DISCUSSING BOOKS

Woody in a different medium

Woody Allen, Milo za drago (Getting Even), trans. Petar Vujačić, Zagreb: Biovega, Zagreb, 2003.

Most of the works from this collection of humoresques have already been published in 1983, in a very successful translation by Omer Lakomica entitled Now we’re even (which was a selection of texts from two collections — Getting Even and Without Feathers). In this wholesome edition of the book Getting Even, Allen appears primarily as a live act comic, writing down his ’sketches’. He is toying with pseudo (Freudian) charge of artistic biographies from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, and psychoanalytical charge of the modern culture. He works his way to expression of a particular slapstick quality of American ethnic humor (including Italian, and not only Jewish heritage), parodies autobiographical and historiographic discourse, philosophy, religion and popular press, whereas the confusion of many of his characters, just as in Allen’s films, can be explained by the inappropriateness of the codes they are using. Although it would be too much to say that Allen’s humor produces catharsis, it still presents a welcome intervention in everyday battles with pretentious reality that often functions as parody or show. However, in comparison to Lakomica, Allen’s first translator, Vujačić did not express enough flexibility and endurance in finding equivalents for culturological codes featured in the original.

Jelena Šesnić