Inside

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Inside

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Kornel Földvári
Kornel Földvári
IN DEFENCE OF THE
DEFENCELESS
Humour in Slovak Literature
T
he fate of the first work of Slovak literature
encapsulates the trials and tribulations that
accompanied its later development. Having banned
his epigrams a few years earlier, ecclesiastical
censorship prohibited the publication of part II of Jozef Ignác
Bajza’s The Adventures and Experiences of the Young Man Rene
(René mládenca príhody a skúsenosti, 1784). However, writers
learned how to “self-regulate” within a few decades. As they
embarked on their romantic quest of developing national
self-awareness which was accompanied by a dangerous
increase in national oppression, their writing was expected
to perform a weighty role and to stand in for non-existent
national institutions. Writers were expected to adhere to a
strict military discipline, not unlike that of an ascetic religious
order. Anything that protruded from the tight formation was
ruthlessly eliminated, like undesirable new shoots disfiguring
a carefully trimmed hedge.
Like a tortoise, Slovak literature gradually grew so
accustomed to living under a defensive shield that it scarcely
noticed, after the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in
1918, that the lethal grip had loosened and that – even though
it still had to play the educator’s role – its creative substance
had, nevertheless, changed along with the nation’s situation
or, to put it loftily, the situation of its potential readership.
That is why the two totalitarian regimes that followed, and
which used literature to manipulate our lives, found it only
too easy to continue the tradition of making literature serve
an ideal. The old system was further perfected, giving rise to
a conformist and willing literature that can, with hindsight,
be partly blamed for what happened in the world of letters.
Not only ideas but also the forms of expression, the choice of
metaphors and vocabulary, were decreed from above.
Furthermore, since we have always suffered from a tendency
to be deadly serious about ourselves, “solid work” in Slovakia
has always been more highly valued than “unserious” selfdeprecation. The superstitious fear of mockery, regarded as
something hostile and harmful, is an echo of the ancient worry
about losing one’s dignity and of a resentment of everything
ambiguous and ironic, anything that might challenge us or
threaten our self-confidence. And, of course, it was in the
absolute interest of those in power to cultivate these atavistic
feelings in authors and readers. For there is nothing a
dictatorship fears more than mockery and challenge.
And that, if nothing else, is the reason why it is not the
generations of worthy golden-tongued classics who swim with
the current trying to find ever more beautiful and eloquent
Volume 14, Number 2
LitRevue_Zalomenie.indd B1
ways of saying what has been said a hundred times before who
really determine the course of literature and through it, the
state of national awareness, but the disorderly and perhaps
provocative convention-breakers and challengers, those
who strike out on their own to fight their way through the
thicket of prejudice and prescriptivism. They are the only ones
capable of diagnosing the diseases of the human soul and of
prescribing an uncompromisingly bitter medicine or, where
necessary, of wielding the scalpel.
Jozef Ignác Bajza (1755 – 1836), a man of the Enlightenment,
was hardly equipped to take on this role. He emerges from the
banned Volume II of his Rene novel (see above) as an incensed
pamphleteer of the Radishchev school rather than a witty
Diderot. Playwright Ján Chalupka (1791 – 1871) was too much
of a poeta doctus to be considered a humorist. Nevertheless,
he introduced a type of comedy into our literature that
continues all the way to the meek Ivan Stodola (1888 – 1977),
whose comedy was built on blunders and mistaken identities.
Generations of amateur theatres have been brought up on
these comedies, yet he lacks the temperament that would
make him a great satirist, as all his comedies follow a rather
predictable formula. Despite the ironic election episodes in Ján
Kalinčiak’s (1822 – 1871) novel The Restoration (Reštavrácia,
1860), the overall effect, even at the time of the book’s initial
publication, must have felt like an olde-worlde idyll, a gentle
smile at the past, failing to reflect the hardship and harshness
of Kalinčiak’s own real-life experience.
If we accept the renowned Czech critic František Xaver
Šalda’s claim that real satire (and after all, what is satire if
not an ironic act of rebellion and challenge) is reserved for
“the truly poetic, the truly great spirits” and that the satirist
must “passionately resent the compact majority striding and
blocking the source of living water like a lazy frog”, the only
writer with a legitimate claim to being the grandfather of
ironic scepticism and bitter mockery of the deformations of
human beings and the times they live in is Jonáš Záborský
(1812 – 1866). A sacrilegious man of great stature, one
of the few truly free spirits capable of unconventional
thinking, he was a man who regarded himself as a patriot,
yet dared not only to think but to apply, quite casually, the
term “demagogue” to Svetozár Štúr, and who was able, in
fits of angry passion, to penetrate the depths of the human
condition of the Slovak intellectual of his days, constantly
balancing between destruction and betrayal. He was labelled
a “national sinner”, although he was the one who suffered the
most from his own cruel irony. (By the way, Bajza was involved
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in a long-drawn-out polemic with the followers of Bernolák,
while Záborský spent all his life opposing the followers of
Štúr. Is it merely coincidence that neither of them was willing
to join those marching in step under the sacred national
banners? Certainly, there was a degree of offended vanity and
cantankerousness in both of these men but is it not a sign of
an independent spirit that someone is willing to swim against
the current if he considers it necessary, even at the risk of
universal condemnation?).
Sadly, this exceptional figure had no followers, although
Ladislav Nádaši-Jégé’s Mephistophelian ironic frown must
not be ignored. Yet the trickle of irascible nay-saying and
mockery ran beneath the surface of Slovak literature like a
subterranean river. Only from time to time could its current
be glimpsed deep down, for example, in certain passages by
Janko Jesenský (1874 – 1945) or in Timrava’s (1867 – 1951)
muted polemics on the national mentality and the position of
women in society. Unfortunately, a convulsion of talent forced
the promising early works of Gejza Vámoš (1901 – 1956)
to veer from the river’s course, even in his most passionate
book, The Broken Branch (Odlomená haluz, 1934). However, it
suddenly surfaced again in Ján Bodenek’s (1911 – 1985) angry
memoir The Days of the Wolves (Z vlčích dní, 1947) as well as in
the relentlessly sarcastic tragicomedy A Play Without Love (Hra
bez lásky, 1946) by Štefan Králik (1939 – 1983), written before
it became suppressed again in his later works. And it is most
certainly dotted around the books by the solitary doubting
troublemaker Alfonz Bednár (1914 – 1989).
This is not to say that Slovak literature did not produce
exceptionally talented writers whose original vision and goals
were out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, apart from the eternal
outsider Rudolf Sloboda (1938 – 1995), who stubbornly
followed his own path, most of them allowed themselves to
be enticed back into the mainstream of regulated communist
literature, often not so much by direct brute force as by the
prospect of gain.
A lone exception was Dominik Tatarka (1913 – 1989),
the sole righteous man and moral authority in dark times,
a writer who resisted the regime’s stifling power, ultimately
becoming a martyr to its increasing brutality. He was a true
Old Testament prophet and visionary, a personality whose
every word and every gesture, as adept at cultivating a garden
as at striving towards castles in the air, exerted a fascination.
He would have been equally at home in the Negev desert or as
a hermit sage in the hills of Slovakia. However, his words were
not up to carrying the burden of his thoughts and his writing
fell short of the flights of fancy direct contact with listeners
induced in him, his words going round in circles when they
should have given way to a more eloquent silence. This
applies first and foremost to his searing satire of Stalinism,
The Demon of Consent (Démon súhlasu, 1956), a book that was
a breakthrough in Slovak thinking. The critic is faced with a
difficult choice in determining the scholastic dispute between
form and content, realizing at the same time that it is only in
their harmonic union that a literary work can truly take full
flight.
No further significant breakthrough occurred until the
arrival of a new generation that had not been sullied by the
mud splashing from the wheels of history. It was a generation
SLOVAKLITERARYREVIEW | REVUEDERSLOWAKISCHENLITERATUR
Kornel Földvári
unaffected by the painful somersaults of fate and, though
perhaps more naive for lacking this experience, it looked to
the future with more confidence.
In 1959 the student duo of Milan Lasica (1940) and Július
Satinský (1941 –2002) illuminated our literary firmament
like a meteorite arriving from another galaxy. From the very
beginning their dialogues sparkled with paradox, reaching
the darkest recesses of the human psyche and society. They
created a type of authorial theatre that appealed to people
from all walks of life. They only ever played themselves,
observing the world, art or history in an entirely non-actor-like
manner, commenting on their discoveries with the bravura
of irony, playing with words and stretching them to the
point of total nonsense. They were not interested in topical
political satire. Rather, they offered a smiling philosophical
commentary on the human condition and modern society,
thereby debunking – without the need to resort to topical
allusions – our everyday reality as well as the ordinary people
as perpetrators of tradition and fellow creators of the modern
world, exposing its prejudice and misdemeanours as well as its
concerns and problems.
Their friend and colleague Tomáš Janovic (1937) is on a
similar wavelength. He is a contemplative poet, renowned
author of children’s books, lyricist (including the lyrics for
Lasica and Satinský’s first plays) but, above all, living proof
that real humour cannot be separated from poetry. He has been
involved in a perennial struggle for maximum effectiveness
achieved through minimum means. While in his earlier
work he sought to capture the absurdity of life in poetical
nonsense metaphors, recently he has created an original new
genre of “sad jokes”, which might be characterised as laconic
definitions with an explosive content. Smiling sadly, without
prejudice, he delves mercilessly beneath the surface of malice
and narrow-mindedness, seeking to define the man of the
present. The charmed reader starts by admiring his brilliant
wit, discovering only gradually that it leaves a bitter aftertaste.
A witty ironicist and unsurpassed trickster, Pavel Vilikovský
(1941) has experimented tirelessly not only with the form
of fiction but also with the psyche of the modern man. His
books are a constant linguistic adventure. Words in his hands
turn into explosives. Vilikovský the magician uses words to
undermine conventions both in life and in fossilised literary
patterns. A case in point is his brilliant novella Forever Green
Is... (A večne je zelený, 1989), a firework of parodic cheekiness
and sacrilegious polemic with the “eternal values” of our
consciousness. As we glance into his distorting mirror, enjoying
the classy entertainment, a sudden flash of recognition forces
us to question most of our rock-solid “certainties”.
There have not been many writers in whom the way of
thinking and lifestyle was in closer harmony with their work as
in Vlado Bednár (1941 – 1984). His ruffian’s mask concealed
a lyrical vision and a never admitted nostalgia. His adult and
children’s fiction is often constructed as a collage or parody of
excerpts of pulp novels, old textbooks and manuals. However,
its dominant feature is an exaggerated play with topsy-turvy
values and a provocative, nonsensical “logic”. This method,
especially when applied to his short stories reminiscent of
old American crazy comedies, might be tentatively labelled as
“shock aesthetics”.
June 2009
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Kornel Földvári
Dušan Dušek (1946), the quiet initiator of a sunny and
non-aggressive world, has never accepted the rough reality
of our lives. He sought its antithesis and a compassionate
refuge in some point in the past, in dreaming of a time when
Grandmother and Grandfather were still young and it was
quite normal for people to live in harmony with each other and
with nature. It is in this landscape that the author keeps on
searching for his own childhood, memories and stories from
his grandparents’ youth. Their harmony and their painfully
gathered experience transform his dream of the past into a
message for the future.
In his passionate polemics with illusions, Dušan
Mitana (1946) exposed the relative nature of our ideas
and intentions, emphasising human loneliness and the
impossibility of communication in modern society. Even
from the most “scandalous” stories in his cult debut Dog
Days (Psie dni, 1971), with their provocatively irrational
motives and explicit eroticism, there emanated a longing
and bitter resignation. With each book, the tragic sense
of being misunderstood and powerless and his attempts
at rebellion became more pronounced, culminating in the
cheekily flippant irony of the story collection The Slovak
Poker. Naked Stories (Slovenský poker. Holé príbehy, 1993).
In his later work he has abandoned this key principle,
shifting into a metaphysical vagueness.
This strong middle generation of authors (which includes
the robust story-teller Pavel Hrúz (1941 – 2008) as well as the
aristocratic essay writer and rebel Ivan Kadlečík (1938) has made
a significant contribution to shaping the further development
of Slovak literature. Its sceptically frowning world is only a step
KORNEL FÖLDVÁRI – born at the
wrong time (1932) and into the wrong
family; from his pubertal beginnings he
developed a clever system of pseudonyms.
According to the magazine RAK he is „the
most popular unknown author“. Under
one plausible-sounding name he published
the collection of humorous tales Untypical
Events (Netypické príbehy, 1963), which
was awarded the Haškova Lipnica Prize;
under another, after a gap of many years,
he issued a small monograph on Dušan
Polakovič (1987); and in 1999 he made
his debut under his own name with a book
On Conciseness (O stručnosti). In 2003
he finally produced the long-awaited
book of humorous tales Stories from
Naphthalene, subtitled Humorous Tales
1963–1977 (Príbehy z naftalínu, podtitul
Humoresky 1963 – 1977), making available
his prose pieces from old, yellowed
manuscripts, plus a number of those in
Untypical Events. His predilections include
producing afterwords – beginning with
Bret Harte and continuing with Karl May,
Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler (but
also Mark Twain, Michail Zoschenko,
Volume 14, Number 2
away from the ironic tricksters of the “Krowiak generation”, as
I would tentatively label them after their spectacular collective
spy parody Roger Krowiak (which first appeared in instalments
in the journal Kultúrny život in 1992 – 1993 and then in book
form in 2002). The “Krowiaks” made a decisive break with the
deadly seriousness of Slovak literature, claiming the right to be
playful. Typical of this generation are the Krowiaks’ spiritual
parents Peter Pišťanek (1961) and Dušan Taragel (1961) as
well as Viliam Klimáček (1958), Igor Otčenáš (1956), Rado
Olos (1970) and Peter Uličný (1960). Other authors, close in
their views and poetics, include Daniela Kapitáňová (1956),
Balla (1967), Karol D. Horváth (1961), Oliver Bakoš (1953),
Peter Krištúfek (1973), Tomáš Horváth (1971), Pavol Rankov
(1964), Silvester Lavrík (1964), Vlado Janček (1974), Marek
Vadas (1971), Michal Hvorecký (1976), Márius Kopcsay
(1968), as well as some younger writers such as Jakub Nvota
(1977) and Kamil Žiška (1978) but also some who are slightly
older but close in their outlook, such as Václav Pankovčín
(1968 – 1999) and Jana Juráňová (1957), to name but a few.
Let us hope that this finally augurs well for Slovak
literature and that this current in it will never again be driven
underground. For irony and self-deprecation are the only
weapons intellect has with which to defend itself. Being able not
to take oneself too seriously, to laugh at one’s own problems
and difficulties, at inferiority complexes and prejudice, and
even at one’s own suffering, is key to the health of individuals
as well as to a healthy society. And we have a lot to catch up
with in terms of this kind of treatment.
Translated by Julia Sherwood
Photo © Peter Procházka
Karl Čapek, and Lasica / Satinský) – not
to mention translations, especially from
German (Zweig, Werfel, Enzensberger)
and many magazine contributions. Prior
to all that, however, they managed to expel
him (under his own name, alas) from
university and, pending his conscription
into one of the pits in the Kladno coalfield,
he „united with the working class“ in the
Prema firm in Stará Turá. After his return
to civilian life, for thirteen years he was
editor of Kultúrny život and Mladá tvorba
literary magazines. Following the arrival
of the fraternal tanks, he was director for
a year and a bit (thanks to Milan Lasica‘s
lobbying) of the theatre Divadlo na korze.
He weathered the following twenty years
of normalisation without opportunities
to write or translate, making a living as
a business reporter, finally to surface as
a grumpy old deputy minister of culture. He
published Stories from Naphtalene (2003)
and World for Two (Svet pre dvoch), about
Lasica and Satinský (2004); he compiled
the anthologies of Slovak prose Slovak
Reader – 14 Hot and Spicy (Slovenská
čítanka – 14 ostrých, 2005) and Five-andTwenty, subtitled A Book about Slovak
Caricature (Päťadvadsať s podtitulom
Kniha o slovenskej karikatúre). For his latest
book, the essay collection On Caricature
(O karikatúre, 2006), he received the
most prestigious Slovak literary award, the
Dominik Tatarka Prize. His latest book: On
the Detective Story (O detektívke) is due to
be issued shortly.
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Milan Lasica
Milan Lasica
MILAN LASICA (1940)
Photo © Jozef Uhliarik
HUMOUR FOR ME IS THE
WAY I EXPRESS MYSELF
Actor, humorist, playwright, director,
lyric writer, author of feuilletons, singer
and moderator. While still studying
dramaturgy, he made his début with
Július Satinský in the Bratislavan Tatra
Revue where they demonstrated their
authorial dialogues. These dialogues
were later published in book format
as Lasica, Satinský and You (Lasica,
Satinský a vy, 1970) and Three Plays (Tri
hry, 1988). He performed in operettas
for Bratislava’s New Stage Theatre for
a long period before also beginning his
theatre career there. In 1982, he became
the artistic director of Studio “S” (now
known as Studio L+S), where he still
works today. In his dramatic works,
he looked to the model of the Czech
comedians, Voskovec and Werich.
The humour of Lasic and Satinský
deconstructs petty situations in life and
transfers them into the realm of the
absurd, allowing them to achieve a highly
characteristic approach to language.
However, the absurd aspect of their
dialogues is not meant to signal an escape
from reality, but instead as an emphasis
and warning on the emptiness of
language and the danger of conventional
thinking. Their plays also contain an
element of scepticism concerning Slovak
mentality, for example, Our Friend René
(Náš priateľ René, 1986) or the political
scene in Soirée (1968). Milan Lasica’s
own work as an author primarily features
song texts, such as in the collections
There Were Eleven of Us (Bolo nás
jedenásť, 1985), Songs on Nothing
(Piesne o ničom, 1989) and Songs and
Other Texts (Piesne a iné texty, 2003),
as well as feuilletons. Lasica gained the
Dominik Tartarka prize for the collection
of his feuilletons Full-stop (Bodka,
2007) published in the journal Týždeň
(The Week).
H
umour for me is the way I express myself. I’d go so far as to call it a mode
of existence if that didn’t sound so theoretical. Werich said that theorising
about humour, it’s as if you were trying to find out why there’s life in a hare:
so you catch the hare, you cut him up for autopsy, and maybe you see all
sorts of things, his guts for example, but the hare is dead. It’s a bit like that when you
theorise about humour. Even the very word seminar (on November 24, 1988 Milan Lasica
was a guest at a seminar organised by the Young Authors’ Circle in the Slovak Writers’
Union. Ed.) doesn’t promise any great merriment. A seminary used to be a place where
priests-to-be were locked up to prepare themselves for their future profession. It was a
re-education process, directing them to a certain uniform mode of thinking, and in that
situation humour doesn’t belong, it has no business. But if yet, in spite of all, it happens
to come into existence, then it’s only as a by-product, as a certain kind of defence against
total befuddlement, I beg your pardon, I meant to say direction.
Connected with all this I would recommend you to read, let’s say, the Bible, where
among other things you’ll find plenty of humour. For example, that passage where God
put Abraham to the test, to see whether he was obedient, and commanded him to sacrifice
Isaac, and Abraham was so disciplined that he would have killed his own son if God hadn’t
told him at the last moment that he wasn’t really serious about it, he was only testing. Of
course, from Abraham’s point of view it was no joke and from Isaac’s point of view it was
outright tragedy. From this we may conclude that humour is a relative notion. Maybe God
had a good laugh at the incident, but Abraham and Isaac, although they were relieved,
didn’t find it funny at all – they knew that at any time this could be repeated. That God, if he
felt inclined, could again demand something like this, or some other proof of obedience.
So they lived in fear to their dying day – and the Bible tells us that they lived a remarkably
long time. But to live so long and to just be scared all the time, that’s impossible. Fear has
to be counterbalanced by something else, if a person is not to go crazy from pure fright.
And somewhere here, in this fundamental situation, we must seek the roots of genuine
humour, which is how the defenceless defend themselves against their cheerless fate.
Translated by John Minahane
From Piesne a iné texty, Vydavateľstvo Q111, 2003
SOME GOOD ADVICE FOR CRITICS
Do not maintain personal contact with us. It weakens critical thinking.
Come to terms with the fact that we can’t stand you. Globally or individually.
Don’t believe us if we say that criticism devoted to us helps us in our work.
Don’t write under pseudonyms. That won’t do you any good.
Don’t send us greetings from abroad.
Keep your phone numbers to yourselves.
Insult us in standard literary language.
Try also to write about what you like. That’s more difficult.
Do not make notes during the performance. We get irritated.
Don’t expect us to praise you to the heights. That is what we expect from you.
Grit your teeth and applaud after the performance. We can see you.
Write about what you saw and not about what you would have liked to see.
Be better educated than we are. That shouldn’t be much of a problem.
Don’t advertise the fact that you’re better educated than we are. We can work that
out for ourselves.
Like us. In future we’ll be better.
From Piesne a iné texty, Q111, 2003
June 2009
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Milan Lasica | Július Satinský
Briefly about Humour with Milan Lasica
• Mr Lasica, you’re the comic par
excellence, and in this issue of the Slovak
Literary Review, devoted to humour,
our interview could not possibly be with
anyone else. So then, the first question is:
What kind of humour do you like best?
− The intelligent kind. But that’s
precisely the problem. What everyone
thinks is intelligent humour is what he
himself finds funny.
• Of the professions that you’re involved
in − dramatist, poet, actor, singer, writer
of lyrics, director, presenter, and maybe
others too − which gives you the most
satisfaction and enjoyment? Which one
has first place for you?
− I’m asked this question regularly and
my regular answer to it is: what I enjoy
most is whatever I’m doing right now.
• What kind of humour is Slovak humour,
in your opinion? Is it distinguished in
some way, say, from Czech humour, or the
humour of other nations?
− To my mind, there’s no such thing as
national humour. There’s only humour
that’s good. And the distinction is just
between the good and bad.
• You’re a prominent writer of lyrics.
How do you find the song texts of your
younger colleagues?
− I don’t follow them much – I only
listen to radio in the car and I don’t
drive very often. I like Tásler and his
lyrics. They’re written by... I can’t
remember who... but they’re very good.
• You studied theatre dramaturgy. Was
it hard to persuade you to step on to the
stage as an actor?
− No. I’d been longing for that ages
before I began to study dramaturgy, I
was only waiting for the opportunity.
• You act in plays by other authors,
not only your own. Some of your plays
have been put on in other settings. What
have you felt about the performances of
your actor colleagues in roles that you’ve
played yourself?
− I was delighted when I saw our plays
put on in theatres in Trnava, Skopje or
Varaždín.
• Mr Satinský categorised women
according to age as blueberries, jellyfish
and stale scrambled eggs. Do you have
your own categorisation of women?
− After that one it wouldn’t make any
sense to attempt another.
• Thank you for the interview.
Eva Melichárková and Zita Ročkárová
Július Satinský
A LETTER
FROM A TOTALLY DEAF LOVER OF FORESTS AND
MEADOWS NEAR VIENNA, LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN,
TO JÚLIUS, WITH PERFECT HEARING, A LOVER OF
FORESTS AND MEADOWS NEAR BRATISLAVA
Lieber Július,
I
spent the last fifteen years of my life in your place – in
the World – in absolute silence. Deafness, though it is
not a terminal disease, is unbecoming of man! When
you lose your sight, your smell, touch, taste, everyone
feels sorry for you, behaves in a solicitous and attentive
manner and even with respect. However, when a person
who is deaf or hard of hearing comes to a gathering, the
people immediately start to nudge each other, make faces,
and the most abominable of them will cheerily declare
really loud, so even a deaf person could hear it: “Look,
the man is as deaf as a post!” And they are all in such a
jolly mood rather than in a sad one. I never made a great
fuss about my deafness, even though it started affecting
me in 1798 (I’d only just turned 28) and in 1812, I was no
longer able to hear my seventh symphony in A major and
during the premiere of the eighth symphony in F major I
also heard bugger all. I, LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN – can
Volume 14, Number 2
hear nothing at all since then. In my case, silence was not
healing. I came to terms with this a long time ago. Nature
is marvellous. When you lose your taste, in comes the taste
imagination, the taste associations, an even – as FREUD
used to say – taste auto-suggestion. With hearing, it is the
same. You would never believe what a deaf person can hear
in his imagination. Just ask BEDRICH SMETANA. He’s
one of us also. By the way, I have learned here – in the
Other World – how to understand speech by lip-reading. It
was difficult, because here, in the Centre of the Immortal
Authors of the Universe, everybody talks about his own
thing and we have some of the most incoherent geniuses of
all times. Take DOSTOEVSKY or JAMES JOYCE: they can’t
even articulate properly. I understand GOETHE best of
all, but that is probably because he speaks German. These
fellow lodgers of mine are mostly absorbed in themselves.
