Blockbuster

The narrator, a nameless soldier whose identity, past, and even nationality and army stay unknown to the very end, tells in the first person of a war that happens to be Croatia's war of the 1990s but could be any war. Following the men of a reconnaissance platoon, shaped by circumstance rather than born brutal, the novel piles up scenes of a soldier's everyday life in all its physical, almost physiological crudeness, in fierce dialogue laced with film references, pushed to the edge of the absurd and the bizarre. The ironic title hints at Hollywood war films, but there is no comfort here: this is an anti-war book that exposes even the most innocent ideas about wars fought in the name of defending the homeland.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

206 pages in the original

Genres

War (assigned by AI)

First published

2009 by V.B.Z.

Author's age

40 when first published

ISBN

9789533040554 (original)