Daylight in Nightclub Inferno : Czech Fiction from the Post-Kundera Generation

Rating:
Summary: Post-communist voices
Review: The title of this book may seem a little perplexing, but fans of contemporary Czech writers like Daniela Hodrova, Michal Viewegh and Jachym Topol (whose works have not been widely translated yet into English) will need to add this one to their collection. Literary aficionados will wonder tho', about the "post-Kundera" part of the title; since when did Milan Kundera ever represent a Czech literary criterion? Nevertheless, Daylight is an eclectic compilation of works of varied length, placed in such an order, explains editor Lappin in her intro, to purposely swing from one literary style to the next. The first selection is an excerpt from much-heralded young author J. Topol's novel, Sister, a postmodernist stream-of-consciousness piece with lots of perplexing ellipsis marks and leaps of imagination; it apparently is supposed to be a satire on literary criticism. No such vagueness exists with Viewegh's excerpt from his 1996 novel, Sightseers. It is an easy-to-read, stinging spoof on the "cult of seriousness that rules Czech writers" and his alter-ego, Max, is delightfully anti-competition. This brief example of Viewegh's work turned me into an instant fan, prompting me to hunt down his Bringing up Girls in Bohemia. Next, Daniela Fischerova's "Letter to Eisenhower" offers a glimpse into her 1950s Sovietized grade school years. Tereza Bouckova's "Quail," a lenghty short story, is my favorite in all of Daylight: the sad saga of a pregnant woman jilted by her lover. Probably every woman can identify with her despair and her agonizing decision to terminate the pregnancy (which also results in a kind of "spiritual abortion" for the woman). Another long short story is Jiri Kratochvil's "The story of King," set in Brno (a nice change of locale) which provides more biting commentary on Czech politics and literary stars. For some reason, the editor chose to split up the 3 different excerpts from Topol and Viewegh and scatter them throughout the book. Topol's middle piece is far better than the first. Read him carefully here: he can be sly, quick and devastating. We meet up again with Max the anti-competitionist in the second Viewegh piece. Topol soon shows up again with "Lord of the slab," taken from his novella, Angel, a more linear narrative which prove that he CAN tell a story. Topol here provides us with an interesting, different type of male character--a Czech Archie Bunker, if you will. Michal Ajvaz hits us with all kind of little truths the entire way thru his "The Pohorelic Bistro." Halina Pawlowska provides a look at a young Ukrainian girl as a Young Pioneer with the Socialist Youth League and as always, entertains us with the little details she is so good at capturing. The much-touted Daniela Hodrova, ordinarily difficult to read because of her overreliance on postmodern literary gimmicks, is here with some surprisingly linear narrative vignettes of Prague women; they are unremarkable except for the topical references to Prague landmarks. Pavel Reznicek's piece is a mixture of realism and fantasm as is Ewald Murrer's "The Mask." The story by Alexandra Berkova is nonsensical fantasy which I skipped over. Another thing I also do not understand is why editor Lappin felt compelled to include 3 older writers in this book. They were nice to read, but surely Lappin could have filled the space with other younger writers! Iva Pekarkova, for one, is glaringly absent from this anthology. What gives??