The Pelican by Martin Michael Driessen

Published in the Netherlands in 2017; published in translation by Amazon Crossing on November 12, 2019

A brief section of The Pelican relates a character’s memory of friendships based on sacrifice in World War II. The last section takes place in Germany fifteen years after the main story. The bulk of the story is set in a small town on the Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia at the end of the 1980s, shortly before the onset of the Yugoslav Wars.

One of the charms of the village is that nothing ever happens there. The place has been unchanged for generations. Its historic buildings and its clock museum cannot compete with livelier tourist destinations. It has no industry or commerce and “the coastal region was, agriculturally speaking, of little consequence.” Yet Martin Michael Driessen populates the village with characters both ordinary and eccentric, the kind of people who make the best of their lives without worrying too much about politics or the outside world.

The village postman, a man named Andrej, steams open letters for lack of anything better to do with his life. Thus he learns that Josip, a war hero with a pension who now operates the funicular, is having an affair with a woman in Zagreb. Andrej decides to blackmail Josip, in part from a sense of entitlement (the world has been unkind to Andrej and he believes he is owed better). He uses the proceeds to gamble unsuccessfully but also to purchase an unhappy racing greyhound that would otherwise be put to death. The greyhound’s new circumstances do not make him a happier dog.

The story takes a comedic twist when the blackmailer is blackmailed. The comedy has a Shakespearean flavor that depends on the improbable concealment of identities. Josip and Andrej are stumped in their efforts to unmask their blackmailers, although they tend to suspect everyone. One of the blackmailers justifies his crimes with the thought that corruption has a good side — it “at least gave the unfairness of existence a somewhat more human face.”

The two blackmailers develop an unexpected friendship that leads to unexpected bouts of shame. But is a guilty conscience a sufficient motivation to change one’s behavior?

While a subtitle bills the novel as a comedy, it might be better described as a tragicomedy. It is, at least, a dark comedy of errors into which conflict and bitterness intrude. War is coming. Everyone knows it, although the villagers do their best to ignore the inevitable. After generations of stability, the village and its people are destined for disruption.

While the residents are primarily Croatian, they live in relative harmony with residents who are Serbs. An anti-Semitic character named Schmitz, who engages in spirited rants at the local café, is opposed by more enlightened characters who understand that “if Croatia wanted to be recognized as a nation, and even dreamt of future membership in the European Community, where even chickens are protected, then there was no place for this kind of talk.” Another character emphasizes the essential humanity of all people with the phrase “pumpkins are just pumpkins,” a “people are just people” philosophy that has allowed Croats to survive all “the doges and the sultans and the emperors and the dictators” who eventually bit the dust. Pumpkins, after all, thrive and reproduce without regard to political subdivisions and ethnic groups.

It is only a matter of time, however, before nationalism trumps tolerance, before artillery changes everything. As Josip realizes, years later, much of his own history as well as the region’s history was based on pettiness. Regret changes nothing while understanding one’s mistakes, even late in life, at least has personal value.

The Pelican tells a story from the perspectives of characters who balance corruption with kindness. The ending is fitting. This is a book that might leave the reader feeling happy or sad, but either way, the novel encourages a better understanding of the happy and sad aspects of human nature.

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