That is human. No other creature is as interested in itself
as a human being. Good thing we had love when we were
young and were interested in girls.
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Július Satinský
JÚLIUS SATINSKÝ (1941 – 2002)
Actor, humorist, playwright, author
of feuilletons and children’s literature.
Working alongside Milan Lasica, Július
Satinský formed a writing partnership
for more than forty years and founded
the L+S Theater. Their cooperation gave
rise to their collected words published
under the titles, L+S – 1 (1996) and L+S
– 2 (1998). The duo also joined forces
with Miroslav Horníček for the book
Trialogue (Trialóg, 1997). The 1990s
found Satinský starting to dedicate
himself to his own creations as well. For
many years, he published feuilletons
in various printed periodicals and on
the radio. Several of these were also
published in book format, such as I’m
Going to Have a Hemorrhage (Šľak
ma ide trafiť, 1997), Damn It (Tristo
hrmených, 1999), Blueberryishness
1 and 2 (Čučoriedkareň 1 a 2). He
also devoted himself to works for
children, e.g. Fairytales of Uncle
Sausage (Rozprávky uja Klobásu,
1997) and memoirs, such as The
Boys from Danube Street (Chlapci
z Dunajskej ulice, 2002), Half a
Century with Bratislava (Polstoročie
s Bratislavou, 2002). His retrospective
books were published posthumously
as I’m Temporarily Dead, Call Later
(Momentálne som mŕtvy, zavolajte
neskôr, 2003), The Light Blue World
of Július Satinský (Bledomodrý svet
Júliusa Satinského, 2004) and Letters
from the Other World (Listy z Onoho
sveta, 2007). The writer Kornel
Földvári characterised his impact
on the Slovak theatrical stage in the
following manner: “Július Satinský is
a born storyteller, an epic poet of vast
proportions; throughout the forty years
of the legendary L+S duo’s existence,
he was the ideal counterpart to the
aphoristic Lasica and his economical,
lightning-fast commentaries…“
Once I got sick, I looked up the Viennese doctor Malfatti. Doctors are usually
surrounded by nurses, or religious sisters. But this man had two sisters, both his
own! Teresa was fifteen and her sister Anna Malfatti was a bit older. The older
one was considered the most beautiful chick in Vienna. I liked Teresa and hoped
I could be sick for a long time. Doctor Malfatti cured me so ridiculously quickly
that I did not enjoy those “sisters.” Fortunately, fate gifted me – by coincidence
– with another pair of sisters, Teresa and Josephine von Brunswick. The younger
one was “quasi una fantasia.” Julius, you have to believe me, a connoisseur in
retirement. I loved her with a cruel passion. I called her in my letters “Mein
Engel,” “Mein Alles,” or “Mein Ich.” Apparently Teresa survived me by many years
and died in Brno in 1858 as an honest woman in a Damenstift. The girls inspired
many of my compositions – that is well known. And it is also well known that
they pretended “not to hear” my marriage proposals. Maybe that was why my
ears were offended and stopped working. But when now, in the Other World,
I remember the conditions in Europe after Napoleon’s defeat and the restoration
of the old regimes, when I remember what idiocies were then being bandied
about, I am actually happy that I did not have to listen to them.
I felt best deep in the woods around Vienna. I used to go for long, daylong walks in any weather. I would go out during a rainstorm, in bad weather,
through dark crevices, bright meadows, I hugged ancient trees, pushed through
thick growth. A completely deaf, 57-year old, in light clothing (I couldn’t stand
heavy fabric), I overdid it a bit before the arrival of spring 1827. After a daylong hike, wet through to the bone, I stopped a dairy wagon on a field road
and it gave me a ride to a nearby village. They let me sleep over in a local pub,
but the room was unheated and I spent the whole night trembling in fever,
I could not sleep and so, in my mind, I listened to the most dramatic finales of
my symphonies. When an ordinary man can’t sleep, he looks at the ceiling and
thinks. But when a genius composer, even one deaf as a post, cannot sleep, he
hears tympani, strings, woods, basses, in a word, everything that he composed,
but in fortissimo. In addition, I was thirsty and I kept drinking ice-cold water
all night long. Well, after this I only lived for three months. I was aching all
over and I could not hear a thing. On March 25, the priest came to give me
extreme unction. Then I wrote my last will and told my friends sitting around
the deathbed in Italian: “Plaudite amici, commedia est finita!” Or was it in Latin?
I can’t remember. After the speech I began to moan with so much pain and with
so much feeling that even those few friends left me and I died quite alone. That
afternoon, they say, a powerful storm hit Vienna. It was March 26, 1827. While
Grillparzer spoke at my funeral, my brother Johann ransacked my apartment
on Schottengasse 1, grabbed the securities and stocks and a few days later sold
my manuscripts at an auction. The whole score of the fifth symphony went for
five Gulden and fetched seven and the score of the piano concerto in E flat
major sold for three Gulden and 45 Kreuzer, the fragment of Egmont for 50
Kreuzer...
Is your world still so petty? I’m wondering if Vienna really deserved HAYDN,
MOZART, SCHUBERT... But I get satisfaction from the fact that people around the
world are listening to us and the music is alive and healing like mineral springs and
prickly like the human conscience. I’ve heard that my symphonies... well, heard –
I couldn’t, since I’m deaf... that my symphonies are played to the cows to make them
give more milk.
It bothers me a bit that the last morning – as you said to Tchaikovsky – you were
listening to the fifth symphony of GUSTAV MAHLER, and not mine. Everyone here
speaks about that genius Mahler. I haven’t seen him here and I can’t listen to his
music, since I’m deaf. Try to understand my situation! When you live on Earth, it
might be an advantage to be deaf, but here I would like to get to know something
by listening to it...
Tantus quantus lumpus
van Beethoven
P.S.: That’s how I used to sign my name when I was young, writing to my close
friends and sisters.
June 2009
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| 7
Július Satinský
I AM OVERWHELMED
I
f I had unlimited power, I know what I would do! Today,
most people are troubled by their sudden wealth. Not
everyone has become suddenly rich, but that golden
sword of Damocles is hanging practically over everyone.
The revolution is over and one can go into business now. The
other day I saw a bunch of rich people. They looked greasy,
hung-over, surrounded by easy women, gold chains hanging
around their necks, some of them were sporting ear rings –
a few of them were facing bankruptcy, others were just after
one... One could see that they were not ready for their sudden
wealth. And who would get them ready? Life itself has thrust
them into their wealth – in a rough sort of way! They do what
they can – they would like to be gentle, distinguished-looking,
intelligent – but one has to be trained for something like
that! One has to acquire noble manners. But how was one to
acquire noble manners when our enemies were always keeping
us down? I will spell out the cruel truth: before the revolution
– as far as the eye could see – there was nothing but poverty
and vulgarity. Now, when democracy allows us to freely
orientate ourselves and we can freely find the asshole in which
we can stick ourselves with joyful greed – there is a surfeit
of suddenly wealthy individuals that lack noble manners. I
know a way to prepare the poor for the sudden acquisition
of wealth. (What a pity I don’t know how to suddenly acquire
power! One obviously needs a lot of money to do that. The
one who has money determines the political development!
That is what Comrade Lenin used to say.) If I suddenly get
rich – the devil never rests! – I’ll buy myself a country. I’ll buy
it together with the school system and will immediately order
a school reform. With a collective of rich people, I’ll prepare
a new teaching programme. This would be used for the night
school for suddenly wealthy adults. The main course: wealth
science. A person has to get used to operating with big sums
of money right from childhood. Then, sudden wealth will
not be a problem for one. Now there are many cases when
a rich person wants to buy an aeroplane (just a small one,
for six passengers), but he is shy, paces around a store with
aeroplanes and has no idea how to go about it. The school in
my own country would prepare the student for behaviour in
the higher priced market. In the stores selling pipe organs,
radar, and diamonds they would feel like fish in water. It will
be important to teach the children of the suddenly wealthy
families (but also their parents in the night schools) how to
deal properly with the poor. It would be most helpful if the
poor people died out in my country. It is easy to theorise about
it. However, the poor have it tough. In every country one finds
primitive people who prefer justice, honesty, and truth. These
are the people who did not get the principle of democracy:
to join the right kind of people and not to allow anyone to
remove them from this group. We will have to behave kindly
and properly to these poor people. If, by any chance, the
poor did not want to remain poor, they would be paid well to
stay poor. And the rich would spend entire days sponsoring
them. But the suddenly wealthy will also have to learn how to
sponsor! Just take a look around how difficult it is to find a
Volume 14, Number 2
sponsor. The rich refuse, the suddenly rich hide their wealth
in the banks and we, who need to be sponsored by someone,
are left high and dry!
In the country I would own, the official ideology (for there
has to be one, no matter what!), to be precise would be to
praise greed. I have no idea why our forefathers tried to keep
our greediness so quiet. There is nothing embarrassing about
it! The more greedy I am, the more wealthy is my country. If
the Americans lacked greed, they would not have so many
stars on their flag! I think that greed is a useful human
characteristic and it has to be cultivated and developed.
We have to constantly bear it in mind that ,in the event of
sudden wealth, only the greediest will be able to keep their
property. And if everyone makes an effort to be greedier
than his neighbour, we will acquire with our greed the entire
property of the country and then we can stop praising greed.
There will be nothing to be greedy about any more. I don’t
know about you, but I am literally overwhelmed by my ideas
about the country that would belong to me. My ideas are so
vivid and I have planned everything down to the smallest detail
that all I need is to become suddenly rich. Suddenly means
unexpectedly. Unexpected wealth has its iron rule: you cannot
wait for it. And so I am far from expecting to be wealthy.
If I do expect anything – then it’s only your own feeling
of being overwhelmed by my ideas. But knowing you, you
were expecting something else from my article. You read
the title and expected to find... look, I’ll give you a piece of
advice: don’t expect anything from anyone. Only then can you
unexpectedly and suddenly get something! It would be for the
best if we all agreed: one for all and all for nobody.
Translated by Peter Petro
From Listy z Onoho sveta, Ikar, 2007
23/6/09 20:10
8 |
Tomáš Janovic
Tomáš Janovic
TOMÁŠ JANOVIC (1937)
Poet, prose-writer, lyricist, playwright,
translator and one of the most celebrated
Slovak aphorists, the contemporary
of Lasica and Satinský. On completion
of his studies at Comenius University’s
Philosophical Faculty, he worked for the
satirical weekly Roháč (Stag-beetle).
His first poetry collection, Life is a White
Pigeon (Život je biely holub, 1959),
describes his war-time experiences from
childhood. His talent for aphorisms
was already made manifest in this
volume and would continue to develop
fully over his fourteen collections of
aphorisms. These works survey societal
shortcomings (hypocrisy, bureaucracy,
protectionism, nepotism), deal ironically
with the nature of the Slovaks, the
people’s history, as well as private interpersonal relations (between parents
and children and men and women, for
example in the collection Ode on the
Letter “Z” [Óda po Zet]). He also deals
with more serious themes, such as racial
persecution and concentration camps
(He Gained Reason [Dostal rozum],
2001). His emotive response is achieved
by simple ordering of words and the
use of period phraseology, combining
the elements of absurd humour, verse
and prose. Janovic is a master of
alternation – exchanging a single letter
surprisingly alters the meaning of the
word. His creation is characterised by
a warm relationship towards everything
that renders man human and disgust
towards that which distances him
from himself, transforming him into a
spiritless creature. In his texts, Janovic
reacts vividly to contemporary life
based on world events. He is the
author of many radio plays for children
and young people. Janovic received
the Dominik Tatarka prize, the most
prestigious literary award in Slovakia,
in 2005.
BETWEEN
THE WORD
Is it difficult, you ladies dear,
to lie between two chairs here?
With frequent usage
All credibility is
Lost by the word
So goes the heart
Eventually akin to a turd
IF
If only we could fit together our egos
like we do with our Legos!
DEMAND
CAIN AND ABEL
So all men will be brothers at ease?
Help me, please!
The emptier the heart is
the more it demands
additional foreign blood
GODFATHER
LOOK
Even for atheists
– I’m sure of this –
godfathers, in fact, do exist.
Look at the photograph
of your parents
year by year they look
younger
ANGEL
“You’re my angel!” she chatted in a
whisper.
But I acted as if I had no gender.
A THOUGHT
PLATONIC LOVE
A thought should never be
too large
to fit
into your head
You may have to give for this love sage
Nothing more than your whole wage!
PURPOSE
First an erotic.
Then a sclerotic.
An eggshell
is broken from without
for one purpose
and from within for another
MENTALITY
FLAGS
Even if you allow them
to use you to wipe
only the finest porcelain,
you will not acquire the mentality of
porcelain
only the mentality of a rag
Flags change…even those that are
proud…
It’s the flagpoles that remain avowed.
BIOGRAPHY
OPINION
It’s easiest to change your opinion
when you don’t have one.
THE PROBLEM OF THE
MOUNTED POLICE
A policeman can more easily adapt
to a change of uniform
than his horse can.
TORSO
A woman without a head is a torso.
Why? Tell me!
After all, what makes a woman a woman
is still in its place, see!
A COIN
The start
of a football match
is decided by the tossing of a coin
this is the only time
that money
decides something
in a just manner
COMPLICATED PRODUCT
A man is the only
complicated product
during whose production
we can be
absent in spirit
June 2009
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| 9
Tomáš Janovic | Pavel Taussig
WHAT KOHN SAID
For Peter Salner
The Lord didn’t love me
when I was born
it was pouring
when I got married
it was pouring
it even started raining
when they dragged me
into the concentration camp
***
Love is blind and deaf, but it has
completely healthy children.
A man is a man, he hardly changes
therein.
He wants his own car, his own cottage,
his own house and – foreign women!
Where would humanity be if Noah had
embarked in a canoe?
When your wife yawns by your side, she
won’t go to bed with you.
Translated by Clarice Cloutier
Pavel Taussig
DER FALL VOJTECH SLÁČIK
E
s war ein früher Samstagabend im Mai. Die
Pressburger Jugend absolvierte ihre hundert
Frühlingskilometer auf dem Corso. Mein ekelhaftes
Pflichtgefühl erlaubte mir nicht, mich der Menge
anzuschließen oder mich wenigstens vom Gehsteig her am
Liebreiz der Heranwachsenden zu ergötzen, die – offensichtlich
unter Einfluss der destruktiven westlichen Mode – immer
öfter auf die Busenhalter pfiffen. Ich drängte mich durch die
Massen und tat so, als hörte ich nicht die Bemerkungen wie:
„Onkel, Sie haben sich verlaufen, so kommen Sie nicht auf
den Friedhof!“
In der Durchfahrt bei der Universitätsbibliothek spürte ich
Erleichterung. Ich geriet in die Gegend, wo die Zeit nicht in
Jahren, sondern in Jahrhunderten gerechnet wurde. Ich bog
an der gotischen Klarissen-Kirche in die Kapitelgasse ab. In
dieser Oase der Altstadt, die wundersamerweise weder vom
Zahn der Zeit zernagt noch von zwei Weltkriegen oder dem
Bauamt der Stadt Bratislava beschädigt worden war, lauteten
sogar die Straßennahmen traditionell und logisch. Am hölzernen Gartentor eines barocken Bürgerhauses prangte ein
einziges Namensschild: „Dr. Vladimír Turaj, CSc.“ Ich drückte
die Klingeltaste. Nach einer Weile war das Schlurfen von Pantoffeln auf Beton zu hören und das Tor ging auf. Dort stand
der Kandidat der Wissenschaften in seiner vollen Schönheit,
von der er nicht viel hatte. Er war vierzig, wie ich schon vorher
herausgefunden hatte. Mit Genugtuung konstatierte ich, dass
wir trotz meines zehnjährigen Vorsprungs gleich aussahen.
„Bitte?“ fragte er höflich. Ich musste in medias res gehen,
obwohl ich von der duftenden Frühlingsluft eher zu angenehmeren Überlegungen inspiriert wurde. „Ich komme wegen des
Falles Vojtech Sláčik. Ich nehme an, dass Sie darüber informiert sind, was passiert ist.“
Volume 14, Number 2
Turaj nickte, dass er es wusste. Mit einer Geste lud er mich
herein. Während wir durch den Garten mit den originalen
Steinengeln gingen, sagte er professionell mit anteilnehmender Stimme: „Schreckliche Sache. Erschütternd. Selbstverständlich weiß ich das, ich habe darüber in der Presse gelesen.
So ein hervorragender Mensch…“ Dann sprach er sachlich:
„Wissen Sie schon, wie es passiert ist? Haben Sie den Mörder?
Oder sind Sie ihm auf der Spur? Wenn es natürlich kein Dienstgeheimnis ist…“
In den Krimis sagt man gewöhnlich: „Wir stellen hier
die Fragen!“ Ich wollte jedoch keinen arroganten Eindruck
erwecken, daher gestand ich bescheiden: „Das Problem liegt
darin, Herr Turaj, dass ich weder ein noch aus weiß. Ich habe
keine Anhaltspunkte. Leute, die ihn hätten ermorden können,
haben kein Motiv. Und diejenigen, die eventuell ein Motiv
hatten, verfügen über Alibis. Daher habe ich mir gesagt, dass
Sie mich vielleicht beraten könnten. Sie haben Sláčiks Freunde
gekannt und waren für ihn, was Eckermann für Goethe war...“
Ursprünglich hatte ich vor, statt eines Beispiels aus der
deutschen Literatur den einheimischen Masaryk und Čapek zu
nennen, aber dann überlegte ich es mir anders, damit sich der
Kandidat der Wissenschaften im Klaren war, dass ich es nicht
als Beschimpfung meinte.
Er ließ sich von mir ködern. Der Vergleich schmeichelte
ihm, denn er forderte mich auf, ins Arbeitszimmer zu gehen,
in ein Gemach voll alter Bücher auf stilvollen Regalen. Sie
gehörten offenbar zum Inventar – Turajs Welt begann im
Jahre 1948. Eine Sliwowitz-Flasche wurde auf den Tisch gezaubert und der Hausherr fragte mich, ob ich mich nicht, Gott
bewahre, nach den Regeln des berüchtigten Scottland Yard
richte: „Danke, mylady, im Dienst trinke ich nicht!“ Ich räumte
wahrheitsgemäß ein, dass ich keinen Grund hätte, mich den
23/6/09 20:10
10 |
Gewohnheiten der Kriminalisten Ihrer Hoheit zu unterwerfen,
und mit Vergnügen kippte ich das erste Stamperl.
„Das war eine gute Idee, zu mir zu kommen“, sagte der
Gastgeber, nachdem er meinem Beispiel gefolgt war. „Ich
kenne den Meister – also ich habe ihn gekannt – seit mehr
als zwanzig Jahren. Als Hörer der Slowakistik habe ich über
ihn die Diplomarbeit geschrieben und das Glück gehabt, ihn
bei dieser Gelegenheit kennen zu lernen. Er war mir genauso
sympathisch wie seine Poesie. Mit seinem Schaffen habe ich
mich als Assistent an der Fakultät befasst, später als Mitarbeiter der Akademie. Es war offensichtlich eine gegenseitige
Zuneigung, so habe ich mit Béla - also mit Vojtech Sláčik viele wunderschöne Momente verbringen können… Sein tragisches Ableben ist ein unersetzbarer Verlust nicht nur für
die slowakische Dichtung, sondern auch für die ganze sozialistische Kultur!“
Ich hatte den Eindruck, er zitierte die letzten Worte aus
dem Nachruf für die „Pravda“, bei dessen Abfassung ich ihn
offenbar gestört hatte. Ähnliche Texte für jeden, der aus dem
letzten Loch pfeift, haben zwar Redaktionen in den Schubladen parat, aber der sechzigjährige Sláčik war kerngesund
gewesen. Nicht nur sein Herz, sondern auch die Leber waren
in Ordnung. Wäre er vorgestern nicht von einem unbekannten Täter ermordet worden, hätte er es noch geschafft, mindestens zehn Gedichtsammlungen herauszugeben, ganz zu
schweigen von Memoiren und einer Auswahl der Korrespondenz in zwei Bänden.
„Um auf Ihre Fragen zurückzukommen“, unterbrach
ich ihn, „gemäß dem Bericht der Presse wurde der verdiente Künstler Vojtech Sláčik von der Hausmeisterin am 17.
Mai 1977 hinter dem Schreibtisch in seinem Arbeitszimmer
ermordet aufgefunden… Was glauben Sie, Herr Turaj, hatte
Sláčik Feinde?“
Der Künstler dachte nach. „Wer ist schon ohne Feinde“,
sagte er nach einer Weile. „Vor allem, wenn er zu den größten
Dichtern gehört. Er hatte Neider, die sich mit der Tatsache
nicht abfinden konnten, dass sie ihm nicht einmal bis zur
Taille reichten. Dann gab es da Kritiker, denen immer etwas
an seinem Schaffen nicht gepasst hat… Aber diese Gruppe
können Sie aus der Liste der Verdächtigen ruhig streichen.“
„Warum?“ fragte ich naiv.
Die Antwort klang überzeugend: „Dichter und Literaturkritiker sind fähig, den Menschen zu verleumden. Ihn in die
Verzweiflung zu treiben. Aber ermorden, das nicht…“
„In Ordnung“, sagte ich. „Ich habe sie schon gestrichen.
Aber nun sind wir so weit wie zuvor.“ Inzwischen hatten wir
bereits dreimal gegen die Vorschriften von Scottland Yard
verstoßen. Also bat ich den Gastgeber um einen Kaffee. Ich
stand neben ihm, während er den Türkischen machte und
bewunderte einen kleinen Obstgarten mit Gartenlaube vor
dem Küchenfenster. Wie ein Ausschnitt aus einem historischen Film. Es hatte den Anschein, als ob mein Gastgeber
Gedanken lesen konnte, denn er sagte: „Vielleicht kommt
es Ihnen hier bekannt vor. In den 1950er-Jahren wurde hier
der ungarische Film „Sankt Peters Regenschirm“ nach dem
Roman von Mikszáth gedreht. Damals habe ich hier noch
nicht gewohnt. Mir wurde das Haus erst in den 1970er-Jahren zugeteilt, als mir der wissenschaftliche Titel verliehen
wurde…“
Pavel Taussig
Ich wusste ganz genau, dass zu einem wissenschaftlichen
Titel gewöhnlich nur ein Diplom überreicht wird, aber kein
renoviertes barockes Bürgerhaus, und der Wissenschaftler
wusste, dass ich es wusste. Es musste sich um unsterbliche
Verdienste gehandelt haben, aber die waren im Moment
nicht Gegenstand meines Interesses. Ich kehrte also zur
Sache zurück: „Kennen Sie Sláčiks Hausmeisterin, die ihn tot
gefunden hat?“
„Selbstverständlich. Ich habe ja Béla mindestens einmal
in der Woche besucht. Wenn ich es genau sagen soll, war
sie keine Hausmeisterin, sondern die Hauseigentümerin.
In der Hausmeisterwohnung hat sie nur gewohnt. Ihr verstorbener Gatte, Architekt, hat die Villa vor dem Krieg
erbaut. Phantastische Lage, Ausblick über die Donau tief
nach Österreich, ein Märchen. Sie haben sich dort lange
gehalten. Obwohl der Architekt eigentlich ein ehemaliger
Kapitalist war, hatte er bis zum Februar 48 ein eigenes
Büro. Im Aufstand war er aber auch, das Schlitzohr. Erst
als er gestorben war, wollte man, dass seine Witwe auszieht.
