been banished from our spaces, we are accustomed to tyranny, to a slave-owning relationship and the devaluation of life. It is a society without a vision of progress.
Another parallel with supreme authority: if there is anything that stands by law and death, it is blood and the ability to shed it. Thus, spilled blood in the context of a woman's experience is a phenomenon that dictates the attitude that others will have towards her. Past generations will say that not losing blood on the first wedding night is a sin; and possession in the sexual act is an abomination, because the imperative handed down from generation to generation is that menstruation should be hidden as the dirtiest secret. The trace of menstruation is the thread that connects every story - how far are we today with its normalization?
I notice today this terror of normalization without essential understanding. For example, commercials are being made that show red liquid instead of gelatinous blue, we see photos of women whose clothes are stained with menstrual blood, we are publicly offered menstrual cups, we can share our menstrual experiences in comments on social networks... And what does that achieve? Only the appearance of understanding. Respect cannot be forced. A fundamental understanding of the fact that a woman experiences four seasons every month would allow her to live and work in accordance with that rhythm, which would also include the right to menstrual leave. These are not sick days, which our merciful boss has granted us because we suffer, we bend over from cramps, weakness and discharge. No. This is not a leave that will be granted to a woman because she is weak and unable to work, but from the understanding that her body and her rhythm are different from a man's, and the fact that it is something different does not carry any value judgment in itself, it is what it is. Menstrual leave is not a privilege for a woman to work less, but a setting in which a woman will work better, because she is given the right conditions. This would mean that respect is restored to menstruation, that its spiritual-emotional function is acknowledged (the days of menstruation correspond to the winter period, it is a time for withdrawal, introspection, the dying out of what is old and worn out). An essential understanding would mean that a woman no longer has to play the role of a man in a different body in order to prove her worth.
If no verbal or physical rebuff of the man succeeds, there is the option of throwing a tampon at the head. This action in the story of the title of the entire collection is very striking and ambiguous, in comedy it is a clear tragedy. How do you perceive it?
This story was born from the game of crossing travelogues with menstrual calendars. At the intersection of these two templates, with some strange ease, different situations and adventures of the main character opened up for me. It was fun to write this story, to discover such a twist, that a quality that you have in yourself, but that causes disgust and disgust in others, in certain circumstances you can use to your advantage, as protection. There are related motifs, both in written literature and in folk traditions, that with the power of a woman's naked body, she can stop an army, drive away a thunderbolt, defend herself in court. My story provides one possible variation of this motif.
Towards the end, you write that the time of shame is long gone, not even our mothers remember it – can this be interpreted as a modern break with the rigid cultural constraints of shame, worry, and embarrassment that, from what you read in your book, usually fell most heavily on women?
We mentioned that the collection is divided into four cycles, and each of these cycles has a thematic definition. The first cycle thematizes the degradation of female power (menstruation declared a weakness), the second rebellion and abuse of power (black magic use of blood), the third suffering revenge due to a misunderstanding of power (the boomerang of revenge), the fourth leads to balancing wisdom and power. There are four stories in each cycle, four times four is 16, and 16 is the number of wisdom. So yes: the final cycle also confronts us with the end of an era, concludes the time of shame and the time of delusion, returning to us the right to individual truth and life in accordance with it.
Critics say that, although primarily about women, this book is a must-read for everyone. What do you think?
I say that I am tired of the butchering of literature into male and female, minority and canonical, this and that. If life experience is given through a female perception, then we easily say that it is a reading for women. Or we have to explain why, after all, it does not have to be. If it is given through a male perception, we assume that it is for everyone. Should we say that female experience is no less human than male? Yes, the collection thematizes menstruation. Because it is one of the strongest forces in this universe, without which none of us would have been born. Is it then a female or a universal human topic?
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