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The Prague Orgy 39 NEW MODES OF SELF-FASHIONING “A STRANGER IN MITTELEUROPA” CENTRAL-EUROPEAN INSIGHTS IN PHILIP ROTH’S THE PRAGUE ORGY CRISTINA CHEVEREŞAN West University of Timişoara Abstract: Starting from the premise that, as one of Roth’s shorter works, Philip Roth’s 1985 novella, The Prague Orgy, may have been insufficiently explored, the paper sets out to analyze its interconnectedness with and indebtedness to the Central-European historical and literary space. As part of a vaster project, via close readings in context, it will retrace the author’s preoccupation with major issues that, in time, shaped individual and collective, real and fictional trajectories across The Other Europe. Keywords: Central-Europe, dissident, ideology, Prague, totalitarianism 1. Introduction In most studies dedicated to Philip Roth’s work, The Prague Orgy plays a rather marginal part, featuring as the author’s epilogue to the acclaimed Zuckerman Bound trilogy. It is the piece that completes the puzzle and may, in fact, have triggered Harold Bloom’s praise for the intrinsic unity of the three novels and the novella: “as a formal totality, it becomes much more than the sum of its parts.” (Bloom 1985). A half-decade (1979-1985) of tightly-knit, yet independent samples of impressive prose is now frequently read and published as a whole. In this ensemble, reputed for its insightful autobiographical undertones, due to Nathan Zuckerman’s postmodern experimentations with and meditations about writing and its (dis)contents, The Prague Orgy goes beyond cleverly-disguised self- investigation. It stands out as a highly personal(ized) critique of the kind of totalitarianism that Roth had faced and observed himself. Either directly, during his trips to Central Europe, or indirectly, from his fleeting acquaintance or close friendship with intellectuals of a cultural space he had become increasingly interested in, the novelist had gained intimate knowledge of the cynical distortion mechanisms that shaped the history, discourse and everyday reality of individuals and communities trapped behind the Iron Curtain. Habitually untamed, outspoken, provocative, Roth may never have been as openly political before. The novella is set in a distinguishably Jewish environment, on the Old Continent, at the physical and cultural roots of many future American citizens’ trajectories. Extremely rich, despite its brevity, it paves the way towards his later, acknowledged masterpieces, such as the American Trilogy, whose impact was to reside primarily in their socio-political resonance and, oftentimes, biting satire. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to foreground elements of lived, performed, mediated, remembered or simply narrated experience that Roth toys with, in his account of the practically and psychologically overwhelming (though intellectually underwhelming) domination of 20th century Central-European B.A.S. vol. XXVII, 2021 40 totalitarian regimes. Zuckerman’s encounter with the topic seems rather accidental: a 1976 trip to communist Prague, in search of potentially promising manuscripts, never published by a departed Yiddish writer. Roth’s own involvement in the study and exposure of societies set adrift by ruthless ideologies was by no means a literary whim. The following selection will prove the seriousness of his well- documented approach and the creative ways in which he broke the quasi- generalized silence regarding the oppressive atmosphere that enveloped a significant part of the European continent. 2. “We Want All the Wrong Things”. Dissidents in a dark farce As captatio benevolentiae and effective means of building credibility among American audiences, largely ignorant of communist practices (and not necessarily for lack of interest), The Prague Orgy condenses an intense story in a series of private diary entries. The assumption of truthfulness as to the portrayal of seemingly dystopian, though real, circumstances is strengthened by Zuckerman’s journey of initiation towards a newly-discovered heart of darkness. He wanders through a territory that proves as corrupted as it is bleak, uninspiring and alienating for the types of individuals Roth dwells upon: typically free spirits, who find themselves demotivated, disoriented, broken. In relatively few pages, the author brings to life a range of plausible protagonists, who do not as much push a substantial plot forth, as they muse upon the quandaries of their existence. Carefully drawn or merely sketched, these characters address the ravages of communism in Czechoslovakia in various ways, according to their position within and relation to the authorities. In the subtly subversive Rothian manner, evident to the systematic reader, the apparently marginal figures frequently deliver the most relevant