Peshikan’s philosophical themes and modern Weltanschauung on human life

Danilo Peshikan’s Weltanschauung was determined by the situation that subsisted in his childhood. The ideas in his books, coming from the core of his cultural identity, reflect his philosophical view on life. The intellectual construction in his stories is built based on things most important for him: it is to say something essential—his hopes his human experience, feelings, philosophy, etc.–themes that have rarely been spoken about by one human to another. Then again, the reality of the physical world formed Danilo’s modern Weltanschauung of the ceaseless variability of the reality: “For how many of us, the future is no longer what it once was, nor will the past get any better. I wonder if the manipulative power of human language is an ancestral trait traceable back to the necessity that caused it to erupt into existence as a weapon for world domination, rather than a tool for communication; humanity has truly been deceived so many times that if the geniuses we revere today were true geniuses, would we still revere them?” Variations on the subject of freedom

As an artist, Peshikan is diving through layers and layers of culture. His stories are brimming with imagery. The use of allusions is an organic part of his text. If recognized they fulfill their role as such only for those who recognize them. His style is original and unique. Paradoxically, original styles, like the faces of beautiful women, always remind us of someone else, like a famous actress, for instance; while those books with no recognizable style at all, they remind us of no one, for they have no distinguishable features.

Danilo believed that his books have to speak for themselves. The book (not the author) should be its own defender, solicitor, promoter, or demolisher. Isn’t it a shame that these days the literature became a business now and hundreds of masterpieces, hundreds of Joices, Dostoevskys, Garcia Marquezes, are still lying unrecognized in attics and garrets?

Stranger, a collection of short stories, presents Peshikan’s Weltanschauung coming from situations that are experienced in our childhood. The stories are directed to the human psyche, to the labyrinths of the human being's sub-consciousness. The fixation on the images sprouts from the depths of the memory, and the occasional twist of thoughts and feelings.

“There it was – the reason for the excitement that had overtaken me. I saw it now: the ice cream man’s handcart was part of it, gone with the passing years, which had overtaken the bowery gardens of my forgotten early childhood – it had enormous wheels and a white canopy towering over us like a triple-fold chef hat. Now this relic, together with the strange trio surrounded by a glowing halo, the achromatic depths of the window behind them, and the blurred outlines of the deserted street – all of it resembled a faded black and white photograph, or rather an illuminated page, its edges scorched, but a picture which still spoke to the heart. An illuminated page from my own memory…”