#866 A Betrayal of Mirrors- Bohumil Hrabal

#866 A Betrayal of Mirrors- Bohumil Hrabal

The things we believe in keep us going. But what if it’s all a myth. Working for God and country is the drive of many people, but it could also be their undoing. We see a stonemason as a hard working man, literally working his fingers to the bone to remove commemorative plaques in one wall of a church just to re-attach them on another, all for the glory of the nation.

We also see an artist, temperamental and odd, but no less sacrificing in his work. He has been working night and day, to the point of being physically ill to create his latest piece of art, one that will be destroyed anyway, again, all for the glory of the state. Their sacrifice is to be looked on in envy by the rest of he public. Images and ethics to strive towards.

“The best minds in the country are sacrificing themselves…So am I. I’m educating the nation not to jump off moving streetcars.”

Rating: 7-8-7-7 Total= 29

#839 Ingots- Bohumil Hrabal

#839 Ingots- Bohumil Hrabal

Another cold, dreary story about post war eastern Europe. This one is intertwining two spectrum of the suffering decline of the country. One story is giving you the large view, the macrocosm.

“At one end of the spectrum you’ve got one brilliant Jew, Christ, and at the other end you’ve got another genius, Marx. Two specialists in macrocosms, in big pictures. All the rest of it is Mother Goose territory.”

The large view is also represented by the industrial break down and the literal melting of their glorious past and mans of production. “All our good old golden days are being smelted down, and you don’t even know it’s happening.” The ingots of the title are these pieces of smelted old machinery turned into blocks of steel.

The microcosm is a woman needing help, she has been burned, beaten, diseased and taken advantage of, especially by those who first claim to help. 

Rating: 7-8-8-7 Total= 30

#754 Mr. Kafka- Bohumil Hrabal

#754 Mr. Kafka- Bohumil Hrabal

Mr. Kafka: And Other Tales From the Time of the Cult (of personality) has only recently been published in English. Mostly written in Czechoslovakia in the 1950’s when Prague was still recovering from the war and a Stalinist government was reeking havoc on their culture. There is something both dark and intensely human about these stories, something that could only be crated behind the Iron Curtain. 

“This book is an expression not only of my own evolution, but of a part of society’s evolution as well, a society I live is that, like me, wishes to live in habitations where humor and the possibility of metaphysical escape reign supreme.”

There is such an intensity of mood and a richness of language that comes from oppression. But creativity will never be suppressed. This reads like a cold war echo of Henry Miller, living a wild life that’s both surreal and intently deliberate. Of course you have to love a story that references both Kafka and Job.

Notable Passage: “It’s good to live in anxiety, good to hear one’s teeth chatter in fear, good to push life to the brink of ruin and start fresh the next morning. It’s also good to part forever and praise misfortune.”

Rating: 9-9-9-9 Total= 36

#678 The Banks of the Vistula- Rebecca Lee

#678 The Banks of the Vistula- Rebecca Lee

How far would you take a lie to protect yourself from a mistake? Margaret is only a few weeks into her college career and she has gotten herself into a jam. She loves her classes, especially her linguistics class. While researching her first paper, she came across an essay written fifty years ago in the frosty beginnings of the cold war. The paper was stunning, bold, and intoxicating to a young mind. She cribbed the essay and handed it in as her own.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to write anything better, and since the book was out of print, and hadn’t been checked out for decades, the risk of being caught was slim. What she didn’t anticipate was that the subject of the matter went far beyond the beauty she perceived. A young student might see value without understanding the political delicacies that can exist in linguistic analysis. Straight out, the paper was fascist propaganda. 

What follows is a brilliant story about language, oppression, and cold war politics. It’s all wrapped up in a very real stage of campus debate, full of stubborn arrogance and youthful naivte. How much should we be punished for the ideas we espouse in our youth? What about the decisions we make while our lives (or reputations) are at risk?

The symbolism here is strong and powerful, and not very subtle. This passage of Margaret burning the book that would act as evidence against her I found particularly striking:

Notable Passage: “As the flame approached my hand, I arched the book into the murky water. It looked spectacular, a high wing of flame rising from it. Inside, in one of its luminous chapters, I had read that the ability to use language and the ability to tame fire arose from the same warm, shimmering pool of genes, since in nature they did not appear one without the other.”

Rating: 9-9-10-9 Total= 37

#49 Second Variety- Philip K. Dick

#49 Second Variety- Philip K. Dick

In an alternate Cold War outcome, the earth has been mostly destroyed by nuclear bombs.  Two sides still battle on “terra” near Normandy, France.  The Americans have designed AI creatures called “claws” that have decimated the Russian defenses. In a familiar arms race refrains they justify it by:

“If we hadn’t invented them, they would have.”

“It was interesting, the use of artificial forms of warfare. How had they got started? Necessity.”

We learn that the Claws have started designing their own AI machines that can’t or don’t care to discern between American or Russian troops, and will kill any human they find. The first variety is The Wounded Soldier designed to make real living soldiers open the bunkers for the Claws.  The third variety looks like a human child and is called David Edward Derring (D.E.D or dead). As they wonder what the missing Second Variety is, the trapped humans turn on each other in a paranoid state.

There is a lot of Cold War symbolism in this story, marveling at the chilling effectiveness of the robots, a Russian solder says: “It only takes one of them. Once the first one gets in it admits the others. Hundreds of them, all alike…Perfect socialism…the ideal of the communist state. All citizens interchangeable.” A perfect statement of the communist stereotype that American’s feared during the “Red Scare.”

There was a nice symbol of the gray lizard that masked itself as the color of the ash, calling it the “perfect adaptation.” Overall a good story, extremely predictable now, but I’m sure less so in 1953. It probably could have been 20 pages shorter. 

Notable Passage: “Your creations are your greatest achievements.”

Rating: 7-7-6-8 Total= 28