Diese schlug aber großen Radau und setzte tatsächlich
durch, dass sie im Haus bleiben konnte, jedoch nur in der
Hausmeisterwohnung im Souterrain. Und die Herrenwohnung wurde dem verdienten Künstler Béla Sláčik zugeteilt.
Ich fürchte, sie war nicht in der Lage, den Vorfall aus Sicht
der Arbeiterklasse zu begreifen, und hat nie aufgehört, im
Maestro einen Eindringling zu sehen.“
Es war rührend zu beobachten, wie er den dialektischen Materialismus in der Praxis umsetzte. Aber ich, der alte Zyniker,
war davon nicht überzeugt.
„Ich bin mir nicht sicher“, sagte ich, „ob dieses Unverständnis für einen Mord gereicht hätte. Sagen Sie mir lieber,
wer den Maestro besuchen kam. Ich meine nicht offiziell, nur
so nebenher. Ohne den Dichter aus der Ruhe zu bringen. Sie
wissen ja: als es geschehen ist, saß er friedlich am Schreibtisch. In Anwesenheit eines Gasts wäre er wohl nicht am Arbeitsplatz sitzen geblieben, glauben Sie nicht?“
Turaj legte die Kaffeetasse an den Mund, obwohl darin
kein einziger Tropfen war. Das ist das ewige Problem von uns
Nichtrauchern, wenn wir Zeit gewinnen wollen, bis wir unsere
nervöse Stimme unter Kontrolle gebracht haben. Dann bellte
er gereizt: „Worauf zielen Sie ab? Wen meinen Sie? Sagen Sie
das direkt!“
Ich war froh, dass ich ihn beruhigen konnte: „Wie war es
zum Beispiel mit seinen Honoraren?“
„Der Briefträger!“ fiel mir Turaj ins Wort. Ich hatte den
Eindruck, dass er erleichtert war. „Ja freilich, der Herr Schulmeister! Man sieht, dass Sie ein Profi sind. Wie konnte ich ihn
vergessen?“
„Wissen Sie, wie sie miteinander auskamen?“ fragte ich.
„Miserabel!“ sagte der Kandidat der Wissenschaften
nachdrücklich. „Und das aus mehreren Gründen. Vor allem:
der Maestro hat seine Altersrente aufgrund seiner Verdienste um die sozialistische Literatur früher bezogen als
durchschnittliche Bürger. Der Briefträger, der mit der Rente
kam, war ein Jahr älter als Béla, aber er musste tagtäglich
bei jedem Wetter mit der schweren Briefträgertasche über
Stock und Stein trotten… Außerdem wurden dem Maestro
Honorare ausbezahlt. Wegen seines Konservativismus
erkannte er Neuigkeiten wie das Bankkonto nicht an und
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
Pavel Taussig
ließ sich alles per Post nach Hause schicken. Also, der Briefträger Schulmeister hatte einen besseren Überblick über
die Einkünfte Sláčiks als die Literaturagentur. Sie können
sich sicher vorstellen, wie es ihn verdross, dass – seiner
Meinung nach – der Herr Schreiber in der Villa am Roten
Kreuz herumlümmelte und mit seinem Gekritzel vielleicht
mehr Geld am Tag verdiente als er, ein tugendhafter Angestellter, im Monat… Ich versuche, es nachzuvollziehen,
verstehen Sie?“
„Ohne Zweifel!“ stimmte ich zu. „Das riecht schon nach
einem Motiv. Aber Sie haben ja gesagt, dass es mehrere Motive
gegeben hat, ihn zu hassen.“
„Das zweite Motiv war, dass Béla keinen mit Trinkgeld
beleidigen wollte. Er hat nicht Ruhe gegeben, bis ihm der
Briefträger den letzten Groschen auf den Tisch gezählt
hatte, obwohl es sich, sagen wir, um einen Betrag von Zwanzigtausend gehandelt hat. Ich befürchte, so ein einfacher
Bürger, wie es der Briefträger Schulmeister bestimmt war,
qualifizierte Sláčik als reinen Geizhals. Dieses Moment
würde ich jedoch als Milderungsumstand anführen… Und
schließlich war da auch ein Sprachproblem. Herr Schulmeister als Alt-Pressburger hat die slowakische Sprache in
beispiellosem Maße geschändet, was der Maestro fast als
persönliche Beleidigung empfand. Er hörte nie auf, den
Briefträger zu korrigieren und nachdrücklich aufzufordern,
die Hochsprache zu kultivieren und endlich anzufangen,
schön, weich, literarisch, wie es sich für einen Mitarbeiter des Postministeriums der Slowakischen Sozialistischen
Republik gehörte, zu sprechen. Schulmeister hat sich in
diesem Zusammenhang mehr als einmal respektlos über
das Slowakische und sogar über Vojtech Sláčik geäußert,
der es mit ihm nur gut gemeint hat…“
„Der Briefträger als Mörder, dass würde mir passen“,
sagte ich nachdenklich. „So einem Armseligen könnte
man zutrauen, dass er in der Wut den Mut verliert ohne zu
bedenken, dass man ihn umgehend schnappen würde. Dumm
daran ist jedoch, dass es Herr Schulmeister nicht war.“
„Wie soll ich das verstehen?“ fragte verwundert der
Kandidat der Wissenschaften.
„Weil doch Sie Sláčik ermordet haben, Herr Turaj!“ sagte
ich absichtlich leger. Ich gebe aber zu, dass mein Herz vor
Genuss pochte.
Der Gastgeber versuchte, den Empörten zu spielen: „Was
erlauben Sie sich? Das ist eine Frechheit!“ Und so weiter
in diesem Sinne. Und als er sah, dass er nichts bewirken
konnte: „Sehen Sie nicht, dass es gegen den Hausverstand
ist? Wo ist da eine Logik? Was für ein Motiv soll ich gehabt
haben? Gerade ich, der den Maestro so heiß geliebt hat,
und der ich mein ganzes Leben lang kein einziges schlechtes Wort über ihn geschrieben habe? Es ist ja genauso, als
ob – Verzeihung – der Bauer seine einzige Kuh, die ihn
ernährt, schlachten würde… Ich soll ihn mit der Krawatte
erwürgt haben – lächerlich!“ In diesem Moment begriff er,
dass er sich versprochen hatte. „Ach, zum Teufel. Ja, ich
weiß, in den Zeitungen wurde die Krawatte nicht erwähnt.
Scheiße, dabei habe ich so auf meine Klappe geachtet! Eins
zu Null für Sie. Gehen wir?“
Ich holte Atem. „Nur die Ruhe, Herr Doktor. Wenn Sie
nichts dagegen haben, schenke ich uns noch ein Stamperl ein.
Volume 14, Number 2
| 11
Dass Sie es waren, war mir schon lange vorher klar, als Sie sich
versprochen haben. Ich habe mich bloß gewundert, dass Sie
es nicht früher getan haben.“
„Nun fällt es Ihnen leicht, sich zu brüsten!“ wandte der
Kandidat der Wissenschaften ein. „Das kann ich Ihnen
glauben, muss ich aber nicht.“
„Sie müssen es nicht“, räumte ich ein. „Aber ich werde es
Ihnen beweisen. Mit etwas Unbescheidenheit können Sie behaupten, dass Sie im Verlauf einer langjährigen mühseligen
Arbeit aus einem bedeutungslosen Dichter einen verdienten
Künstler gebastelt haben, der es nicht weit zu einem Nationalkünstler gehabt hat. Sie waren nicht nur der Interpret seines
Schaffens, sondern haben den Maestro vorsichtig und unfehlbar ohne jeden Firlefanz durch die Stolpersteine der politischen Entwicklung geführt. Es waren keine einfachen Jahre,
vom zwanzigsten Parteitag bis heute. Ich kann es mir vorstellen, wie viel Mühe, Umsicht und Ausdauer es Sie gekostet
hat… Habe ich nicht Recht?“
„Ja freilich!“ stimmte Turaj begeistert zu. „Béla war ein typischer Dorfmensch aus Detva mit einem Dickschädel. Wenn
er sich einmal spreizte, hatte ich genug zu tun, ihn auf dem
richtigen Weg zu halten. Schon unser erster Streit: Chruschtschow war noch nicht mit seiner Rede über Stalin fertig, da
wollte Sláčik schon auf den Hradschin, um Novotný eine herunterhauen und so eine sofortige Rehabilitierung aller zu
Unrecht Verurteilten erreichen. Ein naiver Rebell Jánošík!“
Ähnliche Flausen hatte er jede Menge auf Vorrat, ein totaler
politischer Analphabet! Vor allem in der Zeit der Krise, als es
tatsächlich nicht einfach war, sich im ,Gedränge’ auszukennen
und mehr als ein ehrlicher Genosse schwankte. ,Béla´, sagte
ich ihm beharrlich, ,pass auf dein Mundwerk auf, sonst wird es
dir nicht gut ergehen. Wem wirst du im Knast etwas helfen?´
Mit Müh und Not ließ er es sich sagen. Die Entwicklung der
Ereignisse gab mir Recht und die Republik hat ihre Treuen
auch nicht vergessen…“
Ich begriff, wie Dr. Turaj zum barocken Haus gekommen
war. „Sie haben mit dem Verstorbenen die Krisenzeit ohne
Makel durchschritten, wenn ich mich nicht irre“, sagte ich mit
Bewunderung.
„Das stimmt“, bestätigte der Doktor, „aber fragen Sie
mich nicht, wie nervenaufreibend das war. Was der alte Narr
alles auf seine alten Tage unternehmen, wem er ein Interview
geben wollte, wem drohen und wen verteidigen, daran darf
man heute nicht einmal denken. Und als ich dachte, dass alles
unter Dach und Fach sei, und die Genossen im ZK geschworen haben, dass man ihn, wenn er die Klappe halten wird, spätestens in einem Jahr zum Nationalkünstler ernennen werde,
wurde er verrückt.“
„Wie meinen Sie das? Er wurde geisteskrank?“ fragte ich.
„So war es!“ bestätigte Dr. Turaj und begann hysterisch zu
lachen.
„Es war wie ein Blitz aus heiterem Himmel, als er mir mitteilte, dass er die Charta unterzeichnen werde. Er sei sich
völlig bewusst, was er dadurch verlieren werde, sei jedoch fest
überzeugt, dass er nach so vielen Jahren des feigen Schweigens seinen wahren Gefühlen freien Lauf lassen müsse. Er
wolle der Welt endlich zeigen, dass die slowakischen Schriftsteller nicht weniger demokratisch dächten als ihre tschechischen Kollegen… Das ist, bitte schön, ein wörtliches Zitat, ich
23/6/09 20:10
12 |
Pavel Taussig
Photo © Archiv des Autors
PAVEL TAUSSIG (1933)
Schriftsteller, Redakteur, Publizist, Satiriker, Karikaturist und Humorist. Seit
dem Jahre 1968 lebt er in Deutschland,
wo er mit der ausländischen Exilpresse
und den Rundfunksendern Radio Freies Europa in München und Deutsche
Welle in Köln am Rhein zusammengearbeitet hat. Pavel Taussig ist ein intelligenter und kultivierter Erzähler humoristischer Geschichten. Sein Debüt, die
Erzählsammlung Die einmalige Heilige
(Jedinečná svätá, 1985), war das erste slowakische Buch, das im Verlag
68 Publishers Toronto des Ehepaars
Škvorecký herauskam. Die slowakische
Ausgabe erschien 1992 im Verlag der
Autorengesellschaft LITA mit dem Untertitel Die unrealen Geschichten aus
dem realen Sozialismus. Das Slowakische Fernsehen drehte im Jahr 1993
einen Fernsehfilm nach den Motiven
der titelgebenden Erzählung. Darüber
hinaus ist Pavel Taussig ein doppelter
Künstler mit einem deutlich ausgeprägten bildend-künstlerischen Empfinden.
Seine Liebe sind alte Drucke, ob aus der
Zeitung oder Buchillustrationen. Das,
was durch seine Hand entsteht, ist nicht
im eigentlichen Sinne eine Collage, sondern eine Art Sprechblasen-Collage
(Terminus von Kornel Földvári). Er belebt die ursprüngliche Form der alten
Illustrationen mit klassischen Comicwölkchen oder Blasen, verbunden mit
aktuellen Texten, deren Aussage in einem krassen Widerspruch steht zu dem
idyllischen Bild. Eine kleine Auswahl
seines Schaffens erschien unter der Bezeichnung Dumm, aber oho! (Blbé, ale
na e) im Jahr 1987 in Toronto. 1981 gab
er in Deutschland eine Sammlung von
humoristisch umgetexteten Filmfotografien unter dem Titel Kaputte Sprüche: Kino-Bilder neu vertont heraus.
habe es mir noch am selben Abend notiert… Und er sagte mir das alles nicht, um
mein Urteil darüber zu hören, sondern um mir Zeit zu geben, mich von ihm zu
distanzieren.“
„So viel ich weiß, haben Sie sich nicht distanziert“, bemerkte ich.
„Niemals! Wie hätte ich meinen geliebten Maestro verlassen können, der unter
seinen Zeitgenossen herausragte wie der wilde Poľana-Berg über den Thebener
Kogel. Zu solcher Niedertracht war ich nicht fähig. Ich konnte doch nicht untätig
zuschauen, wie man Vojtech Sláčik wegen einer Unterschrift auf den Müllhaufen
der Geschichte geworfen hätte. Verstehen Sie: Zwanzig schwere Jahre haben wir den
Karren aus dem Schlamm gezogen. Und als wir endlich so weit waren, sollte alles
im Arsch sein? Bloß deshalb, weil irgendein journalistischer Hurensohn, heute zum
Glück ein Arbeiter in der Produktion, den Maestro zum Verrat der sozialistischen
Ideale zwingen wollte? Niemals! Mir wurde bewusst, was ich der Partei und dem
Volk der Werktätigen schuldete… Ich nehme an, dass Sie meinen Gedankengang
verstehen werden.“
„Selbstverständlich verstehe ich Sie“, sagte ich und schenkte wieder ein. Mir
fiel auf, wie sich die Vulgarismen in Turajs Rede mehrten. Entweder hatte er sich
zu Beginn meines Besuches bezwungen, um in mir den Eindruck eines Intellektuellen hervorzurufen, oder er verstellte sich jetzt, um seine Verbundenheit mit
dem Volk, der Quelle aller Macht im Staat, zu dokumentieren. „Sie haben mir die
Wahrheit gesagt, aber nicht die ganze. Es ging Ihnen nicht nur darum, dass der
Maestro sich auf dem Müllhaufen der Geschichte wiederfinden könnte, sondern
vor allem darum, nicht mit ihm dort zu landen. Was wäre sonst von einem Autor
von Monographien wie Vojtech Sláčik – Dichter der sozialistischen Zukünfte, Meister
des Stifts – Portrait des Laureaten des Klement Gottwald Staatspreises Vojtech Sláčik
und Für dich singe ich, mein Volk! – Soziale Motive im Werk des verdienten Künstlers
Vojtech Sláčik zu erwarten? Ohne die 500-seitige Ode Auf den Flügeln der Sehnsucht, des Widerstands und der Hoffnungen - Vojtech Sláčik, Dichter – Kommunist
zu nennen, die gestern in den Regalen der Buchhandlungen Slovenská kniha
erschienen ist…“
„Zwei zu Null für Sie!“ lachte der Wissenschaftler und es klang wie ein Kompliment. „Ich gebe zu, Sie haben mich entwaffnet.“ Dann deutete er mir diskret
an, dass er natürlich mit dem vollen Verständnis der zuständigen Organe rechne,
dass er im Sinne ihrer Linie gehandelt habe, sogar mit ihrem Segen. Ich räumte ein,
dass ich diese Möglichkeit nicht ausschließen konnte. Turaj erholte sich und ging in
einen Konversationston über: „Sie müssen anerkennen, dass mit dieser untypischen
Erscheinung im Grunde genommen nicht zu rechnen war!“
„Meinen Sie die These, dass die Literaturkritiker üblicherweise nicht ihre auserwählten Dichter umbringen?“ fragte ich.
„Nein, nein! Ich meine Sie. Ich habe doch nicht ahnen können, dass sich ein
Mensch mit so fundiertem Wissen im Bereich der jüngsten Literaturkritik unter den
Mitarbeitern der Staatssicherheit findet…“
„Da haben Sie sich tatsächlich nicht geirrt“, entgegnete ich. Ich war fast
glücklich, seine erschütterte Selbstsicherheit etwas stärken zu können. „Haben
Sie mich etwa für einen Beamten gehalten? Nein, überhaupt nicht. Ich bin doch
– wie haben Sie gesagt – ,der journalistische Hurensohn, heute zum Glück ein
Arbeiter in der Produktion´, dem der alte Béla die Charta-Unterschrift versprochen hat…“
Als ich zum Tor ging, war es schon finster. Vor dem Haus leuchtete eine Gaslaterne. Als ich am Fenster von Turajs Arbeitszimmer vorbei ging, durchschnitt die
Abendstille ein scharfes Geräusch. Ich schämte mich, dass ich dem Kandidaten
Unrecht getan hatte: er dürfte ein größerer Ehrenmann gewesen sein, als ich angenommen hatte. Ich blickte ins Zimmer. Der Wissenschaftler lag nicht am Boden und
aus seiner Stirn floss kein rotes Rinnsal.
Dr. Turaj stand fast unversehrt inmitten seines Barockgemaches und schaute auf
die Welt mit dem schaurig-schönen Blick eines Menschen, der gerade in die Hose
gemacht hatte.
Übersetzt von Simon Gruber
Aus der Sammlung Jedinečná svätá, LITA, 1992
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
| 13
Stanislav Štepka
Stanislav Štepka
THE BLACK SHEEP
(Extract)
PART 2
Situation twelve
T
he headmaster is sitting at the table as if in an interrogation room, the teachers are glancing inquiringly at each other,
because they don’t yet know what is going on. A writing desk has appeared in the staff room, at which the caretaker
sits looking important. They all realise that something exceptional has happened.
STANISLAV ŠTEPKA (1944)
Playwright, lyricist, screenwriter, leading
figure in the Radošinské naivné divadlo
(Radošina Naïve Theatre). He is the
exclusive author of over forty plays, all
of them staged at the RND from 1963 to
the present day. As an author and actor,
Štepka was influenced by the activities of
Prague theatres at the end of the fifties and
the beginning of the sixties, particularly
by the Semafor theatre of J. Suchý and
J. Šlitr. He was inspired by a special
genre of literary cabaret, a product
of the big city environment. Štepka’s
innovation combined the characteristic
features of a village amateur theatre
and city intellectual cabaret. Many of the
expressions of Štepka’s characters have
become legendary and entered the
spoken language. In his plays, Štepka
often parodies social conditions, clichés,
ideological phrases (as a result, some
Volume 14, Number 2
gentlemen, written by Mr. Anonymous himself.
FEKETE And just today, on such a special day. What a good
thing there’s nobody here from the district committee. They
might even have believed it was true.
JANA The person who wrote it can’t have been normal. A normal,
respectable person puts his signature under what he writes.
LOVÁSKO It’s not entirely without a signature. There is
a certain - indirect signature: A first-hand observer.
JANA It’s terrible what people we have among us nowadays!
Makes you want to dig a hole deep in the ground to hide from
them.
MILAN And what else is written there?
LOVÁSKO In a nutshell, what our caretaker hinted at.
CARETAKER That our head, Comrade Lovásko, is a hypocrite
and womaniser.
ŠPÁNIK As far as the Trade Union is concerned, I suggest we
LOVÁSKO Colleagues, comrades, I regret that such a pleasant
and important day as our Teachers’ Day has suddenly changed
into something unexpected and, I should say here and now,
dishonourable. A little while ago I opened this letter, which was
addressed to the school, to our school as a whole, and in the letter
there was something particularly rude, malicious and alarming.
CARETAKER That our headmaster is a hypocrite and
womaniser.
LOVÁSKO There was no need to quote, Mr. Kollár, but, very
well, it’s out now. At least we needn’t beat about the bush.
ŠPÁNIK On my own behalf, and on behalf of our Trade
Union committee, I protest most energetically against the
libellous content of the letter and against whoever wrote it.
Oh, and by the way, who wrote it?
LOVÁSKO (shows the staff the letter, whose text is cut
out of newspapers and magazines). Anonymous, ladies and
plays were censored and banned by the
Communist regime). Štepka does not shy
away from the pathos of a moralist, albeit
relativised by his gentle irony. Many of his
plays unmask national myths (particularly
Jánošík) and critically interpret Slovak
history (How We Searched for Ourselves,
How It Was, Erase It and Write It Down).
Stanislav Štepka is one of today‘s most
popular theatre authors and actors,
and the RNT is one of the most popular
theatre ensembles in Slovakia. His most
acclaimed plays include: Jánošík (Jánošík,
1970), Human Flesh (Človečina, 1971),
How I Entered Myself (Ako som vstúpil
do seba, 1981), The Bride Who Was Sold
to Kubo (Nevesta predaná Kubovi, 1984,
co-author J. Suchý), Women’s Ward
(Ženské oddelenie, 1987), Erase it and
Write it Down (Vygumuj a napíš, 1989),
Where Did We Get this From (Kam na
to chodíme, 1991, co-authors M. Lasica
and J. Satinský), Cherishing (Lás-kanie, 1992), Daddy (Tata, 1996), The
Terminus (Konečná stanica, 1997), The
Ten Commandments (Desatoro, 2006),
Seven Deadly Sins (Sedem hlavných
hriechov, 2006), The Creation of the
World (Stvorenie sveta, 2007).
23/6/09 20:10
14 |
Stanislav Štepka
immediately set up a committee to investigate the matter. It
looks as if we’ll be kept busy here for a while yet. It’s a matter
of honour for all of us, don’t you think?
OĽGA I really don’t know whether there’s any need to deal
with it. We know it’s not true and so we ought to rise above it,
don’t you think?
DARINA On behalf of the youngest ones, the whole of our
youth group, as well as on my own behalf, I protest most
energetically, directly, responsibly… something of the kind.
But now, Mr. Kollár, you can simply put on another tape and
we can go on as before.
FEKETE We can’t go on as before! It’s an insult to a person’s
honour. This time it’s happened to our comrade, Doctor
Lovásko, next time it could be any one of us. The anonymous
writer never sleeps, but is always eavesdropping.
OĽGA But you have to expect that if you live among people,
that is, that you are not living only among decent people.
ŠPÁNIK As far as the Trade Union is concerned, we are
definitely on the side of the headmaster. After all, there is a
resolution on that topic, I can’t tell you the number and year
at the moment, but it does exist.
LOVÁSKO Thank you for your moral support and your efforts
to find a positive and constructive solution. Above all, it’s
necessary to bring the matter to a close. Here, between these four
walls. Not everything that happens in a family is pleasant. Every
family has its black sheep. It’s just a question of finding it in the
pen and driving it out from among us. And we shall find it today,
because that black sheep is among us, it’s here, watching us,
smiling, laughing at us, it is observing me, but you, too, at firsthand, with its little black mind and its sleazy anonymous hand.
CARETAKER ‘Ol o’ you’ll now go t’ yer rooms and you’ll
come ‘ere one by one when yer called. I’ve bin trusted wi’ the
job ‘v seein’ the ‘vestigation goes as it should. That means only
those that bin prop’ly called will come ‘ere. But you c’n take
the demijohn and glasses wi’ you, we won’t be ‘vestigating that.
ŠPÁNIK I’d be interested to know what dunderhead gave you
that job.
LOVÁSKO (looks severely at the deputy head).
ŠPÁNIK But I’m not really that interested…
(The teachers leave, Milan takes the demijohn and the women
the glasses.)
Situation thirteen
LOVÁSKO Listen here, Mr. Kollár, you must know about
everything that goes on in this school of ours?