lines. Apart from the main character’s views, based on events that made him seek refuge and freedom in the United States, inconvenient truths are uttered with a naturalness that illustrates the depths of the foregrounded moral and humanitarian crisis. Such narratives from the fringes, sometimes rather casual remarks, will help us grasp Roth’s depiction of a world in dismay. The initial meeting between Nathan Zuckerman and Zdenek Sisovky, the exiled Czech writer who asks for help in retrieving his father’s short stories from his home country, happens in New York City, on January 11, 1976. The scene is set, the narrative pretext put in place for a literal and figurative investigation of Sisovsky’s background. Quite reluctantly travelling to Prague, Zuckerman can verify the verisimilitude of the information he gets. Against a hibernal Central European background, fact meets fiction: Roth’s alter-ego plunges into the twisted universe of dissident writers who seem to populate a dark fantasy, shaped by conspiracy theories and despotic orders. “The Prague Orgy is of that disturbing eminence: obscenely outrageous and yet brilliantly reflective of a paranoid reality that has become universal” (Bloom 2003: 2). I shall scrutinize a few essential episodes, which reveal the diversity of the narrator’s interlocutors, and their (and, inherently, Roth’s) understanding of dictatorship. At the beginning of the novella, during the face-to-face encounter with Zuckerman, Sisovsky is accompanied by Eva Kalinova, an exquisite Checkhovian actress back in Czechoslovakia, and a tragic figure in her real, American life. An additional epic voice to her distressed lover’s, she exposes the irreconcilability of creativity and obedience, imagination and the conformism 41 NEW MODES OF SELF-FASHIONING imposed by the communist aversion towards personal aspiration, for the alleged sake of the greater good. She is the first in the dense gallery of secondary characters whose insights contribute to Zuckerman’s decoding of the generic context of the era. Thus, some of Kalinova’s interventions in the conversation prove relevant to the novella’s underlying ideas, despite appearing to be parenthetical remarks, reveries, or nostalgic antics of a faded actress. Denied access to American stages by the language barrier, Eva attempts to justify her professional failure in the New World by a reconsideration. “I have had enough of being an artificial person. […] It confuses me and it confuses everyone else. We are people who fantasize too much to begin with. We read too much, we feel too much, we fantasize too much – we want all the wrong things!” (Roth 2007: 458) To the attentive listener, already prepared to identify echoes of the repressive regime, Eva’s renunciation of art for life, her manicheistic and reductionist denunciation of humanistic idealism may indicate the system’s negative influence. On the one hand, Kalinova has trouble adjusting to new rules and expectations. On the other hand, in the need to fill an ontological void, she embraces precisely the type of logic she has fled from. Having fallen from communist grace, initially because of her impulsive second marriage to a Jew, she has followed Sisovsky to the U.S. and become a saleswoman. Her position is nuanced by her desire to find utilitarian meaning in the new circumstances: “I sell dresses, and dresses are needed more by people than stupid touching Checkhovian actresses!” (ibid.). One might grasp a connection between this resignation and that enforced by the Czech institutions, whose strict interdictions and surveillance trigger opprobrium of the ‘wrong things’: idea(l)s, hopes, feelings, reactions – all traditional enemies of autocracy. Emphasizing the web of Central-European references that Roth weaves into his Zuckermann Bound series, Kalinova channels one of famous Anne Frank’s guest/ghost appearances. As pointed out by Wilson (2005: 108), “whereas Anne Frank’s diary entries have been perpetually ‘transmuted’ and converted into ‘usable goods,' we see Zuckerman not only coming to terms with his role as a writer through his diary entries but also taking control of the narration of his own story”. This polyphonic story surpasses a journey into self-discovery: it offers insight into the rich texture of a collective (hi)story than has evolved in time and space, but has never ceased to unite via invisible threads. Coming from an oppressive system, Eva is symbolically bound to another, implicitly warning that the atrocities of the Holocaust could resurface, under modified guises and ideological justifications. Her destiny as a fugitive and, currently, a hyphenated-American in the process of adjustment is further complicated by the diasporic individual’s inherent torment, doubled by the sense of Jewish guilt,
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