The police and Politics of Literature in the Novel Vježbanje života [The Exercise of Life] by Nedjeljko Fabrio

Abstract

This paper explores the police and politics of literature in the Rancière sense in the novel Vježbanje života [The Exercise of Life] (1985) by Nedjeljko Fabrio (1937-2018). Namely, Jacques Rancière (1940) grounded aesthetics from the heights of pure art towards the common reality of forms and transformations of sensory experience, which is evident in the essay Le Partage du sensible from 2000. His theory became a stimulating framework for coming up with inventive ways of connecting political theory and aesthetics. In his critical system, he distinguishes between the police and politics of literature. When looking at the police of literature in the novel Vježbanje života [The Exercise of Life], one can see various political debates, the presentation of the protagonist’s personal views on certain (political) issues, and criticism of the society in which we live. Fabrio carries out the division of the sensory in a completely new way, which is visible in the use of different narrative strategies in the novel. He inserts numerous stories into the story, introduces different forms of texts, uses numerous typographical solutions, and goes beyond the traditional genre characteristics present in the novel. The use of these narrative strategies, unusual for prose works until the appearance of Vježbanje života [The Exercise of Life], lays bare the literary policy systematically conducted at the level of the entire novel by Nedjeljko Fabrio. The author speaks about various topics and is protected from any type of censorship (political, religious, etc.) precisely through literature. The freedom that literature offers the author is “a powerful political weapon, which can nevertheless be neutralized at a moment’s notice as fiction” (Derrida).