Z213: Exit

Z213: Exit
English edition
Author Dimitris Lyacos
Original title Ζ213: ΕΞΟΔΟΣ
Translator Shorsha Sullivan
Cover artist Gudrun Bielz
Country Greece
Language Greek
Genre World literature, Postmodernism
Publisher Shoestring Press
Publication date
 2009
Published in English
 2010
Pages 101
ISBN 1907356053
Followed by With the People from the Bridge

Z213: Exit is the first installment of the Poena Damni trilogy by Greek writer Dimitris Lyacos.[1] Despite being first in narrative order, the book was the third to be published of the three.[2] The work develops as a sequence of diary entries recording the solitary experiences of an unnamed, Ulysses-like persona[3] in the course of a train voyage gradually transformed into an inner exploration of the boundaries between self and reality. The voyage is also akin to the experience of a religious quest with a variety of biblical references, mostly from the Old Testament,[4] being embedded into the text which is often fractured and foregoing punctuation.[3] Most critics place Z213: Exit in a postmodern context exploring relationships with such writers as Samuel Beckett[5] and Cormac McCarthy[5][6] while others underline its modernist affinities[7] and the work's firm foundation on classical and religious texts.[8]

Synopsis

The work recounts, in what reads like a personal journal, in verse form as well as in postmodern poetic prose,[9] the wanderings of a man who escapes from a guarded building, in a nightmarish version of a post-Armageddon ambient. In the opening sections of the book, the narrator/protagonist flees from what seems like an imprisonment in a building consisting of wards and personnel and from where people are being inexplicably taken away to be thrown into pits.[10] The fugitive leaves the "camp" to get to the nearby train station and starts a journey he records in a "found" bible-like booklet which he turns into his diary. As the journey continues a growing sense of paranoia ensues and the idea of being pursued becomes an increasingly central preoccupation. There are no pursuers to be identified, however, in the course of the journey and the supposed hunt remains a mystery until the end.[9] The environment seems to allude to a decadent futuristic state of a totalitarian kind. The journey is mapped in an indeterminate way, though oblique references creating a feeling of a time/space vacuum. The narrator seems to be moving ahead while at the same time being engulfed in his own nightmarish fantasies.[11] Z213: Exit ends with a description of a sacrifice where the protagonist and a "hungry band feasting" roast a lamb on a spit, cutting and skinning its still bleating body and removing its entrails as if observing a sacred rite.[12] The mood is enhanced by the overriding waste-land setting, which could be (it is never explicit) the result of a war that has left the landscape in ruins. The general impression is reminiscent of a spiritual quest or an eschatological experience.[9]

Style

The book is written in an almost telegraphic style omitting articles and conjunctions,[13] using the rhetorics of diary form; mainly colloquial, with violations and distortions of grammar. Fragmentation combines occasionally with lacunae to form a broken unstructured syntax, seemingly tight but leaving enough loopholes through which subconscious fears are expressed.

Further reading

A special feature on Dimitris Lyacos's trilogy on the Bitter Oleander Magazine[14] including extensive excerpts and a long interview with the author:

References

  1. ↑ Encyclopedia Britannica. Greece, The arts
  2. ↑ "Poena Damni: Z213: Exit". Shoestring Press. Retrieved October 9, 2015.
  3. 1 2 Poena Damni Trilogy. Review by Justin Goodman. Cleaver Magazine 2015. http://www.cleavermagazine.com/poena-damni-trilogy-by-dimitris-lyacos-reviewed-by-justin-goodman/
  4. ↑ Shorsha Sullivan, The art of translating. The Writing Disorder Anthology, vol. 2, page 82.https://books.google.gr/books?id=dGOAAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=dimitris+lyacos+old+testament&source=bl&ots=zd9eq6Swc6&sig=xW-4jisLtrDtwA0-mMNWQxD5lo0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwitjf3fvJXKAhVMiSwKHQ0XDgAQ6AEIKjAD#v=onepage&q=dimitris%20lyacos%20old%20testament&f=false
  5. 1 2 Michael O' Sullivan. A philosophy of exits and entrances. Cha Magazine, October 2011, Hong Kong. http://www.asiancha.com/content/view/778/280/
  6. ↑ Poena Damni Trilogy. Review by Justin Goodman. Cleaver Magazine 2015. http://www.cleavermagazine.com/poena-damni-trilogy-by-dimitris-lyacos-reviewed-by-justin-goodman
  7. ↑ From the ruins of Europe. Lyacos's debt riddled Greece. Review by Joseph Labernik. Tikes Magazine, 2015.http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/from-the-ruins-of-europe-lyacoss-debt-riddled-greece
  8. ↑ With the people from the bridge. Review by Toti O' Brien. Sein und Warden Magazine. http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/with_the_people_from_the_bridge.html
  9. 1 2 3 Manos Georginis, Verse Wisconsin, Issue 106, 2011
  10. ↑ The Adirondack Review. Allison Elliott, Poena Damni Z213: Exit by Dimitris Lyacos
  11. ↑ Decomp Magazine. Spencer Dew, Dimitris Lyacos' Z213: Exit. July 2011.
  12. ↑ Cha An Asian Literary Journal, Issue 13, February 2011. Michael O' Sullivan. A philosophy of exits and entrances: Dimitris Lyacos' Poena Damni, Z213 Exit
  13. ↑ The Writing Disorder. Shorsha Sullivan, The art of translating. A note on translating Dimitris Lyacos's trilogy. 2012
  14. ↑ The Bitter Oleander, Volume 22, No 1, Spring 2016, New York. http://www.bitteroleander.com
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