The Construction of the Contemporary Reality in Selected Works of Czech
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Perinova, Jitka (2015) The construction of contemporary reality in selected works of Czech fiction: Emil Hakl and Jan Balabán. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5987/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Construction of Contemporary Reality in Selected Works of Czech fiction: Emil Hakl and Jan Balabán Jitka Peřinová Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of PhD Department of Slavonic Studies School of Modern Languages and Cultures University of Glasgow July 2014 © Jitka Peřinová, 2014 PhD Thesis: Jitka Peřinová, 2014 2 Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………..7 Acknowledgements.………………………………………………………………………...8 Declaration………………………………………………………………………………….9 Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………………...10 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………11 1. Czech literature after the 1989……………………………………..…………13 1.1 The new roles of Czech literature…………………………………………...13 1.2 Aleš Haman – two lines of contemporary Czech prose…………………… 14 2. Facts about Hakl’s and Balabán’s personal lives and experiences…………18 2.1 Biographies outlined………………………………………………………..18 2.2 The beginnings……………………………………………………………...20 3. Public acknowledgement. Critical recognition…..…………………………..22 3.1 Critical overview……………………………………………………………22 3.2 Secondary literature on Hakl’s and Balabán’s work………………………. 26 4. Theoretical background……………………………………………………….30 4.1 General overview…………………………………………………………...30 4.2 The subject and the object of narration……………………………………..33 4.3 Characters…………………………………………………………………...36 4.4 Author – Narrator – Protagonist (Character)………………………………..38 I. ‘Life according to Jan Beneš’ by Emil Hakl…………………………………………42 Introduction………………………………………………………………………42 PhD Thesis: Jitka Peřinová, 2014 3 1. The narrator and the main protagonist of Hakl’s texts……………………..45 1.1 The active and narrating self………………………………………………..45 1.2 The narrator of Konec světa: ‘I’ as I see myself…………………………….46 1.3 Emil Hakl & Jan Beneš……………………………………………………..50 2. ‘I’ in union with the world and in conflict with it (in relation to society)………………………………………………………….53 2.1 ‘I’ in communication with others…………………………………………..53 2.2 ‘I’ amongst (male) friends and strangers…………………………………..54 2.3 Láďa, Fáfa and Jan Beneš………………………………………………….56 2.4 Jan Beneš and his perception of time………………………………………61 2.5 The content: the revealed and the suspended information…………………64 2.6 The existence of the ‘known’ and the arrival of the new and the ‘unknown’…………………………………………………………………69 2.7 The troublesome present and the ‘golden’ past…………………………….75 2.8 Beneš’s relationship with women and his attitude to femininity…………..76 2.8.1 Men and masculinities – loss of control……………………………...76 2.8.2 Konec světa – the story of men………………………………………84 2.8.3 The significance of age……………………………………………….85 2.8.4 Hakl’s men v Czech society – Hakl’s men v modern world…………87 3. The narrating ‘I’ as a part of the System and outside the System………….92 3.1 Life of work………………………………………………………………...92 3.2 The individual facing the System…………………………………………..94 3.3 The ‘Quake’ and the ‘Cthulhu’…………………………………………….99 3.4 A ‘latent deserter’…………………………………………………………101 4. ‘To see, to feel and to re-tell’: places and their narratives………………...105 4.1 ‘Seeing’: advertising, information and others………………….…………105 4.2 ‘Feeling’: the city of Prague………………………………………………109 4.3 ‘Re-telling’: in the centre of pub talks and random encounters…………..115 PhD Thesis: Jitka Peřinová, 2014 4 4.4 ‘Being’: in the flat………………………………………………………...118 4.5 Apocalyptic visions of the world…………………………………………120 4.6 ‘The end of the world’: the legacy of the postmodern and the apocalypse………………………………………………………..123 5. ‘Life according to Jan Beneš’ – continued: the context of Hakl’s fiction…….......................................................................................127 5.1 Intimní schránka Sabriny Black: the history of one love, the history of one career……………….………………………………….127 5.2 O rodičích a dětech: Father and his son, son and his Father…..