Radovan Charvát Livres

Katalog k výstavě Pravoslav Sovak - Krajiny času. Museum Kampa 24.2. - 27.5.2018

V technokraticky a byrokraticky organizovaném pracovním světě má člověk stále větší problémy prosadit se jako individuální, autonomní a ve své oblasti činnosti aktivní osoba. Byrokracie a státní správa na straně jedné a globálně operující hospodářské organizace na straně druhé nutí k přizpůsobování, v němž člověk přichází o svoji individualitu, nedokáže se identifikovat s prací a nakonec ani se svým soukromým životem. Ztrácí motivaci, jeho výkon klesá a sám tomuto tlaku podléhá, vnitřně se vzdává. V popředí moderní společnosti stojí dnes především rozmnožování blahobytu bez ohledu na všeobecné blaho a životy příštích generací …

Román Vyhlazení (Auslöschung, 1986) představuje poslední a vrcholný autorův příspěvek světové literatuře. Rozvíjí zde a k dokonalosti přivádí všechny motivy a prostředky, které prostupují jeho tvorbu odpočátku: kritika všeho a všech – zejména rakouského státu a společnosti – jako umění literární nadsázky, všudypřítomná tragikomika, sarkasmus, sebeironie a bytostně hudební rytmus vyprávění.

Výbor miniatur, glos, výstižných črt i krátkých povídek z let 1899–1920 tohoto významného švýcarského autora představuje vhled do jeho tvorby nejvlastnější: v psaní krátkých próz byl Robert Walser jedinečný a neopakovatelný, v mnohém překonávají jeho vlastní romány.

The publication of Victor Klemperer's secret diaries brings to light one of the most extraordinary documents of the Nazi period. In its cool, lucid style and power of observation, said The New York Times, it is the best written, most evocative, most observant record of daily life in the Third Reich. I Will Bear Witness is a work of literature as well as a revelation of the day-by-day horror of the Nazi years. A Dresden Jew, a veteran of World War I, a man of letters and historian of great sophistication, Klemperer recognized the danger of Hitler as early as 1933. His diaries, written in secrecy, provide a vivid account of everyday life in Hitler's Germany. What makes this book so remarkable, aside from its literary distinction, is Klemperer's preoccupation with the thoughts and actions of ordinary Germans: Berger the greengrocer, who was given Klemperer's house (anti-Hitlerist, but of course pleased at the good exchange), the fishmonger, the baker, the much-visited dentist. All offer their thoughts and theories on the progress of the war: Will England hold out? Who listens to Goebbels? How much longer will it last? This symphony of voices is ordered by the brilliant, grumbling Klemperer, struggling to complete his work on eighteenth-century France while documenting the ever- tightening Nazi grip. He loses first his professorship and then his car, his phone, his house, even his typewriter, and is forced to move into a Jews' House (the last step before the camps), put his cat to death (Jews may not own pets), and suffer countless other indignities. Despite the danger his diaries would pose if discovered, Klemperer sees it as his duty to record events. I continue to write, he notes in 1941 after a terrifying run-in with the police. This is my heroics. I want to bear witness, precise witness, until the very end. When a neighbor remarks that, in his isolation, Klemperer will not be able to cover the main events of the war, he writes: It's not the big things that are important, but the everyday life of tyranny, which may be forgotten. A thousand mosquito bites are worse than a blow on the head. I observe, I note, the mosquito bites. This book covers the years from 1933 to 1941. Volume Two, from 1941 to 1945, will be published in 1999.

'Probably nothing exists that would prepare one for Bernhard's machined vehemence, though once you've read one, you perhaps start to crave the bitter taste and the savage not-quite-humour ... Genius.' - Michael Hofmann Instead of the book he is meant to write, Rudolph, a Viennese musicologist, produces this dark and grotesquely funny account of small woes writ large, of profound horrors detailed and rehearsed to the point of distraction. We learn of Rudolph's sister, whose help he invites then reviles; his 'really marvellous' house which he hates; the suspicious illness he carefully nurses; his ten-year-long attempt to write the perfect opening sentence; and his escape to the island of Majorca, which turns out to be the site of someone else's very real horror story, and ultimately brings him no release from himself. Concrete is Thomas Bernhard at his very finest: a bleakly hilarious insight into procrastination and failure that scratches the murky depths of our souls.

The sorcerer Beelzebub Preposteror and his witchy aunt must complete their annual quota of evil deeds before midnight. But a small cat and a raven are waiting to foil their plans and save the world.

The playwright and novelist Thomas Bernhard was one of the most widely translated and admired writers of his generation, winner of the three most coveted literary prizes in Germany. Gargoyles, one of his earliest novels, is a singular, surreal study of the nature of humanity.One morning a doctor and his son set out on daily rounds through the grim mountainous Austrian countryside. They observe the colorful characters they encounter—from an innkeeper whose wife has been murdered to a crippled musical prodigy kept in a cage—coping with physical misery, madness, and the brutality of the austere landscape. The parade of human grotesques culminates in a hundred-page monologue by an eccentric, paranoid prince, a relentlessly flowing cascade of words that is classic Bernhard.