Radio Prague International: The Czech Books You Must Read series

Kafka, Čapek, Kundera and Havel, these are all world renowned names, but what about all the others? How well are Czech authors actually known abroad? Can you find a bookshop in Berlin, Madrid, Moscow, Paris or New York that aside from classics such as The Good Soldier Švejk also sell the works of contemporary Czech authors? At Radio Prague International we have decided to map out the popularity and availability of Czech books abroad and find out which books have been translated into international languages such as English, German, Russian, Spanish and French. At the same time we will be providing our foreign audience with the opportunity to get acquainted with past and present Czech literary jewels.

The aim of the project is to give you a list of arguably the best and most popular Czech novels and poetry ever written, presenting not only the established classics, but also introducing the leading contemporary authors.

I've had a link to Radio Prague International's Culture & Literature posts in my sidebar for quite a while, but it has been some time since I had visited it. Many thanks to Michael Orthofer at his The Literary Saloon blog for noting that radio.cz had begun a series titled The Czech Books You Must Read, entries of which can be found here.

So far they have included The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, The Grandmother by Božena Němcová, and Marketa Lazarová by Vladislav Vančura. I can highly recommend the first and last of these three, and I look forward to exploring The Grandmother soon. The entry for Švejk includes an interview with Abagail Weil, who is working on a book about Hašek (now that I want to read), and it is noted that a new translation of Švejk by Gerald Tuner will be due soon from Karolinum Press. I had wanted to revisit the book, and that seems like a great opportunity to do so.

If you're interested in finding some great books to read in translation, keep up with the series!

Illustration of The Good Soldier Švejk by Josef Lada at Wikipedia

A gift and an old friend

I was happy to get the perfect birthday gift this year—Vladislav Vančura's The End of the Old Times (Konec starých časů). I have been looking for a copy to call my own since I read the book about 4½ years ago. My comments on the book are here. It's a wonderful novel, enjoyable at both a superficial level and also as commentary on pretentious and pretending aristocracy. It has been on my wish list for five years, so I'm extremely grateful to finely get a copy.

The friend is the 1990 Baumard Quarts de Chaume, the last of a case I bought almost 20 years ago. Although it shows further aging potential, it's an old friend I want to enjoy this year. So I'm enjoying a Czech with something from the Loire...consistency has never been a strong point for me. I hope everyone's weekend will be as enjoyable as mine!

Joy Division & Marketa Lazarová

It will be a little bit before I write on Marketa Lazarová by Vladislav Vančura, but I wanted to share something I stumbled across yesterday. Someone (I'm assuming Stefano Leone, who posted it) paired Joy Division's "Shadowplay" with scenes from Marketa Lazarová, a stunning combination. The scenes are as haunting as the song.

Speaking of the movie, I watched it again after reading the novel and was surprised the changes it made from Vančura's story. More on that later, hopefully.

The End of the Old Times by Vladislav Vančura

The End of the Old Times by Vladislav Vančura
Translated by Edith Pargeter
Artia Pocket Books (Prague: 1965)

Something I get the feeling that when I say a book is a delight to read people seem to think I mean “lightweight” and “popular,” or possibly “frivolous.” I guess I’m sensitive because what’s available by Vladislav Vančura in English *is* lightweight. And delightful. I posted on Summer of Caprice a couple of years ago, which I enjoyed. Vančura’s output has been acknowledged as swinging between “enduring linguistic and narratorial challenges” and “more lightweight, popular works like Rozmarné léto [Summer of Caprice] and Konec starých časů [The End of the Old Times].” (from Chitnis, Rajendra A. Vladislav Vančura: The Heart of the Czech Avant-garde. Prague: Charles University, Karolinum, 2007, page 119) I’m excited that Twisted Spoon Press will be releasing Marketa Lazarová in a few months, a work that (according to Chitnis’ study) “represents an acceptable compromise between Vančura’s radical treatment of language and narrative…and his more lightweight popular works.”

As I noted in my post on Summer of Caprice, it is both superficially enjoyable while hinting at deeper meanings. The End of the Old Times performs the same feat even better. There are deeper meanings, but the meanings can be illusive or contradictory. Chitnis’ study highlights this last point by looking at “Vančura’s paradoxical attitude to contradictions, which he seeks simultaneously to overcome and preserve” (from the back cover).