………….129 5.3 O létajících objektech: ‘I’ amongst the ‘aliens’ and with them…………..135 5.4 Let čarodĕjnice: troubles with communication…………………………...142 5.5 Pravidla směšného chování: an end, or a new departure?..........................147 6. Emil Hakl – Summary……………………………………………………….152 6.1 Jan (Honza) Beneš………………………………………………………...152 6.2 An image of society……………………………………………………….153 6.3 An image of the ‘real’ world……………………………………………...154 6.4 Contemporary, realistic and postmodern………………………………….155 II. The constructed and deconstructed world of Jan Balabán’s fiction……………..157 Introduction……………………………………………………………………..157 1. A few words on the narration and genres………………………………….159 1.1 Narration. Interplay of narratorial perspectives…………………………..159 1.2 The real and the fictive……………………………………………………164 1.3 In between short stories and novels……………………………………….166 2. Collective (social) experience………………………………………………...168 2.1 Human relationships and love…………………………………………….168 PhD Thesis: Jitka Peřinová, 2014 5 2.1.1 Erotic relationships disrupted……………………………………….168 2.1.2 The history of love – revealed and unrevealed……………………...175 2.1.3 Love re-discovered………………………………………………….176 2.1.4 To sum up: love, relationships and society…………………………176 2.2 Family relationships: given, lost and found………………………………177 2.2.1 Children and their parents…………………………………………..177 2.2.2 Parents and their children…………………………………………...182 2.2.3 Brothers and sisters…………………………………………………183 2.3 Relationships with friends and random people…………………………...186 2.4 To sum up: Balabán’s characters in relationships with the other people…………………………………………………..…188 3. The individual experience……………………………………………………189 3.1 Life as a reflection of the self. Words and thoughts v actions……………189 3.2 The difference between Balabán’s male and female characters…………..191 3.2.1 Balabán’s men and their escapes……………………………………192 3.2.2 Women, their responsibilities and their grief.………………………195 3.2.3 The acceptance of ageing and its denial…………………………….197 3.2.4 Men are out for themselves, women work for others……………….200 3.3 Body (time) and soul (eternity)…………………………………………...202 3.3.1 Illnesses and mental disorders………………………………………202 3.3.2 Death………………………………………………………………..204 3.4 God and the universe….…………………………………………………..209 3.5 The present and the past: time and places (external & internal reality)…..216 3.5.1 Memories…………………………………………………………....216 3.5.2 The perception of time – linear and cyclic, destroyed and re-built…221 3.5.3 Time and place – the external reality……………………………….….222 3.5.4 Places discovered and re-discovered – the city v the countryside….231 4. Jan Balabán – Summary……...……………………………………………...236 4.1 Balabán’s ‘fictive’ world…….…………………………………………….236 4.2 The image of the ‘real’ world….…………………………………………..238 PhD Thesis: Jitka Peřinová, 2014 6 Conclusion…………………………………….…………………………………………240 Hakl’s and Balabán’s fiction – comparisons being made…………………………….240 1. Within the context of Czech fiction…………………………………………240 2. The image of contemporary world………………………………………….241 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………….245 1. Primary sources………………………………………………………………245 2. Secondary sources……………………………………………………………247 PhD Thesis: Jitka Peřinová, 2014 7 Abstract At the beginning of the 1990’s, after a period of momentary confusion, when Czech literature seems to have temporarily lost its way in the newly establishing democratic society which emerged after the fall of communism a number of rather interesting and important writers appeared. Holding the memories of recent communist past and experiencing the historical turning point when Czech society rejoined the capitalist West, they produced an image of cultural and political initiation. They bore witness to the arrival of chaos, associated with regime change, to a crisis of personal values and a search for new ways of existence. This thesis analyzes the literary work of two contemporary Czech writers, Emil Hakl and Jan Balabán. It explores the way the reality of their narratives is shaped. It investigates the reality these narratives reflect, the reality these narratives create and the reality that the reader of these narratives re-creates on the basis of his/her knowledge of the world. The thesis considers the value judgments which are being made by Czech society through its contemporary literature about its post-communist present. The thesis also examines the question to what extent these narratives construct an image of contemporary Czech society. The thesis deals with the complete fiction written by Emil Hakl (b. 1958) and Jan Balabán (1961-2010), two popular and critically acclaimed Czech writers. The first part of the thesis analyzes Hakl’s fiction, in particular his debut Konec světa (The End of the World), a work which opens the world of Jan Beneš (Hakl’s real name), the narrating character of this text and also the narrating character of almost all the other texts written by Emil Hakl. The second part of the thesis focuses on the constructed