UTOPIA’S SUICIDE

About the Book

Having one foot in North America and one in Europe, the author inevitably, compares these two continents, their surroundings, their people, and their modus vivendi. The interpretation of happenings on these continents as they relate to one life's adventure is the scope of this work, which is, before everything else, a collage of personal biography, illuminated by flashes of the remarkable historical moments preceding the emigration. There are, moreover, interpretations of impressions colored with romantic, enchanting mysticism, and alternatively, subjective impressions of immigrants who came to America to find a better life and expected, to some extent, to find a promised land on a platter. In either case, impressions are based on predispositions of what immigrants from the old country envisioned American to be like. However, gratia is not a prerequisite; it does not exist in the meaning of emi, nor immi gratia. Is this memoir an unprejudiced evaluation and objective notation of experiences as they were, or a biased overflow of emotions, ridicule and sarcasm, or delight and adornment? What is the difference between autobiography, memoir, and diary, versus a fictitious, rather historical novel in the first place? A degree of deviation from factual reality? A conglomerate relatively dry when transferred onto paper, this cacophony, without regard to categorization, may enlighten the mind of one American, or one potential immigrant, by informing or reforming the picture of the mirage of a once-magical “New World” or the romanticism of the “Old One.”

About the Author

Author John Paul was born just before the dawn of the World War Two. By location and chance almost in America, however, he was born in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The Kingdom, that soon turned into the bloodiest part of the European war theatre. As the war end neared, the political scenery turned red in more ways than one. Youngster John Paul however survived the odds. As communism took over in 1945 and a sort of nationalism, patriotism, whatever war scars persisted, it often took bites out of John’s childhood. Consequently, John formed his humorous and satirical view of the way of life and the system, while yearning to reach America one day, where he felt he was supposed to be born anyway. Completing the very distinguished high school in 1955, in Novi Sad, his birth town, young John went onto the university studies at the country’s capital, Belgrade. With an earned degree in structural engineering, John went on to serve the compulsory military term of his country, the Socialistic Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. Exiting the Army in the 1968, John started permanent employment in his home town Novi Sad. However, this term just convinced John that his goal is definitely across the great pond, in America. In 1969 John arrived to USA, in Detroit. However, he found his Utopia not quite as he expected, fighting the prejudices ingrained into the troubled society. Well trained in the old country to see things with critical eye, John Paul is laughing about his new country’s shortcomings. Still, he persevered in America and continued his quest in pursuit of happiness, despite the odds.