|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Miracles and Illusions
| Article
# : |
18529 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1991 |
2,478 Words |
| Author
: |
Arnost Lustig
Arnost Lustig is a Czech novelist whose books include Darkness
Casts No Shadow, Diamonds of the Night, and A Prayer for
Katerina Horovitzova. He teaches literature and film at
American University. |
THE MIRACLE GAME
Josef Skvorecky
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991
436 pp., $22.95
For several years, Josef Skvorecky has appeared among the candidates for the Nobel Prize for literature. He has not won yet--but one hopes he will, so that he can be recognized in the company of his peers.
Not to spoil the supreme pleasure the reader will have reading Skvorecky's multidimensional, comic and tragic, rich and ironic novel The Miracle Game, I shall speak briefly about the plot.
The book begins in 1958 with Danny Smiricky, a teacher in an all all-girls school in Bohemia. Following the whims of his nature (a combination of cynicism, hedonism, and realism), he lives a life of small adventures. One sunny Sunday in a little village church, he witnesses something very unusual: During the sermon, a statue of Saint Joseph bows to the congregation. Everyone there thinks it was a miracle. But miracles under communism where only the party can create miracles? The party arrests the priest, humiliates him, and tortures him to death.
A decade later, Danny, now a writer living in Prague, experiences Prague Spring of 1968. Skvorecky compares the miracle in the church with Prague Spring, a bit of short-lived freedom before the Soviet tanks arrived. Among the many subplots is the Byzantine investigation of the earlier miracle in the village church. The questions posed are endless: Was it a real miracle? A hoax?
But what is most important is the painting of a rich fabric of the lives of intellectuals, writers, playwrights, of Prague cafes, girls, dissidents, dreamers, many of which the attentive reader will recognize as still living--today some of them are leading the country.
Smiricky is also a kind of acquaintance for he is the well-known protagonist of several of Skvorecky's previous works, including The Cowards and The Engineer of Human Souls Souls. It is possible to say he is an alter ego, a second voice for Skvorecky. Smiricky lives with the questions that torture a man whose life is the result of accidents imposed by fate. He feels how deeply alone and strangely opposed to his own will a man can be in this beautiful twentieth
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