So what is the novel about? Bernard Spera, the former librarian at the Bohemian castle of Kratochvile, recounts the time just after World War I when a colorful character visits and makes himself at home. Josef Stoklasa was the regent and hopeful buyer of the castle and grounds, which had been forfeited when the former owner fled the country during the formation of Czechoslovakia’s First Republic. Or as Spera puts it:

It was at this time, and in the circumstances which I shall describe, that Prince Alexander Nikolaievitch Megalrogov, colonel of the Czar Nicholas the Second, came to our estate. This man turned Kratochvile upside-down. He cast a spell on Suzanne, little Marcel, Kitty, Michaela, even my master, Josef Stoklasa. Through the activities of this strange man I lost Cornelia’s friendship, and when I afterwards wanted to achieve a closer relationship with Mademoiselle Suzanne she showed me the door solely on his account. I think it was the devil who sent this fellow to us. He tormented people with his mockery, caused no end of commotion, disrupted everything with his love intrigues, intrigues with truth and lies, money intrigues, and finally the intrigues of his companion, too, in which I detected a kind of poetic overtone. The Colonel was re-named BARON MÜNCHHAUSEN in our household. He is an adventurer, a conglomerate of deceits, beauties and graces which often ravished me, and which I curse now, hardly knowing where my next meal’s coming from. (12)

Megalrogov is a wonderful creation. Appearing out of nowhere and claiming to be a Prince and a White Russian colonel, he invites himself to stay at Stoklasa. He’s a charming throw-back to earlier times in his manner and zest for life. But his stories often change and, as Spera notes, some of them are adaptations of folk tales. A crucial scene seems to unmask Megalrogov as a fraud but appearances can be deceiving (a reiterating theme). His outlandish behavior and stories earn him the nickname of Baron Münchhausen among the castle’s servants.

An interesting, albeit minor, thread is the incorporation of political dynamics during the early stages of the First Republic. The change in power disrupts Stoklasa’s plans for buying the castle, mirroring the disorder Megalrogov causes while residing there. Spera, at times a spokesman for the author, muses on the divided nature of the new country: “My God, are we Czechs never going to achieve a sense of background, dissimulation and thematic unity?” (248)

Spera also embodies, in a sense, the debased new times. The librarian is a pale imitation of the lusty, lively Megalrogov. Vančura’s contradictions are present in Spera, who suffers from many of the same faults as the Russian, although on a smaller scale. He simultaneously recognizes his own errors and turns a blind eye toward them. When musing on what is going on in Stoklasa’s head at one point Spera’s rhetoric takes on the same exorbitant style as in Megalrogov’s stories. Spera acknowledges he is an unreliable narrator even when he claims omniscience. Megalrogov’s stories and Spera’s narration provide a constant challenge to what’s believable and what isn’t. But then Vančura, through Spera, explains why we find such imperfect characters entertaining while expressly noting the importance of accepting contradictions:

“The perfect man, in whom there’s no fault to be found, the man who’s fully worth of respect and love, is usually extremely unentertaining. Honour, the righteous mind, purity, smoothe out on their lathes every notch and every protrusion of the spirit, and in the end their products are bland, regular and symmetrical, so that you shrug your shoulders over them. Can you love them? No. Your spirit is at peace. To universal agreement you affirm their superiority, and not a nerve in you is moved (except, perhaps, that you may experience a lively desire to write rude words on the skin of such marmoreal beings). Then what, on the other hand, does move and animate you? Tension, conflict, the imminence of a fall. The single mark of beauty soaring from a heap of faults and errors. That moment when you can say yes and no, believe and deny, at the same time.” (200)

The new times also include members of the nouveau riche attempting (and failing) to adopt aristocratic ways. In looking at his master, Spera generalizes about the new moneyed class: “Whenever some boor insinuates himself into a duke’s breeches, he always bursts them.” (28) Members of the old aristocratic class classify the new times as a degradation. In a conversation Spera imagines between Stoklasa and Mr. Jacob (head of a political party in the region), the powerful man is supposed to have said, “In these times we live in,” sighed Mr. Jacob again, “one owes it to oneself to observe three things: to walk in down-at-heel shoes, to eat sausages, and to be as voluble as possible.” (136) Spera’s comments about Megalrogov near the end of the novel places the presumed Prince firmly in the camp of the old times, but adding a less than favorable twist. Spera notes that if Megalrogov allows two of the castle’s adolescents to accompany him on his journeys it would be “the end of the old times, my friend. The end of the journeys and the end of the seeking, the end of the secret, and the catalogue of your sins treading hard on its heels.”(296) So which period does Vančura think represents the better of the two?

