“Disparagement” is a purely postmodern contemporary novel, an achievement in terms of language, apparently uncommercial, but ultimately able to generate an ever expanding fan base. It is a work with multiple references and allusions, where literary language effortlessly meets with a flowing vernacular and an auctorial slang. The chapters in whole are, in a musical way, split into six parts, three narrated in the first person and three in the third, alternately, so as to dismantle any authority the narrator might lay claim to, and drag the narrator/hero's name through the mire; ultimately, however, this dragging through the mire turns into an encomium.
The language used has a musical quality, and there is a well-structured plan under the superficial disorder.
“Disparagement” stands out among the plethora of contemporary novels and seem to either completely ignore the developments in the novel (and art in general) during the last fifty years, or be unable to incorporate them harmoniously in their works. “Disparagement”, besides being an important work of its own merit, ambitiously and strategically seeks to bring back into relevance those audacious Greek writers and poets who honored the flexibility and richness of language through close contact to an uncompromisingly bohemian way of life.
English extract available
Estia, 2012, 182 p.