CARETAKER I do. And what I don’t, my folk tells me.
LOVÁSKO And who are your folk?
CARETAKER Look ‘ere, sir, we all ‘av a secrit of some kind.
LOVÁSKO You’ll probably have to tell me, Mr. Kollár.
CARETAKER I ‘av t’ ‘av eyes in the back of me ‘hed.
LOVÁSKO Even where you don’t need to?
CARETAKER Ev’rywhere, you need to ev’rywhere. And what
I see, I remember. And what I can’t remember, I write down.
I’ve got ev’rythin’ written down. Take a look ‘ere, this is my
notebook. F’r example ‘ere, 3rd January. Slovak teacher, Jana,
said: What’s the matter with our trade? Some people ought
to be locked up. Or here, 8th January. Can‘t read that out. I‘s
the one who said it… Or here, 13th January, 10.30 a.m. Teacher
Oľga said: in this country everyone tries to find an allegory
in everything… I didn‘ know what t‘was, but now I does. It’s
a wonder no one has yet criticised the weather forecaster for
saying low pressure is approaching from the west.
LOVÁSKO What do you do with it, Mr. Kollár?
CARETAKER I ‚valuate it – and what‘s necessary. You know,
Comrade ‚eadmaster, everyone should ‚av some useful ‚obby,
shouldn‘t they?
LOVÁSKO No doubt. By the way, is there any reference to
me in your notebook?
CARETAKER Both direct an‘ indirect. First the direct. 12th
Febr‘y. Youth leader Darina comes out of the big teacher‘s
room all red in t‘ face and in answer to my question ‚bout
the bangin‘ goin‘ on in there, says, I quote: The head and I
have just been exchanging experience. Well, I dunno wha‘
you was eshchangin‘, but one thing‘s certain, that during that
eshchange, she didn‘ find time to do up some buttons.
LOVÁSKO You‘re talking about a certain reference which, as I‘m
sure you‘d agree, we can, but we don‘t have to accept. But, very well.
You have a notebook, you have a hobby which, as it seems, is socially
necessary. There is an interesting signature on this anonymous
letter. Just as you said a while ago: A first-hand observer.
CARETAKER You don‘ do me justice, Comrade Lovásko. I‘m
no Cheap Jo. I never sink so low as not to sign my name. When
I report summin‘, I‘s willin‘ to stand by it. And, then, I‘d have
written the ‚ole address and posted it in town, that‘s ‚ow ‚tis
done. And in the text I‘d certainly ‚av expanded on that word
hypocrite, and on womaniser, too. This was from a real amateur.
LOVÁSKO You‘ve … this… for a long time?
CARETAKER I’ve seen seven ‚eadmasters come and go,
you‘re the eighth. Doesn’t that tell you somethin‘?
LOVÁSKO They all had similar faults?
CARETAKER We’ve all got our weak sides.
LOVÁSKO You have to have an inborn inclination for it,
don‘t you think?
CARETAKER Work’s work. The main thing is you should
enjoy it.
LOVÁSKO Who could have written it, do you think? Drawing
on your long years of experience…
CARETAKER That’s difficult, I wasn’t in on this from the
beginning.
LOVÁSKO You could help me with it. Or I you.
CARETAKER Pref‘rably I you, I‘ve more experience with this.
LOVÁSKO We could begin with old Fekete, don’t you think?
CARETAKER Fekete? On Women‘s Day, when he was in the
loos wi‘ the P. E. instructor, he says: (Reads from his notebook.)
Next June I‘m goin‘ to retire and then the whole school system
can kiss my ass.
LOVÁSKO Interesting information, Mr. Kollár.
CARETAKER ‚Specially from the point of view of the
content.
LOVÁSKO Let’s hope we don’t have to pension him off
earlier than he expects.
CARETAKER It’s you who said that – not me. (Goes to fetch
Fekete.)
Translated by Heather Trebatická
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
| 15
Kamil Peteraj
Kamil Peteraj
KAMIL PETERAJ (1945)
Words fall into silence
Silence falls upwards
Up where does it fall?
Heaven – wastebasket of our dreams.
Lovers never forgive each other for the beautiful time they spent together.
What’s the sun writing on my back?
I can’t read it.
The victory of love:
Two vanquished.
Every word has its own past.
But we only discover that years later,
when we too have ours.
Night, by your drawn blind deeper.
Committed to the mercy of the blind middle way,
We give ourselves life sentences day by day.
In sorrow heaven
is often our only ally.
“There’s something I’ll never forgive you. Yourself!”
“Hold on, I’m changing into my birthday suit!”
Whatever it is that we both lack,
together we’ll find it awfully fast...
I quaffed the alcohol of dreams...
The bottle is empty... I live in a dry-out world...
Beautiful is... the secret
smile of God. At.
The fact that. It
worked.
It’s charming
when two drink from one cup.
And terribly sad
when one drinks out of two.
From the collection V slepých uličkách, Ikar, 1999
Volume 14, Number 2
APHORISMS
Poet, song writer, author of children´s
literature. In his debut Orchard of the
Winter Birds (Sad zimných vtákov,
1965), as well as in the next two
collections, Time of the Viola (Čas violy,
1966) and Queen of the Night (Kráľovná
noci, 1968), he primarily followed the
poetics of the dominant Concretists
group (also known as the Sensualists).
The poems in these collections are
characterised by their rich associations
and broad imagination, based on
emotional responses to nature. In the
collection Faust and the Daisies (Faust
a margaréty, 1981), Peteraj’s poetic
style underwent a change. Although
these poems may be perceived as
pure lyrical impressions, some of the
texts manifest expressive attributes
of what is known as the civilisation
lyric. Peteraj addresses the problems
of his contemporaries, problems
of an intimate and social character;
however, via original metaphors he
also touches on universal themes
such as acknowledging the limits
of death. In the collection A Lyrical
Promenade (Lyrické korzo, 1991),
Peteraj is inspired by commonplace
events in human life whose description
he enriches by reflection and telling
observation. His inclination to gnomic
utterance reaches a peak in his books of
aphorisms, Ships in Delirium: Bon Mots
(Lode v delíriu, Bonmottá, 1983) and A
Butterfly from Another Heaven (Motýľ
z iného neba, 1995). An important part
of Peteraj’s creative output is his lyrics
written for popular music. Active in
this sphere since the 1960s (within the
big-beat group Prúdy), he is one of the
originators of the modern Slovak lyric.
23/6/09 20:10
16 |
Kamil Peteraj | Daniela Kapitáňová
Lips pursed for a kiss
gather for a moment
all the wrinkles of love.
At the end of a movie
the hero
leaves
for the infinity of credits.
When you edit your life,
you find out
that it wasn’t really that much yours.
It belonged more to those who accidentally
passed by.
We feel that we somehow remember
images that we have never seen before.
Could it be that our memory
came to this world before us?
when delivering real happiness.
More times than black cats
have I crossed the road by myself.
Camera takes pictures of the present
and will never understand
that it is merely recording the past.
It really does matter
whether it is the audience or the nation who applauds you.
At midnight sharp
there is a brief moment
when yesterday is also tomorrow
at the same time.
From the collection Voňavé tajomstvá, Ikar, 1999
Chimney-sweep with white wings
that’s what one looks like
Daniela Kapitáňová
MURDER IN SLOPNÁ
(Extract)
T
he resolution according to an amateur among the
genius detectives – that person – the Mayor of the
Slopná municipality.
That person unexpectedly spoke:
“Please, I beg you, let me finally say that…” the detectives
turned to that person and then – as if on cue – back to Mr.
Wintermantel. Clearly, none of the detectives remembered
any longer who that person was or why he was there. Mr.
Wintermatel introduced him again:
“The Mayor of Slopná.”
The mayor gazed at the table, scratched behind his ear, shook
his head and sighed, clasping his hands as if he was praying.
“People! I have been trying to tell you ever since the first
moment, but he,” the mayor said pointing accusingly at Mr.
Wintermantel, “would not let me speak. I know, you’re all
important literary and movie characters and it is an honour
that you are all here, but I have to finally tell you…”
Embarrassed, the mayor fell silent and only after a long
while said:
“Vojto Prihnanec woke up.”
The twelve great detectives looked at him with puzzled
expressions. He continued:
“Excuse me, please, excuse me, but you have to know.”
Again he gave Mr. Wintermantel an accusing glance. He
took a deep breath and started explaining:
“Here in Slopná, the unemployment and social benefits
always come on the twentieth. That Saturday was the twentythird, that’s three days. Money was running short and the men
didn’t have any left for drinks.
That’s when Vojto Prihnanec remembered that his brotherin-law owed him 80 crowns. Ludo was the name of this brotherin-law. Last name Prihnanec, Ludo Prihnanec. So Vojto went to
get them. An hour later he came back crying that he surely
must have killed his brother-in-law, because he was lying there
with a knife in his heart. And that he looked weird, that he
didn’t even look like himself. The men thought that he was
drunk as usual, and didn’t pay him any attention. That’s when
Vojto took out the what-do ya-call-it. The shoe horn.’
Mr. Wintermantel just sighed:
“For God’s sake! What shoe horn?”
“This one.” said the mayor and took a gray iron shoe horn
out of his briefcase.
He placed it before him with reverence.
“He said that he took it from the dead body of Ludo
Prihananec, because he had always wanted one like this.
The only thing is that the Ludo Prihananec guy, the brotherin-law died of cirrhosis about a year ago, you see. And
everyone was so shocked, you see, so how would Vojto kill
him now? You know that a local, one of our guys, doesn’t
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
like making rash decisions, so they were thinking what to
do about everything. And Vojto wanted to turn himself in,
that he was a killer and all; they didn’t stop him, I mean if
it made him happy go for it! Only he mistook the way and
instead ended up in the church yard. He’s been sleeping
there since. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you the
whole time, that he has woken up.”
The detectives stood in stunned silence. Mr. Wintermantel was
silent, too. The mayor scratched himself behind his ear again.
“So the guys were at the pub until now deliberating. You know,
Vojto Prihnanec always gets mixed up. Once he went to Poland to
smuggle stuff and instead he ended up in Gabcikovo. And not too
long ago he forgot that he‘s married, and tried to talk cross-eyed
Jula that comes mushroom picking here, into something.”
Mr. Wintermantel squinted his eyes painfully. The mayor
waited obligingly until he opened them again, and only after
that continued:
“So in the end the men took the shoe horn and came to
me. That I am the chairman, that I should decide. I wasn’t at
the pub at that time. I had a sore on my mouth.” he added
apologetically.
Mr. Nero Wolfe raised his index finger:
“Ludo Prihananec was the original owner of the house at
Kincar, into which Mr. Pravda, another author, had moved, as
we were informed by Mr. Wintermantel some time ago.
All the detectives nodded. And then Lieutenant Colombo
turned to the hapless mayor:
“You want to say that it took them all that time for them to
put together the murder of Mr. Pravda and the allegations of
that gentleman…. Prihnanec, that he killed someone?”
“Like I said,” the mayor raised his hands, “a local doesn’t
like to jump the gun.”
Sergeant Makepeace sharply objected:
“But Mr. Prihnanec couldn’t have been sleeping off his
hangover until now!”
The mayor was surprised:
“Why couldn’t he be? It’s only been three weeks!”
The troubled Mr. Wintermantel burst out angrily:
“You are claiming that this Prihanec fellow killed Mr.
Pravda, because in his drunkenness he confused him with his
brother-in-law who’s been dead for the past year?!”
“I am not claiming anything, you see, I am just repeating
what the guys at the pub said. Vojto recalled that he owed him
80 crowns, and left the pub. When he returned, he said he had
surely murdered him, but that he didn’t look like himself. But
I’m saying that he’s woken up, I would summon him, you see..”
“Mon Dieu,” Hercule Poirot exclaimed suddenly, “but why
the shoe horn?”
“That I don’t know,” said the mayor, “I’m guessing a shoe
horn like that comes in handy anytime, wouldn’t you agree?”
Mr. Wintermantel pounded the table with his fist.
“But that is unheard of! In a mystery, the killer cannot be
someone who hasn’t been in the plot since the beginning! What
pub, what brother-in-law, what shoe horn? And who will explain
the ‘secret sign’, the line about consciousness, money, the
character that the drifter saw, the lost writings about saints? Huh?”
The mayor hung his head:
“That I don’t know, you see. Vojto Prihananec will explain
everything himself, although I wouldn’t believe him too much.
Volume 14, Number 2
| 17
Recently he was claiming to have been speaking with an alien that
one day Slovakia will have colonies in Kuwait. Maybe he made
everything up again. Or he mixed it up. Or he was never even
there. Or maybe he found Mr. Pravda murdered already. Or…”
Mr. Wintermantel let out a groan.
Otherwise it was perfectly still.
The mayor of Slopná offered again, confusedly:
“So you don’t want to question Vojto Prihnanec? Or the
men from the pub? They are sober now. The unemployment
money hasn’t been paid out yet.”
Mr. Wintermantel bowed his head and whispered: “Twelve
of the most brilliant detectives of all time, twelve of the most
brilliant resolutions and all of it for nothing. We can start from
the beginning.” He said almost choking back his sorrow.
“So that’s that,” stated Mr. Nero Wolfe and got up.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m leaving.” He whispered to Mr.
Wintermantel: “I have a great recipe for cranberry pie. If
it wasn’t….” He didn’t answer warningly. He walked out,
followed by his assistant, Mr. Goodwin, who managed to grin
at Sergeant Makepeace and salute Major Zeman.
Agents Scully and Mulder slammed shut their laptops
simultaneously, got up at the same time and extended their
hands at the same time to Mr. Wintermantel. With professional
smiles on their faces, they wished him a successful future.
Mr. Sherlock Holmes whispered to Dr. Watson: “I told
you, it’s a peculiar nation!” he went over to the shoe horn
and examined it carefully with a magnifying glass. He even
measured the width with a slide rule. Then he picked up a case
containing a violin from underneath the chair, bowed and left
gracefully, along with his friend Dr. Watson.
Steve Carella, a first class detective, did not say a word. He
didn’t say goodbye to anyone, just left. When he was at the
door he turned around, nodded to the mayor of Slopná and
walked out immersed in his thoughts.
Lieutenant Dempsey walked over to Mr. Wintermantel and
grinned:
“Don’t worry about it. Nobody is perfect.”
Sergeant Makepeace whispered to Dempsey: “Nobody
besides me, of course.” Soon after you could hear the sound
of their departing car.
Mr. Colombo got up indecisively, knocking down a ball of
wool that was sitting on the table in front of Miss Marple and
also dropping an unlit cigar from his pocket. He picked it up,
looked at it for a while as if he didn’t know what it was, then
scratched his forehead, symbolically saluted Mr. Wintermantel
and walked to the door. There he paused and said:
“Before I forget, Mr. Wintermantel, let me know how it all
ends. Mrs. Colombo would surely be interested in knowing.”
After that he finally lit his cigar and walked out.
Miss Marple went over to Mr. Wintermantel and smiled
amiably:
“Dear Mr. Wintermantel, for me it definitely was not wasted
time, believe me. Look!” Miss Marple pulled out a knitted children’s
cap, which she put into a big black bag along with the rest of the
wool and knitting needles, and scurried away with a smile.
Mr. Wintermantel gave a troubled sigh and closed his eyes
again, opening them only after being tapped gently on the
shoulder.
“Whenever you come to France, stop by,” said Commissioner
23/6/09 20:10
18 |
Maigret, “Paris is so overrun with tourists in the summer… it was
very nice here… so quiet… so homey…”
DANIELA KAPITÁŇOVÁ (1956)
Writer, scriptwriter and university lecturer.
She made her début with the novel
Samko Tále: The Book about Cemetery
(Samko Tále: Kniha o cintoríne) in 2000.
The story of our recent past, before and
after 1989, as seen through the eyes of
a mentally impaired man, Samko Tále,
became an instant bestseller, with four reprints in Slovak, and six editions in foreign
languages (Czech, Polish, Swedish,
French, Russian, Arabic). German, English
and Bengali editions are under negotiation.
Her second novel, a rare attempt in the
Photo © Autor’s Archive
Mr. Stefan Derrick and his assistant Harry Klein waited
patiently until Mr. Wintermantel relaxed, and then they shook
his hand. Inspector Derrick said:
“Til we see each other again, Herr Wintermantel. Send us the
final report once you have it so we can add it to the file. Thank you.”
“Thank you, and don’t forget the report so we can add it to
the file,” his assistant Harry Klein repeated.
Comrade Zeman turned to the mayor with a question:
“That Prihnanec guy, that dead Prihnanec guy…. Wasn’t
he the agent with the code name Falcon? I think I remember
something…”
The mayor shook his head in disagreement:
“That certainly can’t be the case, because all of Slopná
would know about that. Once we had this guy that worked in
the cooperative farm with livestock….”
Comrade Major raised his index finger decisively:
“We will find out, don’t you worry!” and left.
Monsieur Poirot picked up the shoe horn and turned to Mr.
Wintermantel:
“Could I keep it as a souvenir? Along with a blowpipe
for poisoned arrows from South American Indians it will
blend into my collection of rarities perfectly.” When Mr.
Wintermantel resignedly nodded his head, Hercule Poirot put
the souvenir into his back pocket, bowed to the four corners of
the earth and gracefully walked away.
Mr. Philip Marlow watched him and grinned: “You pay with
shoe horns here? We use dollars…. But at least I know what the
rate per day is here.” He pulled his hat down over his forehead, put
a piece of gum in his mouth and disappeared with a quiet laugh
The mayor and Mr. Wintermantel were left alone. The
mayor asked worriedly: “For God’s sake, why did everyone
leave? I only told the truth.”
Mr. Wintermantel just waved his hand.
“The truth! These were big -time detectives and you tell them
just the plain truth… Big-time detectives need psychological
plots, thought-out crimes, unusual, breathtaking revelations.
You presented them with a bunch of guys at a pub. Who cares
about that?”
The mayor looked confused, saying:
“Prihnanec and the men are waiting at the pub across the
street. They promised they wouldn’t touch a drink. If all of those
detectives had stayed, the case could easily have been solved.”
“And what for? So they could find out that some drunk…”
Mr Wintermantel just shrugged his shoulders.
“So much effort for nothing!” the mayor sighed.
Mr. Wintermantel looked around the empty room.
“At least that Miss Marple finished knitting her cap,” he
said gloomily. All of a sudden he cried:
“Do you know what you made of me? I am no longer… a
protagonist, all of a sudden I am an antagonist. What am I
going to do?” he sobbed.
The mayor’s voice shook:
“That’s the last thing I wanted to do, believe me, don’t worry
about it. I don’t know what I should… but wait, I have an idea.’
His face lit up. ‘ Not an idea, I have something much better.”
He got up, and shortly returned with a bottle and two
glasses. He poured two drinks.
Mr. Wintermantel toasted resignedly. Then he toasted
a second time. And then a third time. His resignation was
leaving him. He said:
“In any case, they were beautiful solutions, weren’t they?”
“Beautiful,” the mayor agreed, “each more beautiful than the
last. What Mr. Colombo said was great. The thing with the flower.”
“Let’s drink to that!” Mr Wintermantel said clearly more relaxed.
The mayor poured them a drink and said:
“I really like Miss Marple’s solution. That the sign doesn’t
mean anything.”
This time it was Mr. Wintermantel that agreed and added:
“But in any case, hope you don’t mind, Mr. Poirot’s solution
was the most beautiful.”
The mayor cried admiringly:
“It was brilliant. Truly bril-li-ant! And let’s drink to that!”
The clinked their glasses. Then again, and again, and again,
and again.
By the time evening rolled around, they were both smiling
blissfully.
“End… ended… ending… in the end” Mr. Wintermantel
finally managed to correctly say, “it really did make sense to
come here, to Slopná.”
“And let’s drink to that!” the mayor agreed.
And then both gentlemen hugged each other affectionately.
Translated by Viridiana Carleo
From Vražda v Slopnej, Slovart, 2008
detective genre in Slovakia, Let It Stay in
the Family! (Nech to zostane v rodine!)
was published in 2005. It is a witty and
intelligent initiative in an under-frequented
area of Slovak prose writing, with an
intricate plot taking place in the media and
show-business circles. In 2008 a parody
of the detective genre, Murder in Slopná
(Vražda v Slopnej) followed, featuring all
the big detectives such as Philip Marlow,
Hercule Poirot, Rex Stout, Miss Marple,
Stefan Derrick, even Captain Zeman,
trying to solve a mysterious murder in
the village of Slopná, each in their own
special way. Although the extract brings
the solution of the murder, the core of the
book resides in the ways in which each of
the great sleuths deals with the “problem”.
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
| 19
Peter Pišťanek
Peter Pišťanek
REZEPTE AUS DEM FAMILIENARCHIV
oder
ALLES, WAS ICH KANN, BRACHTE MIR OPA BEI
Torte mit
Stammbaum
1924, nach seiner siegreichen Heimkehr mit der tschechoslowakischen Legion aus Russland, lehnte es Opa ab, seine
Militärkarriere im Rahmen der tschechoslowakischen Armee
fortzusetzen und kehrte zu seinem Beruf als Kellner zurück.
Er wurde Barmann in einem Kasino in Piešťany – und abends
kam Fürst Malakov zu ihm, um sich zu betrinken. Er war ein
alter russischer nachrevolutionärer Emigrant, der in Prag
lebte und in Piešťany seine Bandscheiben kurierte. Er sah aus
wie ein russischer Windhund, ein untrügliches Zeichen seiner
Angehörigkeit zum russischen Hochadel: eine hohe ausgemergelte Gestalt, lange Nase, schmales Gesicht, kleiner Kopf,
durchsichtige Ohren und dünne bleiche Hände. So wurde
auch Puschkin gezeichnet.
Fürst Malakov war trotz seines Alters ein schrecklicher,
beinahe übersinnlicher Trinker. Mit ihm zu trinken war weder
Spaß noch angenehmes Abendvergnügen, sondern ein quälendes Erlebnis, ein tiefer Einstieg in das Wesen der menschlichen Psyche, sowohl der eigenen als auch der des Mittrinkers.
Zutaten:
250g Butter oder festes Speisefett (Margarine)
100g Puderzucker
4 Eigelbe
150g fein gemahlene Haselnüsse oder
Mandeln (oder die Mischung von beidem)
100ml ungesüßte Kondensmilch
100ml Rum
2 Päckchen Kinderbiskuitkekse
100ml Schlagsahne
Johannisbeermarmelade
Die Butter mit dem Zucker vermengen,
das Eigelb hinzufügen und alles kräftig
durchkneten. Dann mit den gemahlenen
Haselnüssen, dem Rum und der Kondensmilch gut vermischen. Die Tortenform mit
Alufolie auslegen, diese einfetten und dann
den Boden und die Seiten der Tortenform
mit Biskuitkeksen auslegen. Dann eine
Schicht Creme darauf streichen, darauf
eine weitere Schicht Kekse, die dünn
mit Marmelade bestrichen wird, es folgt
eine Schicht Creme, eine Schicht Biskuit
Kroatisches
Risotto
Meine Vorfahren mütterlicherseits, die Ivans, waren Kroaten.
Sie kamen im 16. Jahrhundert von der Halbinsel Istrien und
wurden im Rahmen irgendeines spätmittelalterlichen Sozialisierungsplans der damals Mächtigen in der Gegend von Bratislava,
Volume 14, Number 2
Wie mit allen Russen. Darum trank er allein. Der Einzige, der
bereit war mitzutrinken (und eigentlich war er wegen seiner
Anstellung auch dazu verpflichtet), war mein Opa. Abgesehen davon, sprach er gut Russisch; hatte er doch als Legionär
mehrere Jahre in Russland verbracht.
In der Familie der Malakovs wird ein klassisches Rezept für
eine großartige Süßspeise überliefert, der Torte Malakov. Auf
das Rezept kann man in jedem Kochbuch stoßen, aber selbstverständlich handelt es sich dabei nicht um das Originalrezept, sondern um ein Imitat, das in verschiedenen Versionen
in der Welt kursiert, seit jemand das Original gekostet hat und
sich aufgrund des Geschmacks entschlossen hat, den Herstellungsprozess zu erschließen.
