Translated by Elza Metreveli
“You people don't know how to measure your days. You measure them only in length and say they are twenty-four hours long. But the depth of your days is sometimes greater than their length and that depth can be a month or even a year long. That is why you do not know how to perceive your life. Not to mention death...”
Last Love in Constantinople is a novel about selfless love and hatred, cheating, loyalty and revenge, success, happiness and the people whose faces “breathe, constantly inhaling and exhaling time”. In other words, Milorad Pavić’s book is a guideline of fortunetelling based on the Tarot cards, though as Pavić says the novel foresees not the future of the characters, but that of the readers. It is the latter who hold the keys which open the fate and destiny of the characters. Pavić’s characters loved, hated, fought, lost and won until “the stone got thin and the wind got heavy”. The narrative and the layout of cards are consistent, which ultimately determines the originality of the form of this novel.