Unique Item

Unique Item - delta novel with a hundred endings + Blue Book

Original title: Unikat + Plava sveska

Basic Book data

Unique Item is a delta novel. It has one hundred different endings and the reader can choose one.

The publisher can choose whether to print this novel in two volumes, the novel itself and a separate book with all one hundred endings, or as a single volume.

First edition: Belgrade, Dereta, 2004, 163 + 117 pages

1. Уникальный роман (Unique Item)
   Санкт-Петербург, Азбука, 2006.
   Санкт-Петербург, Амфора 2010.
   Санкт-Петербург, Пальмира, 2017.

2. Unique Item
   Dereta, Belgrade, 2005.
   Unique Item – Delta Novel [Kindle Edition e-book] Amazon.com, Kindle Store, 2010.
   Blue Book. A sequel with all 100 endings of Unique Item [Kindle Edition e-book ] Amazon.com, Kindle Store, 2010.

3. Pieza única (Unique Item) Editorial Sexto Piso, Madrid ( España), 2007 .
   Pieza Unica: cuaderno azul (Blue Book – 100 endings of Unique Item)
   Editorial Sexto Piso, Coyoacan, México, 2007. 
   
   
4. Unikat – roman delta (Unique Item)
   Ma-No, Nova Gorica, 2006.
   Editorial Sexto Piso, México, 2011.
   
   
5. Уникат (Unique Item)
   София, Колибри, 2009.
   
   
6. Unicat. Cartea cu o sută de finaluri (Unique Item)
   Bukurešt, Editura Pandora M (Editura TREI), 2015

7.  Exemplaire unique (Unique Item)
   Monts Métallifères, Lyon, 2021.

Overview

The author of Dictionary of the Khazars has once more found a new, as yet unseen type of literary play for you: a tale of love and a detective "multi-ending story" that diverges into one hundred branches. Every reader chooses his personal version of the novel, and his own ending to the tale. You have a UNIQUE ITEM!

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Buying this book, the reader receives one hundred ends instead of one. The author of Dictionary of the Khazars has invented a unique literary play – a delta novel. This is a love-story novel based on a detective narrative spreading out into one hundred branches. In this way there are one hundred endings to the story. Every reader chooses his personal version of the novel and his special end to the tale. Finally, every book lover will possess a unique item.

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WARNING:

Just as smoking is bad for your health,
so is the reading of a hundred endings
of the same book.
It is almost like gaining one hundred
deaths instead of one.

Milorad Pavić

The idea to write the novel Unique Item about a man and a woman selling dreams came to me in my sleep.

The novel describes the beginning of the 21^st century, but there is no mention of where it takes place. A lot can be sensed beneath the perfumes worn by the main characters of this book, including our reality – the pretty and the ugly. One might say that I am heading in the direction of a new “decadent” century, the one before us. Towards the age of Aquarius and the 21^st century.

Unique Item is a detective story turned upside down. From its perfumes drop dead people and crimes, and the judicial authorities come across as comical, for they cannot intuit what every reader has long known. The chief investigator in my book resembles a cuckolded husband: he is the last to find out.

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For none of out loves could we have known the ending in advance, just as the readers of my Unique Item cannot know what ending lies in the hands of another reader. Thus this novel on paper and our loves in reality touch.

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How to read this book? - By knowing that everyone gets the ending he deserves.

Reviews

Amazon

The author has followed the ancient wisdom that says: the ending is the crown and the demise of a work. Therefore this novel is not like other books. It finishes differently for every reader, so each receives his own end to the tale. For this book has one hundred different endings. Like the hundred gold coins that the poor man in a folk tale receives for a magic bird. Thus you can choose whichever ending you prefer. Leave the rest to others. Be satisfied with your own end, you do not need another's.

Colibri Publishing

Buying this book, the reader receives one hundred ends instead one. The author of Dictionary of the Khazars has invented a unique literary play – a delta novel. This is a love-story novel which is based on a detective narrative spreading out into one hundred branches. In this way there are one hundred endings to the story. Every reader chooses his personal version of the novel and his special end to the story. Finally, every book lover will possess a unique item.

Readers Reviews

• This book is described as a delta novel, with the story having a hundred possible endings. The endings were originally published in a separate book, but this English translation has everything in one volume.
  An odd book, but odd in a good way, as I did enjoy it, but I was weak and read all the possible endings before choosing the one I liked best. My favourite editing error was 'rubble' for 'rabble'. I'm fairly sure that Pushkin's characters were attacked by an angry mob rather than having a building fall on them!

• Superb book from Milorad Pavic - billed as a delta novel with a 100 different endings, that is actually a bit of an exaggeration since the 100 different endings part of the journal of a policeman that tries to make sense of events are all actually essential in understanding the novel.

• It is very hard to describe this novel, but it contains an androgynous seller of dreams that people will have in the future or would have had were they to live, characters that take dual persona through those, including one that will/has the same death as Pushkin and sees both, and another that gets to be both a boy/man and a woman - not our androgynous main character - and so much more.

• Told in several parts and in different narrative formats, and with a perfume - both male and female - based theme at least for a while, and taking place in a modern city and of course in unreality spaces this is an amazing novel that needs several re-readings to fully make sense.

• Now, you will love this book or you'll hate it, but again this is typical for all Pavic's books.

• This time Pavic has written "multi-ending story that diverges into one hundred branches".
  In Serbian there are actually two books: one which is regular novel (Unique Item) and second one is Blue Book with rest 99 endings. English version is a fusion of those two books so reader may "choose his/her own end".

• Unique Item by Milorad Pavić - another attempt by Pavić (more known for The Dictionary of the Khazars - book 44 on my list) to redefine, to extend, to twist around, to have a different take, to go against the notion of what is a novel, this time a mystery with 100 possible endings --- the end is up to you. An intriguing and playful story revolving around an androgyne who is a dreamcatcher and possessing an incredible power of smell. Several murders occur in different occasions, an opera singer who last performed as Pushkin (this detail we discover later is crucial) dies, some shady characters pop in and out, through it all the androgyne appears to be the link -- she has caught dreams for those people who, by dreaming dreams from their past life and dreams from after their death, forfeit their own present lives.

• I found this book more interesting than i expected -- Pavić cleverly interweaves historical detail (the Pushkin part) with myth and fantasy. I was reminded of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita where the Devil came in disguise to wreak havoc on the characters' lives -- there are similarities in this book. I wouldn't be surprised if the idea was Bulgakov-inspired.