Das echte Rezept kennen nur die Familienmitglieder der
Malakovs und … der Pišťaneks. In einer Nacht nämlich hat
der betrunkene Fürst aus Dankbarkeit, dass er noch einen
Martell bekam („Aber diesmal wirklich der letzte, Euer Hochwohlgeboren“), das Rezept verraten – das echte Rezept für die
echte Torte Malakov – meinem Opa. Am zweiten Tag kam der
Fürst zu meinem Opa und fragte unauffällig, ob er sich nicht
irgendwie versprochen habe. Opa mimte aber den Dummen
und tat, als ob er nichts verstehe. Seit dieser Zeit machen wir
in unserer Familie immer zu Neujahr diese Torte.
bestrichen mit Marmelade und so weiter..
Zum Schluss eine Schicht Biskuit.
Die Torte in der Form beschweren und
für 24 Stunden in den Kühlschrank oder ein
sehr kühles Zimmer stellen. Am nächsten
Tag mit einer dicken Schicht Schlagsahne
verzieren und servieren.
Wenn auch Kinder die Torte essen sollen,
lieber etwas weniger Rum verwenden. Oder
noch besser: eine Torte für die Kinder und
eine für die Erwachsenen machen. Ohne
Rum fehlt dem Ganzen nämlich etwas.
die als Folge von Krieg und Pest entvölkert war, angesiedelt. Die
Kroaten von Nová Ves sind harte, nicht sehr vertrauensselige
und gefühlvolle Menschen, dafür haben sie einen ausgesprochen schwarzen Humor. Auch deshalb mag ich sie. Ich sage
„sie“ und nicht „wir“, denn die Pišťaneks sind ursprünglich
Pressburger, und ich bin demnach eine 50-prozentige Melange.
Etwa wie ein Mulatte oder ein Mestize. Ich beherrsche leider
kaum ihre Sprache. Mama hat sie mir nicht beigebracht. Auch
wenn ich alles verstehe, kroatisch sprechen kann ich nicht.
23/6/09 20:10
20 |
Zutaten:
500g Kalbsfleisch
2 Löffel Öl
1 Zwiebel
2 Tassen Reis
4 Tassen Rinderbrühe
4 Tomaten
gemahlener Pfeffer
Salz
Curry
scharfen Paprika für den Geschmack
2 Zehen Knoblauch
Peter Pišťanek
Erbsen aus der Dose
2 marinierte Peperoni – nach Belieben
Hartkäse zum Reiben
Butter
Petersilie
Die fein geschnittene Zwiebel mit dem
klein zerschnittenen Fleisch im Öl
anbraten. Den gewaschenen Reis und
den Paprika hinzufügen. Unter ständigem Rühren noch 1–2 Minuten weiterbraten. Mit der Brühe ablöschen. Die
PETER PIŠŤANEK (1960)
Prosa-Autor, dem es zu Beginn der
1990er Jahre mit großem Erfolg gelang,
eine neue Form in der slowakischen belletristischen Literatur durchzusetzen. Er
lebt in Devínska Nová Ves bei Bratislava
und schöpft die Motive seiner Prosa aus
der Umgebung an der Peripherie einer
Großstadt. Mit seinem Romandebüt Rivers of Babylon (1991) rief er sowohl
bei den Lesern als auch bei den Kritikern
ein außergewöhnlich großes Interesse
hervor. Pišťanek beschreibt darin mit
expressiver Sprache das für die slowakische Literatur ungewöhnliche Milieu
der Bratislavaer Halbwelt. Im Hintergrund des Geschehens spielen sich die
revolutionären gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen des Jahres 1989 ab. Sein zweites Buch, Der junge Dônč (Mladý Dônč,
1993) enthält die drei Novellen Der
Debütant, Der junge Dônč und Musik
(Debutant, Mladý Dônč a Muzika). In der
Titelgeschichte beschreibt er die bizarre
und mit schwarzem Humor gezeichnete
Degeneration der Familie Dônč. Die Novelle Musik bietet einen präzisen soziologischen Einblick in das Leben der Normalisierungszeit der 1970er Jahre. Im Stil
der so genannten „abgesunkenen Genres“ gab Pišťanek auch die Fortsetzung
Institutionen vertrauten. Sie hatten zwar Angst, ihr Geld der
Sparkasse zu übergeben, aber sie hatten auch Angst, es zu
Hause zu lassen. Stattdessen hatten sie es in Unterschlüpfen tief im Wald versteckt. Es sah immer so aus, als würden
sie Pilze suchen oder Reisig sammeln, aber in Wahrheit
gingen sie Bares holen. So eine hartnäckige und misstrauische Vorsicht sieht heute lustig aus, aber sie war sicher.
Der einzige Verdruss war, dass man viel zu laufen hatte und
keinen Zinsertrag.
Aber zurück zur Küche. Haben Sie schon mal kroatisches
Risotto gegessen?
Übersetzt von Matthias Barth
Mein kroatischer Opa Matej und meine Oma Justína
wohnten als junges Ehepaar lange im Zentrum von Bratislava, wo Opa (zufällig ebenfalls ein ehemaliger tschechoslowakischer Legionär) als Angestellter arbeitete. Nach Devínska
Nová Ves kehrten sie zurück, als Opa ein Haus im dörflichen
Ortsteil Grb baute, der durch Rudolf Slobodas Drama Armageddon in Grb berühmt wurde. Selbstverständlich waren
meine Großeltern richtige Kroaten, mit allem was dazu
gehört, aber sie machten nicht mehr solche sonderbaren
Sachen wie ihre Landsmänner. Sie hatten ihre Ersparnisse
ordentlich in der örtlichen Sparkasse verwahrt, wohingegen
einige andere Dorfbewohner weder Banken noch anderen
geschälten und geschnittenen Tomaten
dazugeben, mit dem zerdrückten Knoblauch, Salz, Pfeffer, Curry und den
scharfen Paprika würzen. In eine feuerfeste Form geben, abdecken und eine
Stunde im Ofen dünsten. Bevor es fertig
ist, die Erbsen und nach Belieben die fein
geschnittene Peperoni hinzugeben. Noch
einmal kurz dünsten. Vor dem Servieren
den geriebenen Käse darauf verteilen,
mit Butterstücken belegen und mit zerhackter Petersilie bestreuen.
seines Erstlingsromans unter dem Titel
Rivers of Babylon 2 oder Das Dorf aus
Holz (Rivers of Babylon 2 alebo Drevená dedina, 1994) heraus. Es folgten
der Erzählband Mit Messer und Axt
(Sekerou a nožom, 1999, zus. mit Dušan Taragel) sowie zwei Bände mit Mikro-Erzählungen: Märchen über Vlado
(Skazky o Vladovi, 1995) und Neue Märchen über Vlado (Nové skazky o Vladovi,
1998). Den letzten Teil der Trilogie über
die „Karriere“ des Heizers Fredy gab er
1999 mit dem Titel Rivers of Babylon 3:
Fredys Ende (Rivers of Babylon 3: Fredyho koniec) heraus. Als Mitglied einer
Autorengruppe (der auch D. Taragel
angehörte) war er an der Erstausgabe
des Roger Krowiak (2003) beteiligt. Im
selben Jahr erschienen seine Rezepte
aus dem Familienarchiv oder Alles, was
ich kann, brachte mit Opa bei (Recepty z rodinného archívu alebo Všetko, čo
viem, ma naučil môj dedo). Gemeinsam
mir Opa Pišťanek erlebt der Leser darin
das vergangene Jahrhundert. Jedes der
Rezepte wird von einer Geschichte oder
zumindest einer Begebenheit über seine
Entstehung oder seine Entdeckung begleitet. Der Autor garniert seine kulinarischen Episoden mit Humor und liebevoller Ironie. Eine Auswahl publizistischer
Arbeiten, erschienen unter dem Titel
Traktorfahrer und Nervensäger (Traktoristi a buzeranti, 2003) versammelt
Artikel, Editorials, Glossen, Interviews,
Rezensionen, Erinnerungen und Briefe
aus der Feder des slowakischen Schriftstellers und Publizisten, die mit dem
ihm eigenen Blick auf Details und grundsätzliche Dinge des alltäglichen Lebens
seine brillante und unverwechselbare
Schreibweise zum Ausdruck bringen.
Eine Veröffentlichung aus den Tiefen
duftender Cognac-Keller – Das Feuer des
Weins (Živý oheň z vína, 2006) – ist der
aktuellste Beitrag des Autors im Bereich
untraditioneller Gastronomie-Führer.
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
| 21
Peter Gregor
Peter Gregor
ETUDES
Out of the Thumb
It is possible to suck literature out of your thumb.
Of course, you need a couple of small things to do it:
to know how to suck and — to have the right kind of thumb.
When she stops loving you,
she will not pardon you even her own.
And the Years Pass ...
A bird sings the way his beak allows him to
a writer sings the way he grew into his beak
Years pass, one by one,
and my friends are dying. It seems
from a certain age it is a life threatening danger
to be friends with someone.
A Word about Wealth
On Old Age
People with material wealth
build walls around their property,
so that no one can get inside.
People with spiritual wealth break walls,
so that they can carry it outside.
One has to get ready for old age
the way one does for trench warfare.
And accept the thought that while one might win,
one would never leave the trench.
Song Making
When they Bury One
Homage to Critic X
You are growing, my friend!
Not yet enough to see my work,
but you can already talk wisely
about the colour of my socks.
A Word about Love
Love is a state
wherein you surmise
that you have found the Other
while missing the fact of losing
your own self.
Revenge for Faking
A woman faking an orgasm
can be paid back
by a faked erection
On Vagina, Briefly
When a child‘s head can appear from it,
there‘s no reason why
a man‘s brain couldn‘t get lost in it.
Capital Punishment
For you, my dear, it wouldn‘t be
capital punishment if they beheaded you,
but if they sewed up your little pussy.
When they bury a man
they shovel on the soil. When they bury truth,
it‘s words, words, words.
Life
Life? Isn‘t it by any chance a kind of euthanasia,
where you yourself act as an assistant?
Young Age and Now
When I was young I was a king
with an ambition of becoming a clown, too,
in my own court. And now?
Now I am only an old clown
vainly struggling
from some kind of throne.
The Flowers of Youth
You wish to know where the flowers of youth
blossom ? Go to the grave
where our youth was buried.
Epilogue to Einstein
If it‘s true that the universe is rounded,
then in the midst of those round shapes
is a small hole and this is where
we are.
Do You Want to See Something Swinish?
Harbours
A lucky sailor has a girlfriend in every port,
a lucky landlubber has in each girlfriend
a harbour.
When She Loves You
When a woman loves you,
she will pardon all your shortcomings.
Volume 14, Number 2
Do you want to see something really swinish?
Get out of the pigsty.
Recipe for Happiness
For happiness, you need:
As few ingredients as possible.
So few, that you won‘t need
any recipe at all.
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22 |
Peter Gregor
Professionalism above all
Corruption of Justice?
So. I have the salary, office, secretary, spokesman,
advisors, chauffeur, and body guards already.
Now, all I have to find out is
what ministry I am supposed to head.
Our justices are incorruptible,
only the judicial mistakes are for sale.
Famous Couple
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are here,
they wonder around the world. And what does the world look
like?
It‘s as if Sancho battled the windmills
and Don Quixote took over the role
of the donkey
Congratulations
For my jubilee, I was congratulated by
a stuttering friend and
an important politician. My friend told me
con-con-con-congratulations, the politician
merely conned me.
A Word about Word
Revolutions
All social revolutions
are based on the promise that one day, the lice will milk the ants
and they perish because people are
scabs.
Humanisation
Society is humanising:
today they don‘t have to hunt slaves,
it‘s enough to hold an audition.
Word not covered by meaning
is like a banknote
covered by shit
Creation without Talent
To create without talent
is like combing a bald head:
One can do it, but one will
never make a hairdo.
I Promise to be True
A Word about Illusions
If you go to bed with illusions
until you reach thirty, you do so
because of your youth. If you persist,
it’s because you are a necrophiliac.
I promise to be true until the grave, but the grave
has to be close by and the temptation
far away.
PETER GREGOR (1944)
is, in his own words, “the youngest
representative of the hopelessly aged
middle literary degeneration and the
founder of the Slovak literary pose.”
He studied Slovak and Spanish at
Comenius University in Bratislava and
worked as editor of Czechoslovak Radio,
Czechoslovak Television and the Journal
Educational Work. From 1983, he has
worked freelance. His début was a book
of poetry The Need to Hang (Potreba
visieť, Bratislava, Slovenský spisovateľ,
1968). Then he published the collections:
Heavenly Policeman (Nebeský policajt,
Bratislava, Slovenský spisovateľ, 1970),
Conversation or Punch and the Sea
Maiden (Rozhovor alebo Fackovací
panák a morská panna, Bratislava,
Slovenský spisovateľ, 1975), Delta (Delta,
Bratislava, Slovenský spisovateľ, 1979),
Fire from a Burning House (Odniesť
si oheň z horiaceho domu, Bratislava,
Slovenský spisovateľ, 1989), a collection
of humour, micro stories and aphorisms
Little Mishaps (Malé maléry, Bratislava,
Slovenský spisovateľ, 1991), books of
poetry Collector of Watches (Zberateľ
hodín, Bratislava, Slovenský spisovateľ,
1992), and A Man Called Job (Muž
menom Jób, Bratislava, Smena, 1993),
a book of aphorisms Etudes, or a Small
Walk through a Big Carnival (Etudy alebo
Malá prechádzka veľkým lunaparkom,
Bratislava, Odkaz, 2000), four radio plays
under the title Death in Athens (Smrť v
Aténach, Bratislava, Slovenský spisovateľ,
2000), a short-story trilogy Diary of a
Dead Man (Denník nebožtíka, Bratislava,
Slovenský spisovateľ, 2001), a book of
poetry Letters from Eden (Listy zo záhrady
Eden, Bratislava, Ikar, 2004), and finally a
collection of aphorisms and micro stories
Idiot Book, or This is What Happened
I. (Idiotár alebo A takto to dopadlo I.,
Bratislava, Pectus, 2008). He also writes
radio plays. He has dramatised many
works of the classical and contemporary
world and original works in instalments,
as for example. Jack London: World
According to London, Mikhail Bulgakov:
The Master and Margarita, Leon
Feuchtwanger: Jewish War, and Jaroslav
Hašek: Good Soldier Švejk. He has written
over twenty original radio plays, such as
Happy Kingdom, Half Hour of Truth, Dr.
Semmelweiss‘s Fever, Rat, Madman of La
Mancha, Don Juan of the Suburbs, In the
Ring, Tahiti, Finger, Interview.
June 2009
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| 23
Dušan Taragel
Dušan Taragel
DAS MÄRCHEN VOM NÖRGELNDEN
UND MAULENDEN DUŠAN
D
ušan war ein ganz lieber und anständiger Junge,
doch er hatte eine schlechte Eigenschaft: über
alles, was irgend möglich war, nörgelte und maulte
er. Das wäre an sich nichts Merkwürdiges, wenn
das einmal in der Woche geschehen würde. Doch er nörgelte
und maulte den ganzen Tag, von morgens bis abends, bis
es schließlich niemand mehr aushielt und alle seinetwegen
verrückt wurden.
Als erste wurde Tante Marta verrückt, die Cousine von
Mütterchens Oma. Sie beabsichtigte, Dušan im Kindergarten
abzuholen und dann mit ihm Eis essen zu gehen. Sie würden
sich irgendwo im Park auf eine Bank setzen, am Eis lecken
und sie würde ihm etwas über Vöglein, Blümchen und lustige
Tierchen erzählen. Alle wollten Tante Marta von diesem Plan
abbringen, sanken vor ihr auf die Knie und baten sie, es nicht
zu tun, doch es half nicht. Tante Marta setzte sich einen
schönen Sommerhut auf, nahm ihren neuen Regenschirm und
mit ungeduldigem Getrippel eilte sie in den Kindergarten, um
den lieben und anständigen Dušan abzuholen.
Dušan machte zunächst ein fröhliches und zufriedenes
Gesicht. Direkt vom Kindergarten ließ er sich zum ersten
Eismann fahren und sich dort ein riesiges Eis aufladen, erst als
er sich mit Tante Marta auf die Parkbank setzte, ging es los mit
der Nörgelei. Zuerst nörgelte er über das Eis, weil er es nicht
schnell genug schlecken konnte und es ihm an den Fingern herabfloss. Dann nörgelte er sehr ernsthaft über alle Vögelchen,
Blümlein und lustige Tierchen. Tante Marta öffnete vor Überraschung den Mund, doch ehe sie etwas sagen konnte, hatte
Dušan es auch schon geschafft, über ihren Sommerhut und
neuen Regenschirm zu nörgeln. Schließlich maulte er noch
etwas Hässliches einer alten Oma entgegen, die vorbeiging
und ihn fragte, wie er heiße und ob ihm das Eis schmecke.
Tante Marta sprang überrascht und erschrocken von der Bank
auf und wollte Dušan ermahnen, doch es war schon zu spät –
sie wurde von Dušans Genörgel und Gemaule verrückt, rannte
davon und wurde nie wieder gesehen, bloß ihr schöner Sommerhut wurde irgendwo gefunden.
Als zweite wurde Tante Duchna verrückt, die jüngste
Schwester von Väterchens Patentante. Sie hatte beschlossen,
Dušan in den Zoo mitzunehmen. Dort würde sie ihm Tiger,
Löwen und Bären zeigen und ihm dabei mit einem geschickten Trick das Nörgeln und Maulen abgewöhnen. Alle wollten
Tante Duchna von diesem Plan abbringen, sanken vor ihr auf
die Knie und baten sie, es nicht zu tun, doch es half nicht.
Tante Duchna zog sich einen fröhlichen bunten Rock an,
nahm eine riesige Handtasche, stopfte sie mit Schokolade und
Süßigkeiten voll, schnappte Dušan an der Hand und schon
rannte sie mit ihm in den Zoo.
Dušan machte zunächst ein liebes und höfliches Gesicht.
Er stopfte sich mit Süßigkeiten voll und lauschte aufmerksam
Volume 14, Number 2
Tante Duchna, die bei jedem Tiergehege laute Reden hielt
und dabei fröhlich ihre Handtasche schwenkte. Doch dann
kamen sie zum Löwenkäfig und Dušan fing an zu nörgeln. Er
sagte, die Löwen würden stinken und dass stinkende Löwen
ihn überhaupt nicht interessierten. Ebenso die Bären, denn
sie würden bestimmt noch mehr stinken als die Löwen. Tante
Duchna starrte ihn überrascht an und sagte, dass die Bären
bestimmt nicht stinken, da sie häufig baden und außerdem
Fahrrad fahren und Fußball spielen. Es würde reichen, wenn
sie zum Bärenkäfig gingen, um sich mit eigenen Augen davon
zu überzeugen. Dušan sagte, er würde nirgendwo hingehen,
und außerdem stinken auch die Affen, Pferde, Schlangen,
Papageien, Giraffen und Schildkröten. Der ganze Zoo würde
stinken, und am allermeisten stinke Tante Duchna, er wolle
jetzt nach Hause und Schluss. Tante Duchna schrie vor Überraschung auf, ließ ihre Handtasche los und fasste an ihr Herz.
Sie wollte noch etwas sagen oder rufen, doch es war bereits zu
spät, sie wurde von Dušans Genörgel und Gemaule verrückt,
und so, wie sie war, völlig verrückt geworden und ohne Handtasche, rannte sie aus dem Zoo und wurde nie wieder gesehen,
bloß ihr lustiger bunter Rock wurde irgendwo gefunden.
Als dritte wurde Tante Rosemarie verrückt und als vierter
Onkel Albert. Beide hatten beschlossen, mit Dušan zu einer
Aufführung ins Kindertheater zu gehen. Alle wollten sie von
diesem Plan abbringen, sanken vor ihnen auf die Knie und
baten sie, es nicht zu tun, doch es half nicht. Tante Rosemarie
zog ihr festliches rosa Kleid an, Onkel Albert seinen schwarzen Theateranzug, jeder nahm von einer Seite Dušan an der
Hand und sie machten sich mit ihm auf ins Theater.
Dušan machte zunächst ein fröhliches und zufriedenes
Gesicht. Er saß mit Tante Rosemarie und Onkel Albert in der
ersten Reihe und beobachtete die Schauspieler, die komisch
herumpolterten, sich gegenseitig anschrieen und sich über die
Bühne wälzten. Doch dann kam der Teufel in einer Jägeruniform, begann alle Schauspieler zu jagen, und wollte sie mit seiner
spitzen Forke aufspießen. Dušan gefiel das gar nicht und er fing
an zu nörgeln. Er sagte, der Teufel sei blöd und hässlich und
Onkel Albert solle auf die Bühne steigen, den Teufel verhauen und
ihn vertreiben. Onkel Albert starrte ihn überrascht an und flüsterte etwas, aber Dušan hörte ihm überhaupt nicht zu. Er nörgelte
über das ganze Theater, den Vorhang, den Kronleuchter, die
Teppiche, die Plüschsitze und alle Kinder, die mit offenem Mund
auf die Bühne schauten, wo der Teufel gerade im Begriff war, die
wunderschöne Prinzessin zu zerstückeln. Dušans Genörgel zog
sich wie ein rätselhaftes, giftiges Gas durch das ganze Theater
und gelangte schließlich bis zu den Schauspielern. Sie bekamen
einen Schreck und vergaßen, was sie eigentlich spielen sollten.
Anstatt dass der Teufel die Prinzessin zerstückelte, spießte er den
tapferen Prinzen auf, dieser fiel um und riss dabei das Häuschen
nieder, in dem die Hexe wohnte. Aus dem Häuschen lief dann der
23/6/09 20:10
24 |
als Wolf maskierte Schauspieler, stolperte und fiel auf den alten
König. Der alte König machte einen überraschten Schrei und fiel
von der Bühne herunter, genau ins Orchester. Weitere Schauspieler rannten daraufhin über die Bühne, stolperten über umgefallene Requisiten und verwirrt deklamierten sie alles, woran sie sich
erinnerten. Es entstand ein furchtbares Chaos. Tante Rosemarie
ermahnte Dušan, er solle endlich mit der Nörgelei aufhören, doch
er nörgelte sofort über ihr rosa Kleid und sagte, Onkel Albert
habe ausgelatschte Schuhe. Tante Rosemarie wurde davon augenblicklich verrückt und lief hoch auf die Bühne, wo sie sich den
Schauspielern anschloss. Onkel Albert sprang zuerst wütend auf
und wollte empört eingreifen, doch dann wurde auch er verrückt,
rannte aus dem Theater und wurde nie wieder gesehen, bloß seine
ausgelatschten Schuhe wurden irgendwo gefunden.
Nach diesem Ereignis war es klar, dass früher oder später
jeder verrückt würde, der Dušans Genörgel und Gemaule
lauschen müsse. Manche erschraken und zogen weg. Andere
schlugen vor, Dušan in die Hände von Fachleuten für Nörgelei
zu geben. Andere wollten Dušan gleich in eine Anstalt für
ungezogene Kinder bringen, wo Professor Ärgerlich schon
irgendwie zurechtkäme und ihn vom Nörgeln und Maulen
heilen würde. Dagegen stellten sich jedoch Mütterchen und
Väterchen. Sie sagten, am Sonntag habe Tante Hunta ihren
80. Geburtstag und alle seien zu ihrer Feier eingeladen. Wie
würde das denn aussehen, wenn sie ohne Dušan kämen und
sagen würden, dass sie ihn zum schrecklichen Professor Ärgerlich in irgendeine Anstalt für ungezogene Kinder gesteckt
haben? Bei diesen Worten wurden alle traurig und beschlossen schließlich, Dušan erst nach der Geburtstagsfeier von
Tante Hunta in die Anstalt zu bringen.
