Lubouchkine Expands on the Concept of Emptiness in Her Study of Both Dzhan and Fourteen Little Red Huts

Lubouchkine expands on the concept of emptiness in her study of both Dzhan and Fourteen Little Red Huts. She compares the way the two texts use the word "pustota" and its derivatives to conclude that Dzhan offers the emptiness of the desert "as a starting point - one to be overcome when it is 'oblivion,' but also one to be respected when it is space, freedom, pathway" (p. 94). Hallie White contributes a discussion of the role of utopian planning in Platonov's work, focusing most of her attention on Happy Moscow, where she sees "characters seek to reconcile past, near and distant future while finding a way to live in the pre- sent" (p. 112). Clint Walker completes the volume with a substantially expanded es- say on myth and metaphor in Happy Moscow, which he presents as "Platonov's literary laboratory of Stalinist utopian planning" (p. 120). Walker concentrates on Pla- tonov's allusions to Pushkin's Bronze Norseman, but he also includes a number of in- teresting side arguments regarding the author's literary relations with Lunacharskii, Gor'kii, and Gogol'. Supportive material from the periodical literature of the time makes for fascinating reading. Readers of the volume will be left with the sense that there is still much to discover in Platonov's mysterious, tortured, and strangely compelling universe. We can all be grateful for the opportunity this volume offers to revisit such a unique writer from such an extraordinary age. Mary Nicholas Lehigh University Robert Porter. An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Czech Fiction: Comedies of De- fiance. Brighton, UK and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2001. ix, 209 pp. $29.95. Distributed by International Specialized Book Services, Inc., Portland, OR. To the rather limited world of anglophone writing on Czech literature, Robert Por- ter's "overview" of the work of nine twentieth-century Czech writers is a welcome addition. His volume both offers some new insights into writers whose work is well- known in English and introduces several less familiar ones. With its focus on the literary aspects of his subject, the book nicely complements Peter Steiner's recent work, Czech Fiction and Its Social Context. Overall, Porter takes an eclectic approach to his subject. Although no prehistory is given, the reader senses that some chapters may have originated as separate papers, while others probably came into being expressly for this volume. In his introduction the author admits that "[o]ne purpose of this book is to draw some general conclusions about Czech literature and suggest affinities or otherwise with other European literary traditions." (p. 1) Those readers who have a background in Russian culture will espe- cially appreciate the frequent examples from Russian literature. However, the intrigu- ing subtitle, "comedies of defiance," sets up expectations that are not ultimately ful- filled. The opening chapter on Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923) offers a lively discussion of The Good Soldie Svejk in the context of the literature of World War I and antimilitar- ism, with apt allusions to novels by Voinovich, Heller, and Vonnegut, among others. In a subsection entitled "Reordering Human Priorities," Porter sees Švejk as prefigur- ing "existentialist thinking." Here he also compares Hasek with his near- contemporary Kafka. In Porter's view, as different as they were, "both writers discov- ered the world of the self ' (p. 19). In the chapter on Karel cape (1890-1938) there is a helpful introduction, linking the writer with Cubism, as well as with the philosophies of Henri Bergson and John Dewey, in preparation for a detailed analysis of The Trilogy (Hordubal, Meteor, and An Ordinary Life). (Oddly, no dates are given for this work.) There is a shorter discussion of War with the Newts, which notes the novel's universal qualities, in addition to themes tied closely to the time of its appearance in 1936. A concluding section first considers The Tales from Two Pockets, before using a phrase from G. K. Chesterton tentatively to describe Capek as "the genius who never wrote a masterpiece" (p. 51).). Porter also accuses him of never really having understood the nature of evil, an inter- pretation some readers might wish to challenge. The heart of this book really lies in the chapters devoted to Bohumil Hrabal (1914- 97) and Josef Skvorecky (b. 1924). First, they are each significantly longer than any of the other chapters: 35 and 36 pages respectively. The next in length is the chapter on Capek, which is 28 pages. More important, each provides a broad overview of the writer and his work. Readers will undoubtedly be most grateful for the chapter on Hrabal, since relatively little critical writing on him has appeared to date in English. The introductory section of the chapter includes some biographical highlights and at- tempts to clarify a central feature of Hrabal's style, which he himself called pibeni. In place of the earlier translation "palaver," Porter offers his own equivalents for this elusive concept - "yarn-spinning" or "nattering." He perceptively compares Hrabal's style to that of Zoshchenko, though for some reason does not identify the latter by its Russian term skaz. To illuminate Hrabal's inimitable style further, he identifies the technique of "montage and collage." While a specific example of how Porter under- stands this technique would have been helpful, his overall analysis is sufficiently thorough that one is inclined to forgive him the omission. Certainly, his extensive discussion of three novels, Closely Observed Trains, I Served the King of England, and Too Loud a Solitude, should satisfy most readers. One does wonder, however, why he did not mention the ambiguous circumstances of Hrabal's death in 1997, which many Czechs have interpreted as translating literature into life. In the chapter on Josef Skvorecky, Porter organizes his treatment of the major novels into three sections - "politics and history," "lyricism," and "foreign influences and emigration." Initially, the reader may feel a bit confused since individual works are thus treated in a fragmentary fashion. However, by the end one is willing to accept this approach since the fundamental interconnectedness of Skvorecky's writing is thus made very palpable. The choice of Ota Pavel (1930-73) for such a volume appears a somewhat curious one. In contrast to the other authors discussed, his literary output is modest. In fact, it was only near the end of his relatively short life that he evolved from being a sports writer to the author of autobiographically inspired stories, originally published in two slim volumes. When Pavel's prose fiction first appeared in Czechoslovakia in the early 1970s, it immediately found an appreciative readership, and his popularity en- .

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