ARIS ALEXANDRIS
How Ignatios Caratodoris Lost Everything
ed.. Metaichmio, page 272

Before Ignatios Karathodoris lost everything, he was having a great time. His only misfortune was that he lived in Komotini. Otherwise, he had two more or less normal parents who took care of his youth. Drama, as you know, begins in adulthood. Ignatius, longing for a strange and exciting life, moves to Athens, which he sees as a hotbed of miracles. Studying at the Faculty of Communications and Media made him realize that “this is not really research in the scientific sense of the word.” It was a pretty funny school. But usually nothing seemed serious enough to bother Ignatius, except for Virginia, who took her very seriously. His own path of loss was through journalism. He has received his fair share of bad news in print and online.

“Not everything is funny. Not everything can be done for the sake of pleasure.” And yet in the novel by Ari Alexandris (Athens, 1991) almost everything is funny. mocking, fun-aggressive, reminiscent of a stand-up comedy.It can be seen that the debutant Alexander carefully worked on the language, which he knows perfectly.At first glance, simple, colloquial and cheerful, it is studied in detail, as evidenced by the points of self-reference when the letter itself laughs at choice of words.

In Athens, Ignatius discovers unexpected forms of ugliness in people, manners and relationships. “What idiots. What ruthlessly stupid people.” Everything seems ridiculous to him, because until the age of 21 he could comfortably put aside concerns about morality and boundaries. He just wanted to have a good time with as little effort as possible. “In short, I was in no mood to be tired.” After a brief stint in a cultural publication, he got a job at the Kumando newspaper. From previous collaborations, he learned the main lesson: “Count the words.” In Commando, he learned that he was allowed to do whatever he wanted with the words, as long as he didn’t particularly care about the financial reward. Ignatius immediately understood something important in journalistic work, that it is not so much work as grace. And he studied media studies again. “No one wants to be given favors all the time – at some point they start to feel stupid.”

Most of all, Ignatius lost his idea of ​​himself, the illusion that he would always be able to get out unscathed, even from where lawlessness raged. In the leaflet he wrote, he practiced the carefree journalism of blood, all slaughter. In the pages of Commando, ethics has become an abstract concept. Ignatius mindlessly indulges in vulgarity, willingly participating in debauchery, in the “terrible parties” with which he amused himself. His coming of age was the beginning of his decline. He knew nothing about morality except shame.

Alexander’s novel is really pleasant, incredibly entertaining. Although the story is based on concern for morality, the author does not involve the hero in some kind of transformative transformation, in a moral rebirth. Ignatius is not broken by humiliation and does not repent. He refuses to be serious. Even when he hits the bottom, he only feels “a little lousy”. Ignatius remains a farce against himself to the end.