Am Sonntag zogen also alle ihre festlichen Kleider an, nahmen
eine Menge Geschenke und Blumen und machten sich gemeinsam auf den Weg zu Tante Hunta. Schon unterwegs wurde Tante
Annemarie verrückt, die Schwägerin von Väterchens Bruder. Sie
hatte sich im Bus neben Dušan gesetzt und versuchte ihn zu unterhalten, indem sie ihn mit Süßigkeiten fütterte und ihm aus
dem Fenster verschiedene interessante Dinge zeigte: Häuser,
Bäume, Autos, Wolken, Menschen und Gras. Dušan gefiel das
anfangs, aber dann fing er an zu nörgeln und sagte, der Bus
würde zu langsam fahren und die Köpfe von allen würden dabei
komisch wackeln und in Tante Annemaries Kopf habe sich durch
das Gewackel bestimmt alles vermischt. Tante Annemarie wurde
bei diesen Worten sofort verrückt, so dass man sie aus dem Bus
laden und am Straßengraben sitzen lassen musste.
Der Bus hielt schließlich am Rande der Stadt vor einem
alten Backsteinhaus. Alle stürzten heraus und eilten mit
großem Gepolter, Gekeuche und Geschrei hoch in die achte
Etage, wo Tante Hunta wohnte. Selbstverständlich fing Dušan
an zu nörgeln. Er sagte, er schaffe es nicht die Treppe hinaufzulaufen und würde am liebsten mit dem Aufzug fahren.
Onkel Paul, der der jüngste Bruder von Mütterchens Cousine
war, bot sich an, Dušan auf seinem Rücken nach oben zu
tragen. Alle wollten ihn von diesem Plan abbringen, sanken
vor ihm auf die Knie und baten ihn, es nicht zu tun, doch es
half nicht. Onkel Paul lud sich Dušan auf den Rücken und
fing ganz mutig an, die Treppe hochzusteigen. Aber schon im
dritten Stock wurde er von Dušans Genörgel verrückt, lud ihn
wieder auf den Boden ab und, seltsame Laute von sich gebend,
rannte er irgendwohin und niemand hat ihn je wieder gesehen,
Dušan Taragel
gehört oder getroffen. Dušan musste zu Fuß und allein in die
achte Etage hochgehen, weil alle sich vor seiner Nörgelei bei
Tante Hunta versteckt hatten.
Tante Hunta erwartete sie mit weit ausgebreiteten Armen. Das
Alter hatte bewirkt, dass sie ganz taub war, aber das machte ihr
nichts aus und sie freute sich über die Ankunft der Gratulanten.
Alle umarmten sie, küssten sie, und beglückwünschten sie zum
Geburtstag. Danach setzten sie sich an den festlich gedeckten
Tisch und fingen an, sich mit Suppe, Schnitzeln und Kartoffeln
vollzustopfen. Dušan hatten sie ganz vergessen und hofften, er
habe sich irgendwo verlaufen oder sei von einer fleischfressenden Raubkatze verspeist worden. Doch sie hofften vergeblich.
Sie hatten noch nicht mal die Suppe aufgegessen, als sie aus
dem Flur einen großen Lärm hörten. Den größten Mut bewies
Onkel Felix, Tante Huntas jüngster Sohn. Vorsichtig öffnete er
die Tür um einen Spalt und erblickte, dass sich dort ein Auflauf
von Nachbarn aus den danebenliegenden Wohnungen befand.
Alle schrieen aufgeregt und fuchtelten mit den Armen. Vor ihnen
stand Dušan und nörgelte und maulte so sehr, dass die Nachbarn
es nicht mehr aushielten, alle auf einmal verrückt wurden und
in alle Richtungen davonliefen. Auch Onkel Felix wurde verrückt
und gleich nach ihm auch Tante Marie, die aus Neugier in den
Flur gekommen war, um zu schauen, was dort vor sich geht.
Tante Hunta freute sich über Dušans Ankunft. Sie ließ
sich von ihm zum Geburtstag gratulieren und setzte ihn an
den festlich gedeckten Tisch gleich neben sich, um ihn mit
allen Köstlichkeiten füttern zu können, die sie gekocht und
gebacken hatte. Alle schwiegen verblüfft und warteten, was
passieren würde. Doch es passierte nichts. Dušan war auf dem
Weg nach oben hungrig geworden, und darum stopfte er sich
mit Freude voll und beachtete niemanden. Alle seufzten voll
Erleichterung auf. Schnell aßen sie ihre Schnitzel und Kartoffeln auf, flößten sich Wein ein und begannen eine Debatte über
Dušans Genörgel und Gemaule. Manche behaupteten, Dušan
würde nur deswegen nörgeln, weil er Hunger habe. Man müsse
ihm zu essen geben und dann sei Ruhe. Andere vermuteten,
die Ursache liege eher an den Sachen, über die Dušan nörgelte.
Als Beispiel nahmen sie den verrückt gewordenen Onkel Albert:
Wäre er nicht in ausgelatschten Schuhen herumgelaufen, hätte
Dušan nicht zu nörgeln gebraucht und Onkel Albert wäre nicht
verrückt geworden. Die nächsten sagten, Dušans Genörgel
und Gemaule würde so verschwinden, wie es gekommen ist:
von jetzt auf nachher. Man würde es gar nicht mitkriegen, und
schon sei es vorbei mit der Nörgelei und Maulerei, behaupteten
sie fröhlich, aber niemand glaubte es ihnen. Alle betrachteten
Dušan, wie er sich zufrieden mit Apfelkuchen vollstopfte, und
warteten, wie es weitergehen würde.
Schließlich beschloss Onkel Anton, der Mann von Mütterchens älterer Schwester, zur allgemeinen Belustigung Ziehharmonika zu spielen. Alle wollten ihn von diesem Plan abbringen, sanken vor ihm auf die Knie und baten ihn, es nicht
zu tun, da Tante Hunta sowieso taub sei und es daher völlig
ausreiche, wenn sie gemeinschaftlich still den Mund öffnen
würden, doch es half nicht. Onkel Anton packte die Ziehharmonika aus der Hülle und begann, auf ihr zu spielen. Dušan
wurde aufmerksam und aß schnell seinen Apfelkuchen auf.
Onkel Anton verkündete mit munterer Stimme, das erste Lied
sei für das Geburtstagskind Tante Hunta und er machte sich
hurtig ans Spielen und Singen. Seine mächtige Stimme ließ
June 2009
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Dušan Taragel
das ganze Wohnzimmer erzittern und sicherlich hörte auch
Tante Hunta sie, denn sie lächelte selig. Dušan machte ein
zufriedenes und höfliches Gesicht. Es schien, dass er nichts
gegen Musik und Gesang habe, und darum trauten sich die
anderen Verwandten nun auch, sich Onkel Anton anzuschließen, und kurz darauf sangen alle gemeinsam fröhliche Lieder.
Mit dem ganzen Übel begann Tante Emma, die Cousine
von Mütterchens Patenonkel. Sie bemerkte, dass Dušan nicht
mitsang, und beschloss, ihm zumindest ein Lied beizubringen.
Wenn die weitere Verwandtschaft von diesem Einfall gewusst
hätte, wäre sie bestimmt vor Tante Emma auf die Knie gesunken
und hätte sie gebeten, es nicht zu tun, sie hätte es ihr gar
verboten, und einige hätten sie vielleicht auch gefesselt, ihr den
Mund gestopft und sie in den Schrank gesteckt, doch alle sangen
und niemand schenkte ihr Beachtung. Tante Emma setzte sich
unauffällig neben Dušan und fragte ihn, ob ihm die Lieder
gefallen. Dušan antwortete, sie würden ihm gefallen. Dann fragte
sie ihn, ob er nicht gerne irgendein Lied singen würde. Dušan
schüttelte den Kopf. Tante Emma sagte, Singen sei ganz leicht
und dass jeder es könne. Sie würde mit dem Gesang anfangen,
Dušan würde sich dann anschließen und merken, wie leicht das
sei. Sofort schmetterte sie los und mit fröhlichem Gesicht sang
sie ein Lied, das Onkel Anton spielte. Dušan gefiel das nicht.
Sofort fing er zu nörgeln an und sagte, Tante Emma singe nicht,
sondern kreische, und ihre Stimme erinnere ihn an eine fette
Kröte. Außerdem würde er in ihrem Mund alle Plomben sehen
und in ihrer Nase alle Haare. Tante Emma konnte vor Überraschung nur die Augen aufreißen. Aus ihrem Mund kam kein Lied
mehr, sondern merkwürdiges Gebrabbel und womöglich wollte
sie auch etwas sagen, doch sie schaffte es nicht mehr – sie war
verrückt geworden, fiel unter den Tisch, von wo aus sie vierbeinig
in den Flur hinauslief, vom Flur ins Treppenhaus und von dort
irgendwohin weg, ins Unbekannte.
Augenblicklich brach Panik aus. Alle sprangen auf und
versuchten, sich vor dem Verrücktwerden zu schützen.
Manchen gelang es nicht und sie wurden gleich am Tisch
DUŠAN TARAGEL (1961)
Prosaiker, Drehbuchautor, Texter, Publizist. Ende der 80er Jahre begann er, Kurzprosa in Zeitschriften zu publizieren. Sein
Debüt lieferte er mit den Märchen für
ungehorsame Kinder und ihre fürsorglichen Eltern (Rozprávky pre neposlušné
deti a ich starostlivých rodičov, 1997),
einer Sammlung schwarzhumoriger Geschichten aus der Gegenwart mit Illustrationen von Jozef „Danglár“ Gertli. Zusammen mit Peter Pišťanek gab Taragel
den Erzählband Mit Messer und Axt
(Sekerou & nožom, 1999) heraus. Die
Sammlung erfasst beinahe alle publizierten und nicht publizierten Werke, die Peter Pišťanek und Dušan Taragel während
ihrer Zusammenarbeit in den Jahren
1981 – 1999 erarbeiteten (auch eigenständige) und größtenteils in verschiedenen Zeitschriften veröffentlichten. Schon
Volume 14, Number 2
verrückt. Andere wurden verrückt, als sie aufstanden, weitere
im Flur. Die Geschickten schnappten sich ihre Mäntel, Hüte
und Handtaschen und liefen aus der Wohnung, mit Geschrei
und Gepolter eilten sie die Treppe herunter und flohen in
alle Richtungen. Onkel Anton wurde beim Singen verrückt.
Mit seiner Harmonika lief er auf die Straße, sprang in eine
Tram und seitdem fährt er darin, spielt lustige Lieder und
weigert sich auszusteigen. Einige aus der Verwandtschaft
rannten bis hinter die Stadt und versteckten sich im Wald.
Andere, völlig verrückt geworden, rannten auch ohne Mäntel
und Mützen, mit wehenden Hemden, Krawatten und Röcken
bis in die Nachbarstadt und von dort noch weiter in andere
Länder, Erdteile und Kontinente und nie wieder hat jemand
sie gesehen, getroffen oder von ihnen gehört.
In der Wohnung blieben nur Tante Hunta und Dušan
zurück. Überall lagen umgestoßene Gläser und Stühle herum.
In der Diele lagen einige Mäntel und Hüte, auf dem Tisch lagen
die Teller durcheinander verstreut mit unaufgegessenen Resten
von Desserts und Kuchen sowie einige Damenhandtaschen.
Dušan hörte auf zu nörgeln und schaute sich überrascht um.
Tante Hunta wippte immer noch mit der Hand im Takt und
öffnete den Mund, als ob sie bei Onkel Antons Lied mitsingen
würde. Sie war als einzige nicht verrückt geworden, da sie taub
war und Dušans Nörgelei und Gemaule nicht hören konnte.
Und so kam es, dass Dušan bei Tante Hunta blieb. Tante
Hunta dachte, die Verwandtschaft habe ihn dort für sie als
Haushaltshilfe gelassen, und von da an musste er ständig aufräumen, Geschirr spülen, fegen und zum Einkaufen in den
Laden gehen. Er konnte nörgeln und maulen, soviel er wollte,
Tante Hunta hörte ihn nicht, und er musste ihr sogar jedes Mal
ein schönes Lied vorsingen, wenn er etwas zu essen bekommen
wollte. Tante Hunta lächelte dann zufrieden, wippte mit der
Hand im Takt und war ganz bestimmt glücklich.
Übersetzt von Veronika Széherová
Aus der Sammlung Rozprávky pre neposlušné deti
a ich starostlivých rodičov, L. C. A., 1997
Photo © L. C. A.
seit ihrer Kindheit arbeiten beide Autoren schöpferisch zusammen und beeinflussen sich gegenseitig, da sie zusammen
im gleichen Viertel in Devínska Nová Ves
bei Bratislava aufgewachsen sind. Als Autor hat sich Dušan Taragel auch an den
Büchern Roger Krowiak (2002, Zusammenstellung), Sex auf Slowakisch 1 und
2 (Anthologie der erotischen Erzählungen, 2004, 2005, Zusammenstellung),
Der Mord als gesellschaftliches Ereignis
(Grundrisse der Umgangsformen bei
der Mordtat, 2006), Jánošík! Eine wahre
Geschichte (Comic vom legendären Räuber, zusammen mit Danglár, 2006) beteiligt. Er schrieb außerdem das Drehbuch
zum abendfüllenden Film Baščovanský
& Schwiegersohn (Baščovanský & zať),
der 1994 uraufgeführt wurde. Derzeit
schreibt er Drehbücher zu den Sitcoms
Mafstory und Profis für den Fernsehsender JOJ und seit Dezember 2007
ist er als Editor der Wochenzeitung
TV OKO tätig.
23/6/09 20:10
26 |
Václav Pankovčín
Václav Pankovčín
K-85: A STORY ABOUT AN
ANT’S BROKEN JOURNEY
(Extract)
Typology of Patients I
As I looked around, I realized that in each hospital there are
about five types of patients (though one could look at this from
different points of view, I will use only one type of classification).
There are patients that give in completely to their disease
and have no idea what to do about it. They place themselves in
the hands of the doctors and nurses and accept that they are
sick. They don‘t do a thing and just stay in bed.
Then there are patients who consider their presence in the
hospital to be a mistake. Such a patient, for example, was the
patient lying next to me – thirty-one year old Appendix. He
could not wait to get back to work.
The third type of patient is a veteran. They orientate
themselves in a hospital like the old hands in the military.
They insert and pull out the infusion, measure their blood
pressure, and are knowledgeable about the individual values
of biochemical blood tests of all kinds. If you woke them up in
the middle of the night, they would tell you without hesitation
VÁCLAV PANKOVČÍN (1968 – 1999)
Writer and journalist. He was born 21 May
1968 in Humenné in Eastern Slovakia.
After leaving secondary school, he went
on to study journalism at Comenius
University and graduated in 1991. He was
a newspaper editor (Sme, Pravda), and
later worked as a lecturer at the Faculty
of Arts, Comenius University. Pankovčín
died 18 January 1999 in Bratislava, aged
30. Critics classify Václav Pankovčín
as a postmodernist. In his work, real
experience is constantly interwoven with
motifs taken from the works of literature.
He was mainly inspired by Latin-American
prose, more precisely by the so-called
magical realism (G. García Márquez, etc.).
The myths which fill this literature are
transformed into parody in Pankovčín’s
work – although not always and not
everywhere. He is a prose writer who has
a sense of humour and this trait marked
most of his work, but sometimes his
absurdities have a serious ring. Pankovčín
the numerical code of their diagnosis. Besides the main one,
they of course also know the codes of the secondary ones and
are able to analyse in detail all that happens in their body.
These patients – if prescribed a strict diet – feed secretly on
wieners and salami in the hospital snack bar; they know what
they can get away with.
Veteran I
A few days after they released Appendix from the hospital, the
door to the ward flew open and a tall, thin man with black hair,
holding an infusion stand in his hand, barged in.
My new neighbour introduced himself with his diagnosis:
“I have a K-85 Pancreatitis chronica acuta exacerbans. How about
you?”
I told him that I had the same, but I also betrayed my
secondary diagnoses: “I also have hepatitis B, chronic gastritis,
and was treated for arterial hypertension. And during my
military service I suffered from neuro-vegetative dystonia
is interested in the irrational; he always
weaves it into rational situations, where
he creates a mysterious and inexplicable
element. He also likes to play with time
and space. Unknown towns or villages
that were never there before appear on
journeys along familiar routes, and this
phenomenon shocks the story’s hero.
All the means employed are meant to
reinforce the feeling that the world in
which we live cannot be fully explained,
that it is also the world of our fantasies,
and that our imagination also enters
these fantasies as a result of our brushes
with cultural and pre-cultural stereotypes.
The author’s imagination feeds on (and
may even be based on) his adventurous
boyhood reading. This is evident in his
children’s novel Mammoth in the Fridge,
with the subtitle School Western. His
novels are Probably Did Not Come for
No Reason (Asi som neprišiel len tak,
1992), Three Women Under a Walnut
Tree (Tri ženy pod orechom, 1996), Polar
Butterfly /Area 3 x 4/ (Polárny motýľ /
Priestor 3 x 4/, 1997), K-85 /Story about
an Ant’s Broken Journey/ (K-85 /Príbeh o
prerušenej mravčej ceste/, 1998). Shortly
before his death, Pankovčín finished his
novel Lináres. He collected his short
stories in two compilations: Marrakech
(Marakéš, 1994), It Will Be a Nice Funeral
(Bude to pekný pohreb, 1997).
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
| 27
Václav Pankovčín
which, like hypertension, is a common disease of civilisation.”
The Veteran nodded with understanding, but the third
bed mate (bed mate Gall Bladder), who clearly belonged in
the first type of my classification, regarded us with horror;
he probably considered us patients more suited to a mental
institution. Then I realized that, unwittingly, I had reclassified myself from the fourth type – more about that later
– to the Veterans.
Typology of Patients II
There exists another, fourth type: these are patients who
are totally unable to realize the seriousness of their disease
and the general state of their health in particular and see the
hospital as a place suitable for lazing about, or an occasion for
catching up on what their daily routine prevented them from
doing. For example, for getting enough sleep and reading
books. They show a lively interest in everything going on
around them, they observe their fellow patients, doctors and
nurses, receive their visitors with considerable enthusiasm,
since they are the centre of their attention. They are capable of
discussing the diseases from which they suffer and that others
suffer from and can talk about how an old man who could
still walk soiled his pants and some one else pissed on the
toothbrushes. They get an intense pleasure from sonographic
examination, following the computer monitor while trying to
find out what is going on there, and keep bothering the doctor
with their questions; when a blood sample is taken they don‘t
faint, but are curious to see if the nurse finds their vein on the
first try, and ask for a sleeping pill just to discover how one
sleeps with a pill. They are really astonished when they find
they are still up at three in the morning, so they get out of
bed and have a smoke, while laughing like madmen, realizing
that the pill had an opposite effect. They are high on it, they
see visions and have a compulsion to laugh at everything,
including the toilet door, or boxes of infusion stacked on each
other; in the morning they give a colourful description of their
experience to the nurse as she takes their blood sample and
tells them how only a very small minority of people react in
such an invigorating way to a sleeping pill...
And so on...
Veteran II
And then, the day when Pancreatitis chronica acuta showed
up, I unwittingly almost found myself in the third group,
among the veteran patients, and would have looked and
behaved like one if the veteran Pancreatitis hadn’t brought me
down to earth right at the start.
He came with his infusion stand in one hand and an
unlit cigarette in his mouth. He unplugged himself from the
infusion and went out to have a smoke. He lit up right in the
hallway and the smoke drifted through the Surgical Ward.
I realized how far behind I was compared to the new
pancreatic colleague. I was like a private from the military unit
in the suburb of Vajnory while he was a veteran from Desert
Storm and Afghanistan combined.
Pancreatitis acuta was simply a pro: during the previous six
Volume 14, Number 2
months he had already been in the hospital five times and now,
while in the recovery room, they gave him a suction tube. I was
in the hospital for only the first time and they did not give me
a suction tube, for which I gave thanks to God and the nurses.
Over the thirty years of his life to date, Pancreatitis had
been operated on twice; instead of bone his leg was fitted
with a six-inch long steel screw, and he had also spent some
time in a stomatological clinic where they wired his mouth
shut and he could only eat through a tube. He went through
one stint in an infection ward and one in a neurological ward
and – he claimed – had passed through all the wards except
gynaecology and obstetrics. So he clearly belonged in the
third group, among the seasoned veterans, while I was still wet
behind the ears, I was a greenhorn, something between type
three and four, as someone without any operations, without
a steel screw in my leg, or a mouth wired shut. True, I had no
wish for any of the above, but I realized – and that bothered
me – that I lacked the expertise and medical connections that
Pancreatitis acuta possessed.
For example, I did not know the names of all the nurses
and doctors, was not on a friendly basis with patients who also
suffered from Pancreatitis and problems connected with the
stomach and gall bladder and, which irked me, I was not in a
position to disconnect my infusion at will, the way he was. I
did not dare, I lacked the courage. I preferred to ring for the
nurse and ask for it nicely.
Pancreatitis acuta, if he felt like it, could pretend that he
was feeling sick from the infusion, that his vision was blurry
and his head was swimming. He would disconnect and tell the
nurse that the infusion had made him sick.
While Pancreatitis knew all the nooks and crannies of the
old hospital, I did not even know where the snack bar was
and when they finally brought some food for us, I could not
remember the number of our diet. So I told myself instead
that I would try to stay for some time in my (fourth) category,
where I felt comfortable, after all, and would not try to pretend
I was a veteran, even though I had spent who knows how many
days in the hospital already.
23/6/09 20:10
28 |
Václav Pankovčín | Marián Hatala
Typology of Patients III
I would like to mention in passing another category of patients
that practically infest our medical institutions. These are
the professional patients, mostly totally healthy individuals
suffering from the incurable disease of hypochondria.
They know how to describe the symptoms of their illness
so persuasively that they have managed to bamboozle
even the best read and most sophisticated general medical
practitioner who, finally, after being bothered by them for
weeks, recommended hospitalisation. Such a patient gets
the greatest pleasure when they take his blood test, or insert
a tube into his stomach (gastroscopy), or stick a finger up
his anus, and is greatly disappointed when even the most
detailed examination fails to confirm in his body the presence
of some terrible disease.
Irrespective of whatever disease such patients suffer
from and what classification category they belong to, they
can be divided into two big groups: active patients with
various hobbies and interests and passive patients without
any interests. There is no point in talking about the passive
ones: they just lie in bed. They live with their disease like
a wondering dog with his fleas, waiting only for the arrival
of the doctor who would destroy their fleas. Here belong
the sick people described above as patients of the first
group, but there could be an occasional case classified in
the second group, as there are cases of apathetic veterans
and, of course, patients of the fifth group, certain of
dying slowly from a horrifying, hidden, and unfathomable
disease.
In the hospital, the active patients (most often from the
third and fourth group, but also fifty percent of the second
one) listen eagerly to the radio, get a portable TV, pat the
nurses on their behind or touch them up improperly when
they take a blood sample. Or else, they walk endlessly
along the halls like the old man who soiled his pants so
badly, or read.
Marián Hatala
in der hauptrolle
Marián Hatala
das final-match beendete man
schon im dritten satz
wegen der verletzung des balljungen
der bis dahin
zu den besten
auf dem tennisplatz gehörte.
dass dein freund dich morgen
nicht mehr sehr enttäuschen kann.
zusammenhänge
es ist ein einfacher instinkt:
prostitution wird institutionalisiert
institutionen werden prostitutionalisiert.
einübung in selbstbewusstsein
entwicklung
entfernt sich ständig ihr ziel?
gehen sie ihm doch nicht
so eilig entgegen!
entfernt es sich noch immer?
machen sie halt!
entfernt es sich immer noch?
machen sie doch langsamer halt!
entfernt es sich immer noch weiter?
dann kann es nicht ihr ziel sein!
vor jahren:
ich liebe dich
weil du so bist wie du bist.
nach jahren:
um gottes willen
du bist ja immer gleich!
versprechen
blitzinterview
* was denken sie übrigens
über die gegenwärtige literaturkritik?
