Martin Kacur

Brilliant descriptions of Slovenia's natural beauty alternate with the haze of alcoholic despair, rural violence, marital alienation, and the death of a young and beloved child. The Slovene prose writer, poet, and dramatist Cankar's characterizations of duplicitous political and religious leaders (the village priest, the mayor, other teachers, doctors, etc.) and the treacherous social scene are remarkable in their engaging clarity. No doubt the raw emotional impact of Martin Kacur derives partly from Cankar's portrayal of the way society isolates people, denying them sympathy and solidarity. Cankar's style here owes a debt both to naturalism and to symbolism and contains, in its sometimes frantic pace and associative interior monologues, hints of early expressionism.