Review article
Speech about God and other religious themes in the works of Ivan Softa
Draženko Tomić
Abstract
The literary works of Ivan Softa come into being in a world of confused values, lawlessness and chaos. Softa portrays the lives of impoverished labourers, hoboes and peasants during and after World War I and places a special emphasis on life in the villages of Herzegovina. Conspicuous and provocative speech about God and other religious themes as well as accounts on religious customs occur in his novels most often as the character reflects on the meaning of life, but also when treating conflicting world views (traditional vs. contemporary) or abusive language. In this essay we have cited and analyzed these passages always keeping in mind that Softa had no education in theology nor in philosophy, and that he was a peasant who had endured much suffering in the course of his life.
Still, we could not overlook the fact that Sofia's particular speech about God is not characteristic of the villages of Herzegovina (though perhaps his speech on abusive language is), and that key passages dealing with it, obviously borrowed, somehow jut out in an unnatural way from the hard Herzegovinian rock. We also offered a criticism which should not be taken lightly, and that is that Softa made no reference to the collective faith and the common value system as being an extremely important component of village life, and we expressed our regret that he did not have the opportunity to speak with someone who could have pointed out to him the potentialities of philosophical speech about God and the problem of evil in the world.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
12053
URI
Publication date:
15.5.2007.
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