10.06.2015
Novel "Novice in love" presented
In the Central Military Club, the book “Novice in love” by Branko Opacic Sova, a retired colonel, was presented. His novel, published by the Literary Association of Education Workers of Serbia, describes the lives of two officers, classmates, who were together since military school to execution of numerous military tasks, if not always in person, then in thoughts and sharing of similar experiences.After three books of poetry and three “historical family” novels, according to reviewers, Opacic turned to love as the eternal inspiration. Novices in (profession and) love passed a long way from cadets to respected and decisive higher staff members, authoritative leaders and commanders in the trials of war events in the territory of former Yugoslavia. The protagonists whose lives we follow through military career and much more through the emotions that slowly, page after page, become the main topic of the novel, are true, while their stories are romanticized to an extent, because, as reviewer Radomir Smiljanic said, lives are their, next to us, there is nothing epic, special or unrepeatable about them, and the allure is only in our view of all those ordinaries.
Starting from such Chekhov-like assumptions, Opacic described the loves of the two officers, at the same time describing the historical events that the 90’s were abundant in. Describing the times that we are witnesses to, he described the people in uniforms that, with all differences, did not separate them from common human values and emotions. These emotions were precisely what brought them closer together. Dedicated to both the profession and love, the heroes opted for it in time. One chose love for God, thus becoming a neophyte in a loner’s cave, and the other one remained eternally in love with a woman, the vitalizing force of everyone and anyone.
It was this vitalizing force of love that gave the author the motive for describing the events that endangered the authority of one of the most honourable professions in the ‘90s. In this strength, he found the ways to restore the good name of the military profession, and found the meaning with which he rounded off the story of people in uniforms and the times in which it was far from easy being an officer.
Excerpts from the book were read by actor Zoran Simonovic.
PHOTOGALLERY