- wieso?! sind etwa schon rezensionen
über mein jüngstes buch erschienen?
unerwarteter nutzen
heute hat dich dein feind
so angenehm überrascht
schatz versprich mir
dass ich dir alles erfülle
was du dir heute nacht wünschen wirst!
belohnung
nur der mann
der in die augen
auch einer nackten frau schauen kann
sieht ihre wirkliche nacktheit.
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
| 29
Marián Hatala
aus der sexualberatung für
männer
wenn das liebesspiel
im liebesvorspiel seinen höhepunkt findet
wird das nachspiel kaum mehr
so liebevoll sein.
wenn ...
wenn nicht so viele leute
in der absicht in die politik gingen
sie sauber zu machen
sondern in der absicht
sich selber nicht schmutzig zu machen
könnte die politik viel sauberer sein.
wenn er auch wüsste
wem und wie
wüsste er doch nicht
ob es helfen würde.
wozu der mensch beine hat
wenn dir der verstand stehen bleibt
angesichts dessen
was geschieht
bleibt anderen der verstand stehen
beim stillstand deines verstandes.
in den wind geredet
wenn dinge auf den kopf gestellt werden
heißt es haltung einnehmen
und nicht dieselbe stellung.
nichts schlimmer
als sich jemanden anhören müssen
der selber partout nichts hören will.
möglichkeiten
deshalb geschieht es eben!
warte nicht. sprich!
warum es geschieht
kaum beginnen wir
uns oft und tief zu verbeugen
wachsen uns schon einige zwerge
über den kopf.
wenn du nichts zu sagen hast
sprich!
mach diejenigen mundtot
die etwas zu sagen haben!
bedenke dass es genügend von denen gibt
die reden
dass du nichts zu sagen hast!
gleiches recht!
humanist
richten sie sich endlich auf
damit auch andere
buckeln können!
er würde ja helfen
wenn er wüsste wem.
wenn er auch wüsste wem
wüsste er nicht wie.
MARIÁN HATALA (1958)
Dichter, Übersetzer und Publizist. Erste
Gedichte publizierte er in den Literaturzeitschriften ROMBOID und DOTYKY.
Mit seinem Debüt Meine Ereignisse (Moje
udalosti, 1990) hat er dank der ironischen
und selbstironischen Position, von der er
den gegenwärtigen Menschen in privaten
und gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhängen
beschreibt, Aufmerksamkeit erregt, wobei
er auch die totalitären Praktiken der politischen Macht in der Zeit der sog. „Normalisierung“ enthüllt. Eine ähnliche Problematik steht auch in seinem zweiten und
dritten Gedichtband Stillleben mit nächtlichen Aufschreien (Zátišie s nočnými výkrikmi, 1992) und all meine trauer und
andere ausschreitungen (všetky moje smútky a iné výtržnosti, 1995) im Mittelpunkt,
wobei sich im dritten Band bei kritischer
Reflexion der neuen Gesellschaftsrealität
bereits seine Neigung zur Publizistik deutlich zeigt. Seine weitere Werke gedichtband marián hatala mit dem untertitel 41
gedichte (Marián Hatala, básnická zbierka
s podtitulom 41 básní, 1999), Blättern
durch die Stille (Listovanie tichom, 2002)
Volume 14, Number 2
nostalgie
auch die warteschlangen
sind nicht mehr das
was sie einmal waren:
man steht nicht mehr dicht an dicht
sondern diskret
abstand auf abstand.
Übersetzt von Gerlinde Tesche
und Marián Hatala
zwergengröße
mensch ich fürchte
du kannst keine wahl treffen:
entweder hast du angst
um den menschen –
oder vor ihm
und Lebenslauf der Alltäglichkeiten (Životopis každodenností, 2005) haben bestätigt, dass eine zivile Schreibweise, unnachahmliche und unerwartete Pointen und
Witz für Marián Hatala charakteristisch
sind. Er versucht nicht um jeden Preis
ernsthafte und wichtige Lebensfragen der
Menschheit zu lösen, sondern stellt alltägliche Erlebnisse ohne komplizierte Metaphern dar und überrascht durch leicht
verständliche, jedoch unvergleichbar
sanfte und poetische Gegenwartssprache.
Mit Selbstverständlichkeit skizziert er kurze Alltagsgeschichten und schafft die Poesie des Alltags, inspiriert durch Kleinigkeiten, durch die einfache Freude am Wort,
Widersprüchlichkeiten des Lebens, Aphorismen und Bilder. Marián Hatala ist ständig auf der Suche nach eigenen Ansichtsweisen und Ausdrucksformen. Er ist kein
Visionär, sondern ein Schöpfer, der die
Sachen beim Namen nennt und seine Poetik ist durchaus originell. Im Jahr 2006 ist
eine Auswahl aus Hatalas Lyrik unter dem
Titel Zum greifen weit (Ďaleko na dosah)
erschienen. Der Autor beweist, dass er als
Poet die Realität durchaus scharfsinnig,
witzig und ironisch kommentieren kann.
Er hat auch zwei Aphorismen-Sammlungen herausgegeben: 2006 ist der Band
Warum die Zwerge so schnell wachsen
(Prečo trpaslíci tak rýchlo rastú) erschienen, und 2008 Wenn du vorhast nachts
Klavier zu spielen (Ak chceš hrať v noci na
klavíri). Marián Hatala ist auch als Übersetzer bekannt er, hat u. A. Werke von Rolf
Dieter Brinkmann, Manfred Chobot, Erich
Fried, Reiner Kunze, Ingo Schulze ins Slowakische übersetzt.
23/6/09 20:10
30 |
Oto Čenko
Oto Čenko
pen name
YOU’RE NOT ONE OF US,
WE’LL RUB YOU OUT
A
tall, slender man, whose body had evidently been
honed for a considerable time in a gym, entered
Noblesse, a fashionable Bratislava dining and
drinking establishment. He looked to be fortysomething. Nevertheless, he dressed at least ten years younger:
he wore nothing but black; his thick black hair, unusual for
his age, was styled with gel and on the top of his head rested
his image-making sunglasses. There was no activity where he
would be caught without his glasses on his head, intercourse
and shower not excluded. Even his accessories – cell phone,
lighter, and watch – were perfectly matched. The only thing
that did not suit him was his name. It was Vasil Hrkel – and
each “l” was pronounced soft – and that made him so mad
that he preferred to be called Egg.
At first glance, it was clear that he was either a graduate of
the Fine Arts Academy in Bratislava, or a creative employee
of an advertising agency, or a combination of both. That was
clear not only from Egg’s clothing, but above all from the
way he opened the door and entered the room. Nobody in
the world is capable of entering any sort of room, whether it
be the community centre in the little village of Lower Peeville,
or an Indian shack in the Andes of Peru, or the Élysée Palace,
the way a graduate or a student of the Fine Arts Academy in
Bratislava can do it. A person sometimes feels that entering
rooms is a subject to which the above mentioned Academy
devotes the whole semester. And what is more, this particular
individual was widely known in the media: he was the first
one to realize that the foundation of entrepreneurial success
in this branch of endeavour in Slovakia is friendship with
the politicians and the managers of State-owned companies
nominated to their positions by the politicians. He was
the first to be totally unscrupulous in this respect and
was not even coy about it and thus became the target of
condescension by his colleagues, who collectively branded
him a media fraud and the biggest floozy in the business. But
that was before Vasil Hrkel was photographed for the tabloid
Tatrin in the swimming pool of his mansion on the hill above
Bratislava in the company of Miss Swimsuit. Only then did
his colleagues wise up and realize that he was a pioneer who
was blazing the trail and that, instead of hatred, he deserved
admiration. And so they elected him President of the Slovak
Academy of Advertising, which meant that, as the first Slovak
Academician, he became immortal. They even wanted to
nominate him for a Nobel Prize, but then the Prime Minister
decided they should nominate the poet Štajnhýbel instead.
If it had been anyone else entering the Noblesse, such
as a milkmaid, a diver, a forest ranger, Šaňo Mach, an
astronaut, a theatre producer, or any other simple person,
none of those present would have paid any attention. By
those present, one means the line-up of waitresses, of
whom it was unclear whether they were not primarily
hookers, three gangsters from Dunaszerda, of whom it
was unclear whether they were not primarily businessmen.
But it was Egg who entered the pub, the media magnate
and a famous face from the tabloids and on top of that an
inimitable graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts and that
was sufficient reason for those present to minimally raise an
eyebrow. At first Egg froze in the doorway for a few seconds
– that was just enough to attract attention, and not enough
to make everyone in the house pissed off for letting in too
much cold from the street. He checked out the situation in a
flash to discover what he could afford to do. For those who
enter the room, there are two categories of graduates from
the Academy of Fine Arts. The first is mostly composed
of the young, inexperienced and arrogant. Those always
enter the place noisily, leaving the door open, or remain
in the doorway for so long that someone shouts at them
to close it. Then they greet their companions noisily and
for three hours they bark for the whole room to hear about
their film and theatre wisdom, and announce, urbi et orbi,
that they have slaved in the cutting room till morning and
that all their teachers are pricks and ask if anyone saw the
fucked-up performance in the National Theatre with Mrs.
Milka in the main role. They don’t care who and how many
people are in the room, whether anyone can hear them, or
is listening to them, and in every sentence use words like
old man, prick, boss, asshole, jerk, move their chair in the
noisiest manner on principle and, as soon as their ass hits
the chair, they smoke, although it is prohibited. And so it
goes. They do so up to the point that they piss one of the
businessmen off and get their mug punched in the men’s
room. At that moment, the said graduate of the Academy
of Fine Arts moves up to the next category: he would never
enter the room without a short, but thorough inspection of
the situation. He starts to get loud only at the moment when
he discovers that the air is clear. There are a few characters
who have transferred to the second category without a
fight, simply by the advancement of age, but there are not
many of those. Even Egg was not one of them: he received
the obligatory beating a long time ago, some time at the
beginning of the nineties, when he shot his first commercial
(for royal jelly) and thought that Bratislava lay at his feet. It
did not, instead, it was he who found himself lying on the
floor, more precisely on the tiles wet with piss in the men’s
room of The Good Soul Restaurant, at the feet of a certain
businessman called Rob who could no longer tolerate Egg’s
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
Oto Čenko
noisy critique of the lighting work by Bergman’s cameraman
Sven Nykvist (at that time, Egg was going through a phase,
claiming that commercials were only his sideline and he was
mainly into film), and so the nice businessman Rob waited
for him to show him concretely who was the chairman of
planet Slovakia.
With his experienced look, Egg determined that the
Noblesse was not going to be a threat to him today. To tell
the truth, he no longer had to care: for some time Egg had
belonged among that special category of people who could
behave in any manner anywhere in Slovakia. This was thanks
to his achievement, his influence, and his public face. But
just because he could afford to behave like a jerk, he behaved
correctly, was distinguished, and inconspicuous. A certain
charisma, a certain style of his entrance remained in him
(after all, he was a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts and
the influence of this significant Slovak educational institution
could not be erased just like that), but he already knew how to
control himself. He knew he did not have to prove anything
to anyone, but there was no point in tempting fate and it
was better to be inconspicuous than to act like a king of the
universe. Moreover, Egg was getting ready to enter politics
– he didn’t want to mention it to anyone yet and was a bit
worried about the reaction of the Prime Minister – and with
that intention, he decided to work on his assertiveness and
self-discipline.
After all, that was also what brought him here, to the
Noblesse, today. Usually he would not come here, especially
not for lunch. The restaurant seemed to him – despite its
name – above all not noble enough. The prices, as far as
food was concerned, were higher only in the restaurant
Allegro in the hotel Four Seasons in Prague, but Egg, who
knew Bratislava’s establishments very well, knew how the
specialities of the house were prepared, whether it was the
“famous” Blue Pressburger Lobster in ginger purée and
flambé accompaniments, or its sea food that was without
fault – except that it hailed from the nearby Senec Lake. And
since he knew that, he never brought his clients here. And
we have in mind the real clients, not some vulgar types who
privatised the Hydro Construction Company of Rimavská
Sobota, or the local elite who hailed from faraway Svidník
in the East. The latter Egg gladly brought over here, if he
had to. For one thing, these people wanted it (for all Slovak
businessmen, dining in the Noblesse was the peak experience
and an emblem of prestige and accomplishment, something
Egg could never understand), and at the same time it gave
Egg an opportunity to let the owner of the dining room, a
certain Pusspoky from Šamorín, know what he really thought
about his establishment. Pusspoky knew that very well and
it made him quite livid and so he had even invited Egg for
lunch to Assimakopoulos in the Hotel Carlton, to persuade
him to bring to his restaurant, instead of the peasants
from the East, some of the more important of his clients,
for example the Director of the International Chamber of
Commerce, or the Director of the National Property Fund, if
not the Prime Minister himself. But Egg pretended he did not
understand, arguing that a peasant from Turčianska Porúbka
or elsewhere, the owner of a local factory producing veneer
boards, would spend a hundred times more for a dinner in the
Volume 14, Number 2
| 31
Noblesse than some clever parasite from some supranational
company that does not produce anything, but sticks its
fingers everywhere or some stuttering chairman of some
government organisation who only yesterday used to live in
a prefab housing apartment surrounded by polyester doilies
knitted by his unattractive, overweight wife with breasts like
milk jugs, a man who has no idea that his tie should reach
down to his belt and that the third button on his jacket is
never to be buttoned. Also, could he tell Pusspoky that he,
Egg, was himself interested in acquiring the Noblesse? Of
course, not this pedestrian version, but the real, world-class
one, so good that even Michelin inspectors who award stars
to the world’s best restaurants would notice it. Egg knew how
to contact them and he considered it to be one of the jewels
of his portfolio. He wanted to be the first and only one with
a Michelin star in Slovakia. That was Egg’s secret plan as the
restaurant had a terrific location and an astonishing revenue
per chair and a fantastic potential. At the same time, he knew
it would be difficult to pull off: Pusspoky was a member of
a gang that ruled this particular part of Bratislava with an
iron fist. Egg knew that the only man who could help him
in this would be the Prime Minister who, at the same time,
would have to be introduced carefully to the idea that Egg
had political ambitions.
To put it briefly, Egg did not want to increase the equity of
Pusspoky’s pub and thus complicate the future operation of
his takeover of this establishment. For that reason he showed
up as little as he could on purpose and if he could not resist
the insistence of clients – or more often their wives – then he
would not eat at the Noblesse, but instead, he would torment
its staff with his sophisticated demands, such as the Chinese
fennel tea with honey amuse bouche or other snobbish
nonsense. Not that he was a great gourmet; after all, he could
still get excited by a portion of cod salad with a couple of
buns, but his position in life predetermined that he become
a gourmet and a wine connoisseur, whether he liked it or not.
And so he occasionally expressed himself as one.
Frankly, it was compassion rather than assertiveness that
brought Egg to the Noblesse for lunch after such a long time.
He worked on his assertiveness for those who would vote for
him in the future. Compassion was for those who had some
connection to him in the past. This latter was the case today.
The object of Egg’s compassion was the only real customer
in the house, who was already waiting there – his high school
classmate René F. Because he will be the main character of
this decadent story, we will have to pay more attention to him.
At first sight, he looked a bit younger than Egg, dressed in
a green corduroy suit with newish brown shoes with scuffed
toes. The suit looked a bit old-fashioned, but otherwise
seemed fine since it fitted René’s slender figure quite well. It is
important to note right at the outset that René was not some
kind of country bumpkin and loser who could not make it in
the capital city. It may sometimes have seemed like that. His
hair was getting thin, but it had not reached the point when
he would have to use some sophisticated means of hiding it.
He did not carry any extra weight, though he might give the
impression that he did a bit. René was a sportsman, he knew
how to kick the ball and also had a nice two-handed backhand.
23/6/09 20:10
32 |
Peter Pavlac
Peter Pavlac
A FILM OR THE FRESHWATER
CISTERN IN THE HOLE
F
rantišek Hromek is obviously under the influence.
Of alcohol, Bob Wilson, his girlfriend Lucia, David
Lynch and other significant circumstances.
Nostalgically thinking about alcohol, about his
girlfriend Lucia, about David Lynch, but, and this is the most
important, most decisive and most harrowing thing, he is
trying to forget the main, undoubtedly most distracting idea,
which has to do with his latest passion. As the script suggests,
it is one of the most trivial desires: imagining fame, easy riches
and an entry in the historical annals and encyclopedias. The
thing is that he would like to make a FILM.
František is sitting at a bar in Pezinok, watching three
Bratislavan beauties who came in a short time ago, pondering
his desire and at the same time replaying in his mind
several scenes from the past few days. These scenes concern
unsuccessful attempts to pitch his proposal to any of the
students of film direction at the Film School, VSMU. It is an
idea that is certainly brilliant. It is an idea that would deserve
an Igric Award at the very least. These are the thoughts of
František Hromek, an educated individual, but in a completely
different line of work than the movie industry. František
Hormek is an engineer of water constructions. Despite that, he
has recently been focusing on films. It truly is his new passion.
František Hromek is trying to see things realistically. He is
thinking about motivation, a word which he has learned to use
in a new context. The thing is that each director who turned
down his brilliant script always asked him about his urges and
motivation. František Hromek doesn’t have an answer to this
question yet. He doesn’t feel the need to have it at this time. For
the time being, he is trying to resolve the contrast between what
he knows, what he wants and what he is capable of. A boring
topic at first glance. But behold! It should not be overlooked
that certain things are hidden, never come to the surface and
this is something that František Hromek, an engineer of water
constructions, could tell us about. Things like various turbines
or various segments, or supply and draft canals. But right now
he would not want to tell us anything about it. Right now he is
just thinking and pondering and sipping his red wine, just like
that, no special reason, just for himself and his depression. Red
wine. Ha! Motivation they say. They keep expecting motivation
from him. Why? Why does he want to make a movie? That’s the
thing. He knows. He just doesn’t know how to put it into words.
And in the end why should anyone else know it?
The three Bratislavan beauties probably came here to pick
up some men. They take in the new surroundings which are
typical of Pezinok. The whole world changes for them, they feel
‘above everything’, because nobody knows them here, because
they are convinced that they are attractive. František Hromek, an
engineer of water constructions with a brilliant script in hand, is
not someone who would interest them. The three beauties have
just been joined by the first threesome of your usual Pezinok
leather jacketed guys. František is not sorry. At all. Not a chance.
Despite him turning his head in their direction so as to see what
they were up to. They want to have fun. Obviously at any cost.
František ordered another spritzer and concluded that he would
have to make it last for another two hours. The thing is he doesn’t
have money for another one and the night is just beginning.
Nobody notices him and he isn’t taking notice of anyone either.
A total symbiosis in this noisy environment. The music is playing
really loud. He turns. The bar stool is round. It turns. He blinks
his eyes. A stroboscope. He covers his ears. A sound stroboscope.
Perfect. He likes it. He’ll use this effect in his film. Later. Now he
turns back. STOP! He pauses, noticing something…
Frantisek Hromek is staring at the entrance staircase. The
person descending is way too familiar to him. He knows him.
He’s seen him around. In the end, the person who shows up
here served him as a pre-picture of one of the four characters
in his script. What’s he doing here? It’s definitely him. All he’s
missing is the “Not Even 5,000 Truths Could Save Me” sign
that he usually wears around his neck. He has a high forehead
and an absent look in his eyes. He knew why he chose him
to be the character of Peter. He chuckled. Unbelievable! He
orders a beer. The waiter greets him. They know each other.
Exactly! It’s his character. He made it up. But…
He turns around again and again sees a person coming that
he knows, someone who served him as a pre-picture of D-ano’s
character, and right behind him!! Yes, right behind him in walk
Jožo and Fero. Actually that’s just what he called them in his script,
he doesn’t really know their names. František is amazed. Images
and connections that he has been looking for all those months, the
associations and contacts between them, the stories that he made
up so he could put them together, everything that he discovered
and could only be grateful to his attention and imagination for,
appeared all of a sudden as constructions not at all imagined,
like the truth that exists in a different dimension, and at the same
time in the visible and tangible one. Great. All of his characters
are meeting up here. D-ano, Jožo and Fero know each other. And
Peter knows them too, because they are coming up to him and
greeting each other. Just the way he thought it up. A coincidence…
Overlapping of structures…. František is not an intellectual. He
doesn’t understand their words. They sit down at a table together
and talk. Once in a while one of them stretches and then they
laugh. He doesn’t know what this is about. Some kind of a game
or something like that. František focuses all his attention on them.
Another threesome of Pezinok hicks with gelled up hair,
reeking of cheap cologne, are now trying their luck with the
Bratislava beauties.
František isn’t noticing them any more. He’s watching his
characters and in his head going through his memories of how
he discovered their primary templates. He made up D-ano when
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
Peter Pavlac
| 33
he saw him once lying in front of the Obzor movie theatre. He was on the ground with
PETER PAVLAC (1976)
a bloody lip, embarrassed by his own wife, who was kicking him because he wouldn’t
buy her a beer. Despite all this he had so much dignity and looked so unbelievably
peaceful and determined, as if he were bearing some extremely important message and
the primitiveness of his wife couldn’t knock him off balance. A firm look in his tear-filled
eyes. František was sitting on a tram when all this happened and was only watching from
a distance but in any case he saw enough. He named him D-ano and made him the ‘Lord
of the Cistern’. A mother with a child got on the tram at the next stop. He was shocked by
what the child said back then: “Do we have to go? I want to see how the play ends,” and by
that, the child meant D-ano being beaten up by his own wife. That is why he is not D-ano,
but D-ano. Thick and bent over. His mind stopped… and that’s when he saw a person
across from him, with earphones in his ears who hadn’t heard what the child said. First he
was thinking about the total lack of sensitivity of the child, at which the mother reacted
with laughter and the other passenger with the uninvolved look of someone phlegmatic.
František condemned him to death. One cynical person after another. It was only then that
he noticed his earphones and had to reprimand himself. He had wronged him. The man
was an innocent, as they say of children who disappear from this world. He had a book on
nuclear physics and astronomy in his lap. Jožo. He named him Jožo and he made a painter
Writer, playwright and dramaturge.
of mathematical diagrams out of him, who had the role of a director in his film. (He
He graduated in theatre direction and
decided on the form of a film within the film.) And that’s when Fero showed up. On that
dramaturgy at the Faculty of Drama and
same tram. Everyone thought he was the ticket inspector, waiting for him to pull out his
Puppetry at the Academy of Performing
badge and start checking everyone, because his quiet appearance of a dreamy printmaker
Arts (VŠMU) in Bratislava, where he
did not look right in this situation on the tram. In the end he turned out not to be the
currently lectures in the Department of
ticket inspector. Jožo didn’t notice him, and that is why František assumed that they didn’t
Direction and Dramaturgy. In 2001 he
know each other. And Peter? He saw him that day as well. He was walking down Laurinska
published a collection of short stories
Street with a tag around his neck and František was trying to figure out why. Why couldn’t
Laughing Game (Hra na smiech),
he be saved by 5,000 truths? What does it actually mean? He didn’t understand it. That’s
which was awarded a Premium from
why he chose him for his film. The owner of the yellow dog. A real dog.
the Slovak Literary Fund. Many of his
And now all four of them are sitting here in the same bar talking to each other. Just
plays and adaptations have been staged
the way František wrote it in his script. That is what František is thinking, because now
in Slovak theatres. In 2007, together
nothing seems impossible to him any more. The boundaries of two worlds have been
with Patrik Lančarič and Marko Igonda,
erased in a matter of a few minutes and he’s convinced that he’s not drunk enough
he wrote a film adaptation of Leopold
for his mind to be filling in empty places which he himself was not able to fill. In the
Lahola’s novel Meeting the Enemy
end he doesn’t care.
