World Cup of Literature: Montenegro vs. Lithuania

On the Lithuanian side is “The Blockage” by Zydrunas Drugilas, facing off against the Montenegrin “Leaving” by Sladana Kavaric.

“The Blockage” is a bizarre, tale of a man having a giant face block his road on his way to work. The man tries, and fails to get the giant face out of the way, so he decides to give up and go another way. However he sees the condo association president and greets her. She proceeds to give suggestions to make the giant face move out of the way, but the man decides to not stick his nose into other people’s business and so turns to leave. She proceeds to stop the man and say some confusing phrases that have no context with what has been going on so far. She then blames the man for causing the face to block the road and not letting people through. The face then spits out a half chewed piece of pizza and the story ends. The absurdity of this story is rather interesting and so scores this story one goal, however the absolute randomness of some of the phrases added into the story hindered Lithuania from scoring a second goal.

The short story “Leaving” on the other hand, is a very thought provoking story from the narrator’s point of view. The narrator starts on a boat, thinking about how they left a man named Ivan and how he did not come with the narrator. Then the narrator starts to ponder about existence, time and the insignificance of existence. The narrator and Ivan talk about death and how it was a solemn affair that was more important than life. This talk about death and suicide goes on for most of the story with the ending being the narrator being afraid of the uncertain future. This story is very thought provoking as it describes death and existence in a very bleak fashion, with a sort of depressed feel. The narrator and Ivan both talk about suicide and planning their funeral during the story. The story scored 1 goal for giving a very intriguing way of viewing death and existence and another goal for giving a the contrasting anger and rage at the start, to the calm flashbacks in the rest of the story.

In the end the solemn and thought provoking story, “Leaving” trumps the absurd “The Blockage” at 2 goals to 1.

Montenegro wins 2:1 Lithuania