As I mentioned in my alternate year-end post, this is a book I believe deserves to be in print with an English translation. Unfortunately the Artia edition is very difficult to find (and has plenty of typos). I’ll close with a few additional quotes to provide a flavor of Vančura’s style in the book:

• We are all tragic actors in complicated farces. We walk on tiptoe, in circles, by roundabout ways, and half of the things we do turn against us. (164)
• I felt a flush of joy at hearing that the Colonel was rather older than I was, for if he, so near his fiftieth year, could still cause a flutter among the girls, then there was at least a gleam of hope that I might get a hearing, too.” (204)
• [Returning home after Spera sells a stolen book] Ah, that return journey! I peered round me on all sides, and scurried along like a Capuchin who’s strayed into Whores’ Lane. (225)
• There was nothing for it but to soothe my mind down to feelings of reconciliation. So I began to be sorry for the Prince, and told myself that the life of a parasite is a miserable one at best. I’ve knocked about the world teaching Latin to small pupils, and I know very well what bitter bread it is. Often the crust of charity stuck in my throat, and even today I could hiss with rage sometimes, of course behind my master’s back. To compensate myself, then, I take a bottle from his larder. In this action of mine is hidden the wisdom of people without pride, for I certainly wasn’t born a prince, and nothing is so remote from me as honours of that kind. (235)
• I had carefully arranged matters to get the Prince into difficulties, but in its deepest and most personal essence this effort of mine longed only for its own defeat, like the virginity of young girls. (246)
• She herself was causing me grave anxiety, for it’s always a dangerous situation when an attachment begins reluctantly, and then gradually sets its victim on fire. When such a calculated love takes possession of an ugly woman, we can be certain that it will tear her hair until it deprives her of her reason. (272)
• [Spera on why Megalrogov won’t take two teens from the castle, one a messenger boy and the other Stoklasa’s youngest daughter, with him when he leaves] He had to be alone, for those too responsive little sillies for whom he had deployed his lures had taken his flights at their word, and would have hunted him into a world he chose never to enter. No, the end of the old times, my friend. The end of the journeys and the end of the seeking, the end of the secret, and the catalogue of your sins treading hard on its heels. (296)

My notes on the novel.

Recent online reading

Public Seminar has Andrei Platonov's short story "Antisexus",

a provisional translation by Anna Kalashyan of an occasional piece by Platonov. In ‘Antisexus’ (1925-26), Platonov writes in a parodic vein about what Béatriz Préciado calls the sex-gender industrial complex. The production of gendered and sexualized bodies via technologies of the image and the orgasm appears here as something that might be implicated in both the western and Soviet modes of spectacle.

Please note the article also has a link to Platonov's Chevengur (pdf)!


Llewelyn Morgan posted about a tale from the Alexander Romance feeds into a scene in Shakespeare's Henry V. And more.


I'm so intrigued by Michael Orthofer's review of Leg Over Leg (Vol. 1) by Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq that I've added it to my TBR pile.


Speaking of the to—be read—stack, I'm anxiously awaiting the upcoming translation of Marketa Lazarová by Vladislav Vančura. In the meantime, enjoy Alex Zucker's essay on the novel and its film adaptation. There's quite a bit on Vančura, too.


Stefany Anne Golberg has an essay on how a crisis in Miguel de Unamuno's life led to his philosophical outlook:

This “crisis of 1897” marked the crossroad of Miguel de Unamuno’s spiritual and intellectual journey. The philosopher would build no system that would eliminate his inner turmoil. He would not turn his back on the Angel of Nothingness. Rather, he would embrace this angel as his wife had embraced him in his grief. Miguel de Unamuno would develop from his nightmare a messy, passionate philosophy of conflict, a philosophy of tragedy. In short, a philosophy of himself.

Greg Grandin looks at fact and fiction behind Herman Melville's Benito Cereno. As is often the case, real life proves to be stranger than fiction.

Capricious Summer (1968 movie: Czechoslovakia)

Continuing with my sort-of-biweekly foreign movie posts for this year...

For more foreign movies, check out Caroline's World Cinema Series 2012 and Richard's monthly Foreign Film Festival round-up.

