Collage - A Novel

by Ted Wojtasik

Fiction. Gay/Lesbian Studies. "Living up to its title, COLLAGE blends the power of poetic expression with the classic elements of prose to create a unique assemblage of time, place, and experience. Wojtasik's innovative and daring style truly captures the complex narrative of the mind as we follow Zee piecing together past experience, present conflicts, and future hopes to create and define himself. Part poem, part novel, part history, part lyric, and all great-COLLAGE adds up to a wonderfully balanced whole and a compelling composition"--Richard Blanco. In Ted Wojtasik's complex novel of gay love, the problem isn't one of coming out of the closet-but one of maturing into responsible love. Wojtasik superbly mixes the unlikely ingredients of Central European history, Admiral Peary's North Pole expedition, the artistry of collage and the national onset of AIDS into just such a life lesson for his young protagonist.

Genres: Fiction

180 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 2004

Reviews

[Kendall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Experimental, cross-genre, with a touch of meta: these descriptors only begin to reflect the highly sophisticated yet grounded methods that Ted Wojtasik employs in his hauntingly beautiful Kunstlerroman. The melding of poetry and prose, contemporary and historical fiction works solidly because first and foremost, Wojtasik is a storyteller, who never sacrifices his narrative. Those who bristle at the concept of breaking up a sentence by inserting seemingly unrelated material should simply turn within and see how their own minds work. We do not think in neat chronological spreadsheets; rather our minds wander as if creating a collage. Every collage that Wojtasik creates in Collage has a purpose, along with a sense of realism that cuts through our senses as does the loss of a loved one. Therefore, the "seemingly unrelated material" becomes paramount not only to the development of character but also to the author's portrayal of the human condition. Wojtasik knows the inner workings of human memory--the way we interrupt one story, as a larger, more important story unfolds. In many ways, Collage reminds me of my own memories of Dubrovnik and its surrounding environs: the multilevel, compact walled city, with its red tile roofs; Mt. Srd, with its haunting munitions museum at the top; and the bucolic island of Lokrum, with its Benedictine ruins and boisterous peacocks. Through the act of reading, I am able to embody Wojtasik's story as I mix in my own stories, an act I find much more pleasing than reading a story designed to barely touch the surface of a mass and superficial audience. Collage achieves what feminist philosopher describes as the human body's "wonderful ability, while striving for integration and cohesion, organic and psychic wholeness, to . . . produce fragmentations, fractures, dislocations that orient bodies and body parts toward other bodies and body parts" (13). Thank you, Ted Wojtasik, for helping me become more human.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twenty pages into "Collage" made me wonder what in the world I was reading. I almost returned it the library before reading further. To say it shocks the senses is putting it mildly. I decided to give it a bit more of a chance though, and began to understand Zee. By the end of the book I sympathized with him. Coming out of the closet is a fairly well understood concept...but then what? This book explores creating a personal moral code when the one you were raised with is irrelevant. It explores learning to love in an unconventional, but no less valid sense.

I'm too young to remember the beginning of the AIDS crisis, but I have nursing colleagues who vividly remember comforting men who had been deserted by everyone they knew. In Collage we get a searing description of that world.