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LITERATURE
searches the existing material, he consults world literature, that it can be checked on
sources, he reads studies getting to his own Google in a second, once you read the first
thesis, to his own interpretation of the his- news announcement of the work, then Smi-
torical subject he is interested in. Before he levski doesn’t make a great risk that he gives
begins to write the story, he is already an ex- up the plot. In the following pages Smilevski
pert on the issue. Of course the familiarity spreads his story of Abelard and Heloise.
with the historical material is not very relat- This story is the fruit of the personal “ar-
ed to the writing talent to tell a good story, to cheological” print of the author-researcher,
make a good novel. However, this works for however also of the second great poetic de-
Smilevski. He even makes a writing stunt, as terminant. Namely, Goce Smilevski uses the
if he wants to show us that he knows how to historical fiction as a “language mask”. De-
weave a good story without using the main spite of the archeological establishment of
writing tool – the plot. The novel starts when the historical setting, in the novel he places
the frame, the subject of the novel, is briefly the contemporary debates, the issues which
narrated at the very beginning. In this man- are important for the author, displaying
ner the reader becomes familiar with the negative parallels which connect the two
narrative in several pages. The curiosity period, however more relevant are the top-
which is stimulated in the traditional novel, ics he chooses about the modern than about
what will happen next, in the next chapter, the historical “truth”. Hence, Smilevski
has been lost. The reader knows what will points out the fact that Heloise and Abelard
happen. Taking into consideration that the lived in a period of a French king who want-
story of Heloise and Abelard is known in ed to destroy the old Paris and build a new
Paris, who increased the taxes and the re-
pression in order to achieve this, who faced
strong popular resistance. In the relations of
power, the role of the grey eminences, the
games behind the scenes, we rather recog-
nize the history of the twentieth century
and the transition age than some France
from the 12th century. The novel is based on
the representation of two characters, Eloise
and her son Astrolabe. At the end of the nov-
el, Smilevski also gives up the interpretive
magic of the potential critics and interpret-
ers. By not repeating his words, we would
say that Smilevski writes the work with the
intellectual zeal of a modern European man.
He is writing a novel which is anti-patriar-
chal, pro-feminist, anticlerical, gay-friendly,
anti-authoritarian, oriented towards the ex-
cluded and the silenced,
Considering the fact that his characters,
through the thin historical mask, speak of
current issues, we could conclude that this is
a response by Smilevski (as it was a response
by Starova) to the accusations of escapism
and non-responsiveness to important so-
cial issues. With this novel and the applied
narrative techniques, Smilevski manages to
keep his determination and passion for the
historic novel and he manages to leave his
intellectual print on the dilemmas of the
modern society.
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