Jiří Menzel’s movie based on Vladislav Vančura’s Summer of Caprice highlights the “cinema ready” nature of Vančura’s novel. Menzel changed little, following much of the book. From the Criterion Collection’s essay Pearls of the Czech New Wave (a recommended read for the other movies listed, too):

As it opens, three friends in their fifties—Antonín (Rudolf Hrušínský), the proprietor of a bathhouse; Roch (František Rehák), a canon; and Major Hugo (Vlastimil Brodský)—are frolicking away the day swimming in a placid pond, smoking cigars, and drinking wine. Representing business, religion, and the military, the men are philosophical sparring partners as much as bosom buddies, engaging in debates about spirituality, commerce, and war. … A sudden rainstorm rousts the men from their diversions, a harbinger of change presaging the arrival in their village of the acrobat and magician Ernie (played by the amazingly dexterous Menzel himself, who shows off his tightrope-walking and handstanding skills). Ernie piques the erotic interest of Antonín’s wife, Katerina (Míla Myslíková), and the performer’s assistant, Anna (Jana Drchalová), piques that of all three men, who fumblingly attempt to seduce her (Antonín with a foot massage, Roch with poetry, Hugo with food). All these yearnings may as well be mere daydreams, however, as once the summer is over, Ernie and Anna get back in their caravan and leave the frustrated romantics to their own devices again.

The film could have easily been turned into a screwball sex comedy that would have undermined Vančura’s story. Fortunately the director didn’t go in that direction. Menzel captures the wistful and longing nature of the book very well—Anna awakens the passions of the middle-aged men but their inability to follow through on their desires highlights the melancholic feeling. Despite their bantering and barbs, their friendship remains at the core of the story.

Despite the faithfulness to the novel and the fine acting, the movie didn’t always “click” with me and I’m not exactly sure why. The languid pace and little action reflect the novel perfectly. I think part of it had to do with the ambiguity Vančura built into the story—were the men successful in their desire for Anna? Menzel removes the doubt, although his approach does play up the ineffectual nature of the men. His change in the major’s involvement during the fight between the magician and Anna also troubled me, but the modification does make for a funny final scene with the battered, bruised, and berated men sharing a drink while mulling over their humbling experiences.

As Obooki pointed out in a recent post, a much older Menzel points out in an interview there is a lack of compassion in current cinema. Capricious Summer gave the director a chance to highlight the compassion Vančura developed in his characters while also playing up the quirkiness of the place and people, providing a fun celebration of friendship and melancholy.

Note: I watched the Facets Videos DVD.

Summer of Caprice by Vladislav Vančura: I sampled some perch

Summer of Caprice by Vladislav Vančura
Translated by Mark Corner
Karolinum Press, Charles University, 201 pages, Hardcover
ISBN: 80-246-1195-3
Following up on yesterday’s introductory post on Summer of Caprice by Vladislav Vančura…

Vančura’s novel appealed to me because of the playful descriptions in a meandering story, combining the normal and ridiculous while highlighting the very special friendship between Antony Hussey (a bathing superintendent), Canon Gruntley, and the major. Their abrasive and insulting conversations (barely) mask their close friendship. The same could be said for the interaction between Antony and his wife Catherine—they are much more in love than they reveal to each other. When Ernesto the magician and his assistant Anna arrive in Little Karlsbad, though, the caprices of this group are given free reign. All three men attempt to seduce Anna, who seems a willing participant. Catherine, flirty and obstinate, moves in with Ernesto. The magician comes to regret both Catherine’s imposition and his visit the spa town.

The narrator’s comment of “Heaven help Ernesto, who lingered too long in Little Karlsbad” could include the other characters, too, who seem to have atrophied in the spa town and are unable to fully realize the opportunities presented to them. Their caprices, in other words, don’t live up to their desires. The humor is usually tongue-in-cheek, delivered with a straight face while the reader has to decide which side to believe in Vančura’s deliberate ambiguity.

One example…Antony, caught in a compromising position with Anna, claims he fished her out of the river Orsh and saved her from drowning (although the reader is led to believe something else had been happening). The next night, after Ernesto’s performances, the canon decides to visit the wagon where the magician and Anna live:

The canon paced up and down the pavements and was just at the point where he was making one of his repeated approaches to the waggon, when he observed its little door opening and two people stepping down from it. One of them was slight and the other, judging from volume, strongly reminiscent of Mrs. Hussey.

“I can see and recognise,” said canon Gruntley to himself, “the thin calves and the crooked thighs of the magician. I can see that good lady is going to fall into sin.” Then he extracted a book from his pocket and taking it in his hand he approached Ernesto’s abode. The window shone with a reddish glow.

“This very day,” he said, when the little window had opened slightly, “time and tide have already failed to wait. I should have been more careful and I should have given you this book at the very beginning, seeing that it contains beautiful narratives and several modest love stories which would be suitable for your hearing.”

“If you will allow me a moment,” replied Anna, “I have some fish in the frying-pan and I’m afraid that I might burn the dinner.”

