In Pursue of Professor Norges: "Holliday on the South" by Ivo Andric

Abstract

The paper offers argumentation in favor of a new interpretation of the story “Holliday on the South” by Ivo Andric. The mysterious disappearance of professor Norges (spending holliday with his wife on the seaside) has been explicated by critics as a result of the hero’s elevation and spiritualization after some kind of enthusiastic experience. Opposing to those who thought that what’s happened here could be described as the hero’s pagan merging into nature or climbing into transcendence, the paper brings arguments that he vanishes into nonexistence as a result of a sudden and grandiose opening of his being to the sensual world.  It has been concluded that professor Norges hasn’t died for the world to be born as a writer but rather the other way round: as a man who is committed to sensual life he is on the way to become dead as an author.