Beletrina, 2003, 168 pages
Two stories translated in English
Three stories translated in German
One story translated in Spanish
Translation rights sold: Poland (Wojciech Domachowski), Croatia (Fraktura)
Out of order is a shorty story collection with modern anti-heroes who are striving for safety and luck being disabled to achieve it by their tragic everyday life and the remains of transition. Very critical to characters. passiveness and addictions, Čar puts to question the status of young middle class population, their role in the urban city life as well as their resignation and unfulfilled emotional relationships.
Out of Order is a collection of 14 short stories not connected to each other regarding their order but very much Connected in terms of contents, issues and their typical anti-hero of this century. Through Aleš Čar’s short stories we meet urban population of Ljubljana being totally lost in their business and private relations. His characters are in their early thirties somewhere between student life and independence, trying to rebuild their old relationships or find new and happier ones. The cruel, but at the same time, sympathetic narrator very realistically shows the deterioration of long-time relationships and marriages, relations with children, sex, alcohol and sedatives addiction, depressions and financial problems. His modern anti-heroes are striving for safety and luck being disabled to achieve it by their tragic everyday life and the remains of transition. At the end of every story they remain all alone with even more bitterness and fuzziness. They are determined by passiveness and everyday routines but can do only very little or nothing against it. Very critically to characters’ passiveness and addictions, Čar puts to question the status of young middle class population, their role in the urban city life as well as their resignation and unfulfilled emotional relationships. It is a brilliant, interesting and splendidly constructed short story collection which you are going to read with great pleasure.