“It is quite pointless to fuss about such things,” insisted the canon. “The fish are not fresh and it is not a day for fasting.”

“In that case,” replied Anna, “I will open up for you and you can be the one to turn the pan nicely over the fire.”

[Angry drunken townspeople pass by the wagon after this scene and pound on the wagon and jostle it. One of the drunkards pokes his head in the window only to have the canon hit him several times. The drunk’s companions, incensed at the attack, force their way into the wagon but the canon escapes. Asked about the events of the evening by his friends, the canon begins to explain…]

“I stopped in the square and meeting no objections I began to strike up a conversation with Anna, who was preparing a dinner of fried fish.”

“Did you join her in eating this meal?” inquired Antony, his face a picture of gloom.

“I sampled some perch,” replied the canon, “and it was the very fish that you had pulled out of the Orsh yesterday at midday.”

“That’s enough,” came the further retort from Antony, who proceeded to fly into a rage (because he couldn’t bear the idea that the canon had dined on his own fish with Anna), “Enough, keep your shameful little saga to yourself. It is not a subject fit for my ears. I know it already. O the ways of the poet-roué!”

In a novel where events and things have multiple meanings the reader may believe what he wishes to have happened. The characters often reminisce about past events but the reader (and the characters) finds any recollection suspect. Vančura sets a wistful tone, less for past times that were less than advertised and more for the special friendship between the characters.


Update - additional posts related to Summer of Caprice:
An introduction, with an excerpt from the book and from an interview with translator Mark Corner
A look at Jiří Menzel’s movie Capricious Summer

Summer of Caprice by Vladislav Vančura

Summer of Caprice by Vladislav Vančura
Translated by Mark Corner
Karolinum Press, Charles University, 201 pages, Hardcover
ISBN: 80-246-1195-3

On the remarkable River Orsh there lies a town of good reputation and good water. The water bubbles up in shady places and the nine most powerful springs, secured in nine wells, have been designated with the names of the nine Muses. This is the spa town of Little Karlsbad. It is a town open to view, built half in brick and half in mud and stone, a town of doubtful construction and enduring health.

“There are no loafers here, mind you,” the mayor of the spa is used to saying as he cuts a deck of cards. “Tally ho! Ours is a community forever on the go, running the race and arriving at the sixth month of June without delay and duly awaiting the regular deadline.”

Well then, in this distant realm of purposeful activity, where there is no time to lose (alas, see how age bears down upon its citizens while it gives an air of legality to their assets), there were several smallholdings and some fairly ancient properties. They were acquired for the most part thanks to a card game variously known as Little and Large and Tiny Takes All. These assets were blessed and well administered, because, as God is my witness, the local burghers are thoroughly versed in their trades and are not deterred by the fact that, as spas go, Little Karlsbad is in the ninth band where size is concerned. Nor are they deterred by the unseasonable cloud cover and the feeble efforts of the sun to break through it, by the impermeability of the soil or by the inadequacies of its hot springs. Let it be so! They may lack a public sewage system here, but this is a good-natured and respectable town.

(pages 10 - 12)

Is it worth reading a translation of a book that has been said to be untranslatable? Even when you know something has been lost in the translation? In the case of Summer of Caprice the answer is yes—what a delightful little book! I did a WorldCat search for the book and only 17 copies showed up. Thankfully two were near me so it was easy to obtain a copy through an interlibrary loan.

Radio Prague has an overview on Vančura--his life, work, and death (at the hand of the Nazis). They also have an interview with translator Mark Corner who provides plenty of information and some excerpts from the book. Here are a couple of quotes from the interview:

Tell us a little about the book "Summer of Caprice".

"It is about a summer in which there is very little but rain, though the sky occasionally clears at night. It is set in a small spa town, which I translate as Little Karlsbad, and there is a little bit of the kind of small town mentality about the people living there, although they are also in many ways very charming. The book centres around three eccentric characters - a major, a canon and someone I translate variously as a bathing superintendent and a magister thermarum and various other strange phrases. He's basically someone who looks after the local swimming pool on the edge of the river."

We should also mention this new edition. It is beautifully produced and also illustrated.

"Yes. The Karolinum Press produced it and it has illustrations by Jiri Grus. I think they are wonderful. It is a hardcover book with many, many different illustrations, some in a kind of sepia brown, which I think can be very attractive, and some in full colour. They portray the main characters in the book, I think, very well, and I really do say - if you don't like that translation you can always buy the book for the illustrations!"

More on the book in the next post…