(Rozhovor s nepriateľom). In May 2009
He is watching them carefully, jerking when one of the Bratislavan beauties bumps
the Bratislava theatre Astorka premiered
into him. The ladies are now entertaining a third threesome of drink buyers in this
his drama The Red Princess (Červená
short interval of self-fun. František watches their pack leader for a while. A sex machine
princezná). It is based on the real events
with unnatural body language. She’s really getting on his nerves. The second one is
and the complicated fate of Galina
kind of pretty, but she gives in to the Machine’s whims. The third one is trying to stack
Brezhnev but the play also deals with
up to the other two and repeats everything with great exaggeration. No one is noticing
ethical, social and political topics.
her, but the poor girl is trying…
František turns his head back to his characters. They just started playing Brighella. Even that he thought he had invented.
They’re really into it. František is enjoying it with them. However he notices that, once in a while, they glance at the three beauties.
It seems as if they’re getting on their nerves, too.
Yes, everything is heading in the direction of the film being shot soon. František has already forgotten his depression, what
he is interested in is whether everything will happen as he wrote it not too long ago. In the end, even the three beauties… even
they appeared in the script somewhere. Or not? He can’t remember exactly, he is a little drunk.
And that’s when it happens. His foursome of characters decide to entertain themselves in a new way. He hears their jubilant voices
exclaiming that they are going to make a film. They are assigning roles, even though František has assigned the roles a long time
ago. They’re doing everything that he describes in the script. Ha! He laughs internally. They told him the script was too unrealistic
for this day and age but they should see this. They should see what is reality and what is fiction. They can shove their magical realistic
abstractions of intellectual character. This is where the genius of the new generation steps in. František has no doubt in his mind now
that everything will happen as he has written it. That’s why it’ll be best to insert an abridged version of the most important part of the
script, so it’s not necessary to react with unnecessary description and various stylistic-writer tricks to what is going on here. Here it is:
Theme
Author: František Hromek
Title: A Freshwater Cistern in the Hole
Translated by Viridiana Carleo
From Hra na smiech, L. C. A., 2001
Volume 14, Number 2
23/6/09 20:10
34 |
John Minahane
HUMOUR AND IRONY IN CULTURAL CONFRONTATION
In November 2007 the Slovak Literary Translators Society organized a two day work-shop Humour and Irony in Cultural
Confrontation. Many Slovak and foreign writers, literary critics and translators participated at the workshop that took place in
Budmerice castle. They discussed literature and humour in Slovak and European literatures. From the rich material we offer two
contributions by our two fellow workers, specialists in Slovak studies, Slovak literature, and, as it has been proven, humour.
John Minahane
poet, translator, scholar
KOLENIČ AND HIS INSPIRATIONS
A
few years ago I was asked to translate an extract
from Ivan Kolenič’s new novel Say Goodbye to Poetry.
I realised instantly that I was up against the peculiar
literary being known as the Accursed Poet. Taken as
a type, in English-speaking countries the Accursed Poet is one of
the most popular poets of all. The largest poetic gathering I have
ever seen was in the RDS Main Hall in Dublin, a huge auditorium
otherwise used for conferences of major political parties, Tina
Turner concerts and the like; on this unique occasion it was
packed to the doors for a poetry reading by the Most Accursed
American, Allen Ginsberg. It is paradoxical that, while the
Accursed Poet despises conventional society, conventional
society, which normally despises poetry, treats the Accursed Poet
with something like respect. To a certain extent it recognises his
calling. As if representing society he publicly drinks himself into
a stupor, takes exotic drugs, has scandalous relationships, lives
on the brink of lunacy, suffers excruciating torment, and in the
end hopefully gathers the flowers of his evils, poetry. Respectable
society at the very least takes an interest. Ultimately perhaps it
is even grateful – not counting those respectable people who
happen to be the Accursed Poet’s relations.
But what sort of mind does he have, this Accursed Poet? Does
he have a sense of humour? And if so, what kind? – There’s a
continuing argument over whether these poets have any humour
at all. Many readers think that they don’t – they can’t, since they
take their mission too seriously. In some individual cases the
evidence is compelling. Taking Ginsberg for example, I would
fully agree that humour wasn’t his strong point.
But Kolenič resurrects the Accursed Poet with unpredictable
humour as well as imaginative energy. Right at the beginning,
Kolenič gives him the ideal girlfriend, who wants nothing else
but to have her share of poetic suffering: She told me she loved
me as a verse-creating object, as something with an enormous shaggy
tail, something absurdly spectacular and at the same time hopelessly
primitive, old-fashioned, prehistoric; I love you as a most magnificently
versifying object, Klárika would murmur through kiss-curved lips before
everyone had fallen asleep and let nothingness alight upon the earth, till
then unended, I love you as an object of poetry, as a swarm of animate
corpuscles, as a race of irredeemable tramps... while all were not yet
sleeping Klárika was in her element, she raved into the blue sky like
a crossed-out conscience, she spat out her ice-cream over bastards and
roared laughing, she did handstands and cartwheels, she stripped off her
T-shirt in the public squares, ripping the hearts out of old men, she was
splendid and beautiful, she would dream with open eyes of inaugurating
the reign of folly, then immediately fall into gloom and vicious cursing –
the chaff to death, the cornucopia for life!
Kolenič begins with a high measure of confidence; he willingly,
even arrogantly takes risks. Amidst the flood of lyric association,
when there’s scarcely room on a page for as many as two full
stops, he is not afraid to throw a banal little midget-sentence
into the torrent and thus deliberately provoke comic bathos. For
example, when the narrative turns abruptly from Klárika to the
poet: ... when the bus inspector was coming she thrust lighted cigarettes
into her pockets, she flung about dog-eared banknotes, she swigged stout
from the bottle like a dipso, she bought half-pints of vodka and poured it
in transports of feeling behind her collar, she gripped me powerfully by
the hand till it took my breath away, and whispered that she loved me,
she loved me catastrophically... I love you, poet of mine, it’s beautiful
with you, everything with you is about love and frightful suffering!
She’d hit the nail on the head. Because the poet is an inexplicably
mysterious creature, delicately concealed, the poet is a being without
time and space, the angels of blasphemy are roving in his veins and
craning out as far as his devil’s hooves, hence the poet is an oddity of
creation, eccentric, non-sterotypical, an ethereal, astrophysical, jaded
figure, he conceals within himself armies of woe and dreadful pain,
which are all the time exploding in him like summer storms, and
simultaneously he dispatches into the world regiments of unlimited bliss,
the poet is scorned, spat upon, buried underground, made a saint of,
chopped in little bits, he’s an instinctive predator, hated and loved,
hating and loving, och! how a poet can love...
That much will do to give the flavour. To my mind, it’s a
successful experiment with language and an interesting original
variation on the old theme of the Accursed Poet. I had to translate
the first ten pages and translate them I did, with frightful
translator’s suffering, because Kolenič has an amazingly wide
vocabulary of the high and low Slovak tongue. And then I went
out to buy the book. I was anxious to read the rest. And I wanted
to know if he could hold this pace to the end.
Half-way through, after seventy, eighty pages, the question
was still open. Kolenič found a brilliant inspiration for his central
plot. He imagined a mysterious disease which deprives all normal
conventional people of their physical and mental capacities,
leaving only the poet – along with the lowest rabble, to whom he
belongs – immune. This is a very old, in fact an archaic theme: it’s
the central theme of the old Irish epic Táin Bó Cuailnge. In the Táin
the immune super-hero Cú Chulainn single-handedly defends the
province of Ulster against the rest of Ireland, while the warriors of
Ulster lie incapacitated by a kind of “labour pains”. Cú Chulainn,
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
| 35
John Minahane | Ute Raßloff
unlike the Accursed Poet, is by no means one of the rabble, but he
too is an outsider. I have no idea how Kolenič came by this theme;
for his purposes he revives it as something fresh and vital.
And yet, alas... our author’s courage fails him in the end. His
lyric despair lures him to a fatally easy solution. As I understand
it, his poet surrenders the pride of the Accursed and collapses
meanly into the (now incapacitated) conventional multitude. He
ceases to be Accursed and becomes just normally, unpoetically,
vicious... ordinarily, crassly obnoxious. By the end I felt
disillusioned and angry.
Nevertheless I think this novel is an interesting literary
experiment. I haven’t often found so much lyrical talent in the
prose of our times.
Can something like that be translated, retaining the humour
that belongs to it integrally? I made the attempt for the Slovak
Literary Review (December 2004).
Afterwards a lady from a publishing house in Illinois, USA,
who was interested in new authors from Central and Eastern
Europe, wanted to know if there was anyone fit to publish in
Slovakia. She was put in contact with me, and straightaway I sent
her my ten pages from Kolenič. He genuinely was outstanding
among those prose writers whom I’d translated and, aside from
that, I was curious: what would they make of him in the land
of Edgar Allen Poe? But immediately after sending my e-mail
I regretted it. An inner voice was telling me, “You idiot! If she
Ute Raßloff
accepts it... that means translating one hundred and fifty pages
of this phantasmagoria... including the parts you can’t stand!”
The lady from Illinois replied immediately, “Thank you very
much for sending the prose extract by Ivan Kolenič. Once we’ve
considered it I’ll be in touch right away.” Three weeks went by,
a month; I imagined various conflicts in the literary community
in Illinois. Finally the lady replied, “Thank you again for sending
the prose extract by Ivan Kolenič. Unfortunately, in our opinion
it is not suitable for the selection we intend to publish.” And she
gave her reasons. “I never got into it at all. For me this author is
unconvincing.” To be blunt, and putting it plainly: “It seems to
me he‘s got a bad attitude towards women...”
First of all, I breathed a sigh of relief: I’m free of those hundred
and fifty pages! And secondly... well, why should I reproach the
lady from Illinois for her incomprehension and prosy political
correctness? – because surely she’s right after all: this author’s
attitude to women leaves a certain room for improvement.
Though, mind you, this lady isn’t Kolenič’s mother, she’s a literary
person judging him as an author. That might make a difference.
The question will have to remain open, as to which of us is to
blame: whether Kolenič, being unable to write convincingly, or
myself, not being able to do a convincing English translation,
or the lady from Illinois, who just might be a little bit lacking in
the quality which we call humour. Be that as it may, this story of
a Slovak literary foray into America has no happyending.
Slavistin, Hochschulpädagogin, Übersetzerin
DIE ÜBERSETZBARKEIT DES HUMORS
D
ie Literatur Mitteleuropas lebt bekanntlich von der
Ironie. Diese beruht ähnlich wie die Höflichkeit
auf einer Nichtübereinstimmung zwischen dem
Gesagten und Gemeinten, wobei gerade das
interferenzielle Verhältnis zwischen diesen beiden Ebenen den
ästhetischen Effekt einer doppeldeutigen Aussage garantiert.
Das Übersetzungsproblem besteht dann darin, die Dopplung
und gegenseitige Durchdringung zweier Ebenen in einer
Aussage zu übertragen. Weil Mystifikationen ein performatives
Genre sind, potenziert sich bei ihnen dieses Problem.
Während dem Rezipienten eines Kunstwerkes signalisiert
wird, dass er eine Fiktion vor sich hat, wird dem Adressaten der
Mystifikation die Tatsache der Fiktion mit Absicht unterschlagen. So begegnen sich hier in einer Kommunikationssituation
zwei Wirklichkeiten, die „reale“ und eine „erfundene“. Dieses
Wechselspiel zweier Realitäten ist die erste Voraussetzung
einer erfolgreichen Mystifikation. Da Mystifikationen in der
Zeit stattfinden, kann man sich diese Interferenz zweier Welten
oder Kodes als permanentes Umschalten oder als Hin- und Herspringen zwischen zwei Rahmen vorstellen, als Schwingung
zwischen dem Realen und dem Fiktionalen, zwischen Spiel gewordener Wirklichkeit und Wirklichkeit gewordenem Spiel...
Die Person des Mystifikators, eigentlich ein Performer, ist die
zweite Voraussetzung der Mystifikation. Die dritte Voraussetzung ist das Publikum, dem die Rahmenbedingungen vertraut
sind, während ihm zugleich entscheidende Informationen
über die Authentizität des in der Mystifikation Vorgetäuschten
fehlen. Die Mystifikation ähnelt dem Happening – sie ist eine
Volume 14, Number 2
mixmediale Inszenierung performativen Charakters.
Mystifikationen knüpfen sich in der Regel an kulturelle
Dogmen, Glaubensinhalte oder Werte. In der Vergangenheit
traten sie vermehrt in Zeiten kulturellen Wertewandels auf. So
untersuchten Johann Wolfgang von Goethe oder Denis Diderot
– etwa beim Schreiben unter Pseudonym, – wie der Autor in eine
andere Rolle schlüpfen kann, um eine andere Aussage zu treffen
als die an seine eigene Person gebundene. Auf diese Weise entdeckten sie die Fragilität der Autoreninstanz. Ähnlich verhielt
es sich mit Ján Chalupka im Falle seines auf deutsch verfassten
„Bendegúz“, den er als Übersetzung aus dem Ungarischen deklarierte. Oder Jaroslav Hašek: In seiner „Welt der Tiere“ oder
in der „Partei des maßvollen Fortschritts in den Grenzen der
Gesetze“ verwandelte er eine offenkundige Unwahrscheinlichkeit dadurch in „Wahrheit“, dass er sie in den institutionell gesicherten Rahmen einer Zeitschrift oder einer Wahlkampfperformance hineinversetzte. Aus beiden Werken sind Texte erfolgreich
ins Deutsche übersetzt worden. Vermutlich deshalb, weil auch
die deutsche Kultur solche Instanzen wie Zeitschriften, Lexika,
Parteien und Wahlkämpfe kennt. Diese Errungenschaften der
Kultur sind offenbar sehr rasch zum Mythos im Sinne Von
Roland Barthes „naturalisiert“ worden, so dass man sie als etwas
Natürliches wahrzunehmen begann. Die Mystifikation verfügt
über das Potenzial, Mythen zu demystifizieren und ihr kulturelles Erfundensein zur Schau zu stellen. Doch sie ist deutlich kontextgebunden. Die Übersetzbarkeit des Humors hängt im Falle
einer solchen Mystifikation dann wohl vor allem von der Kompatibilität von Ausgangs- und Zielkultur ab.
23/6/09 20:10
36 |
Interview
Translation Is a Duel
Interview with Peter Petro
The Association of the Slovak
Writers’ Organisations awards the
P. O. Hviezdoslav Award each year
to a translator of Slovak literature
into a foreign language. In December
last year, this prize was awarded to
the literary scholar, PETER PETRO,
who lives in Canada. He was awarded
the prize for his translations into
English.
Peter Petro studied at Comenius
University in Bratislava before moving
to Canada and continuing his studies
at the University of British Columbia
and the University of Alberta in
Edmonton (Ph.D in Comparative
Literature). He teaches Russian and
Slavic literature at the University of
British Columbia and holds the Chair
of Modern European Studies.
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: How did
Pistanek’s trilogy find its way to Great
Britain?
− PETER PETRO: In 2006, I decided
to translate Pišťanek’s Rivers of Babylon
1, and when I had done a third of the
novel, I started looking for a publisher.
While I was looking, I was contacted
by Prof. Donald Rayfield, a publisher
of Garnett Press in London, who was
actually wondering if anyone had
translated the work. Something like that
happens only once in a lifetime. It’s an
incredible coincidence, isn’t it?
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: Tell us about
the beginnings of your association with the
Literary Centre
− PETER PETRO: I started to work for
the Literary Centre a long time ago,
by translating short excerpts from the
works of Slovak authors, their brief
biographies, and also reviewed some of
the new Slovak works in English.
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: How do you
choose your translations if they don’t come
to you themselves?
− PETER PETRO: I choose a few, but
have managed to publish only one. A
few others I have published came to me
from the publishers. Still, I have done
very little in comparison with what the
Slovak translators have done and I have
a great deal of respect for their work.
On the other hand, they only translate
when they have a contract in their hand.
I have to gamble, with the result that I
sometimes work for nothing. I wonder
how long I’ll keep on doing this.
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: Do you follow
what is being published in Slovakia?
− PETER PETRO: Sporadically.
Sometimes I read the reviews but, to tell
the truth, I depend on the advice of my
friends and acquaintances.
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: Do you have
favourites among the contemporary works?
Do you answer questions like this?
− PETER PETRO: I would rather not
name any names; the people I like are
very well aware of it.
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: Your
translation method?
− PETER PETRO: I don’t think I have
one... I don’t know much about the
theory of translation.
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: Your beloved
text?
− PETER PETRO: I don’t fall in love
with a text. Translation is hard. It is a
duel in which I know I am bound to
lose. Nevertheless, I do whatever I can
to lose with dignity.
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: What seems to
be the biggest problem in translation?
− PETER PETRO: Sometimes it is a
little detail that turns into a catastrophe
when I feel that the atmosphere, or the
meaning of something that is said, or
some action, would never have the same
meaning it has in the original. Then you
work like a slave and when you finally
do come up with some compromise
(never the real thing), it is still not what
you need...
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: What do you
like to avoid?
− PETER PETRO: Poetry.
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: Since this issue
is devoted to humour in Slovak literature,
do you find humour in it?
− PETER PETRO: Of course, mainly in
the contemporary literature. I love the
work of Peter Gregor, Lasica, Janovic.
I laugh at Pišťanek’s style of humour,
and there is humour in the excerpt from
Oto Čenko.
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: Besides
translating, you lecture at the university.
What do your students think of Slovak
humour, or what do they think of Slovak
literature?
− PETER PETRO: Actually, it’s the
other way round: beside lecturing,
I sometimes translate. The students
don’t know Slovak literature and they
don’t find Rivers of Babylon funny.
This might be the result of cultural
differences, but that would be a long
debate.
• EVA MELICHÁRKOVÁ: You teach
Slavic literature, not Slovak literature. Do
you have any students interested specifically
in Slovak literature? Would they like to
translate from it?
− PETER PETRO: No, I don’t, since
they don’t read Slovak.
• Thank you for sharing your experience.
Eva Melichárková
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
| 37
Reviews
Samko Tále Conquers
the Arab World
MAREK BRIEŠKA
arabist, translator
Samko Tále
Kitaab an al-Maqbara / Kniha o
cintoríne
Translated and published by Ghias
Mousli, Homs, Syria
Daniela Kapitáňová’s aka Samko Tále’s
A Book about a Cemetery was translated
into Arabic by Dr. Ghias Mousli and
published in Syria in 2008.
The tale revolves around the life of
the main character, Samko Tále, whose
narrative tells the stories of people
living in a small town in Slovakia. D.
Kapitáňová uses the perspective of
a mentally handicapped person to
describe life in Slovakia both prior
to 1989 and afterwards. Samko’s
often naïve yet revealing insights
into the problems and ambitions of
the protagonists help to create the
appropriate atmosphere for setting
a rather loose plot. His sometimes
distorted perception allows readers to
see the world of “pre-velvet revolution”
and “post-velvet revolution” Slovakia
through very particular lenses.
Perceptive readers will readily
recognize some deep-rooted features
of the Slovak mentality. Consequently,
translating this book into Arabic poses
several problems for the translator. The
first is embedded in the very structure
of Arabic, which resists the absorption
of a great number of neologisms. The
second is a linguistic situation that has
perplexed the Arab/Islamic world for
centuries – the infamous diglossia, i.e.
using two variants of the same language
within one linguistic community. This
creates large discrepancies for writers,
who are confronted with the inevitable
choice of which variant to choose. Dr.
Ghias Mousli has chosen the path of the
majority of Arab writers/translators. He
has opted for a highly codified standard
medium, which is used throughout the
book, thus making it accessible to all
readers from the Arab world. However,
this approach also has its shortcomings.
First and foremost is an unrealistic
rendering of characters, since almost
Volume 14, Number 2
no uneducated individual across
the whole Arab world uses standard
Arabic in normal everyday discourse.
This causes the characters to appear
somewhat unrealistic, which is further
exacerbated by the fact that Samko
Tale is rather “simple” and suffers
from mental retardation and a strange
disease the author refers to as "Elypsia".
No matter how strange it may seem to
follow his thoughts in standard Arabic,
the translator skilfully uses different
linguistic and syntactical methods to
render Samko’s oral performance as
close to the original as possible. His
character and manner of speech are
clearly different from the rest of the
characters, thus creating the necessary
distinction. Also, as for names that are
quite numerous, all were rendered close
to the original and meaningfully. It is
also worth noting that the translator has
succeeded in translating some culturally
specific items pertaining to Slovakia into
Arabic very well, managing to retain the
semantic charge.. On the other hand,
some terms that have their equivalent in
Arabic have remained untranslated.
As mentioned earlier, choosing
such a specific literary work poses
numerous challenges for a translator.
Nevertheless, the text in Arabic is both
lucid and fluid and easy to read. The
introduction of Daniela Kapitáňová to
the Arab cultural and intellectual milieu
is an intercultural project that might
stir further interest in modern Slovak
literature.
Dynamic Pleasures of
Rivers of Babylon
John de Falbe
journalist, literary critic
Peter Pišťanek
Rivers of Babylon / Rivers of
Babylon
London, Garnett Press, 2007
Set in Bratislava in 1989/90, following
the collapse of the Czechoslovak
communist government, Rivers Of
Babylon centres on a change in the
personnel and power structure in the
Hotel Ambassador. The first person
we meet is Donáth, the stoker, who
has operated the antiquated heating
system for fifty years. Although ‘the
meaningful world has shrunk to that
of his boiler-room’, he wants to retire
because ‘he’d like to have a rest’ and
‘he’s found a lady friend.’ The outraged
manager, who ‘was certain that, after
fifty years, the stoker had become
the legal property of the hotel’, is
informed by the lawyer that there are
laws in place against holding someone
against their will, and he hopes that
Donáth will at least have the grace to
find a replacement.
As luck would have it, Donáth
encounters Rácz, an uneducated youth
from the country who has left his pig
and his cow and his horse to come and
make some money in the city so that
he can go back to marry the daughter
of the village butcher. The work suits
Rácz well: he is strong, indifferent to
company and, besides, there is a double
salary and ‘all collective bonuses’
because the boiler-room used to be
operated by four shift workers who are
now dead, but whose wages continue
to be paid. Immediately after Donáth’s
departure, however, Rácz comes to the
realisation that control over the heating
system effectively gives him power
over the whole hotel. And he is not
afraid to use that power: impervious to
emotions, terrifying in his rage, fear is
unknown to him.
Rácz quickly learns to exercise his
power to extort money and services
from those around him: guests,
whores, gypsies, the hotel staff
23/6/09 20:10
38 |
– soon everyone falls under his spell,
including a currency dealer with the
delightful name of Video Urban who
hangs around the Hotel. In return
for some grubby services, Urban
acquires a sophisticated video camera
from a Swede but, instead of starting
a new career filming weddings and
such socially respectable activities,
as originally intended, he ‘decided to
suppress his natural human instincts’
and offer his services to ‘capture and
immortalise your moments of pleasure
with your partner’ (in the words of his
small ad). Although ostensibly the
most opportunistic and corruptible
character, he is the closest to a moral
barometer in the chaotic times because
he retains his critical intelligence and
his sense of humour. He recognizes
that ‘Rácz is the stupidest and most
limited person I’ve ever met… He has
less intelligence than Urban’s left
shoe. But he is incredibly adaptive.
And predatory… He wants everything.
Rácz is a natural catastrophe.’ Yet
he too is forced to join Rácz’s ghastly
circus.
The novel is constructed in short
scenes involving a vivid cast of
characters. There are the whores, ready
for anything but human and distinct:
beautiful Silvia, a dancer from the
hotel cabaret who dreams of being
Reviews
whisked away by a glamorous foreign
businessman; Edita, who dreams of
pleasuring Silvia; Wanda the Trucker,
Dripsy Eva. There is Dula, who starts
off as the manager’s sidekick and
effortlessly transfers his services to
Rácz; fat Freddy Piggybank, the car
park attendant, who is thirty and
‘never had a woman in his life’ but
remains convinced that one day ‘he’s
sure to get a free roll in the hay’ – and
meanwhile is easy prey for the gypsies
who want a cut of his takings. There is
Mozon and his two henchmen, former
secret policemen who find congenial
employment with Rácz. We are even
pleased to meet lumpish Eržika in her
village, and Zdravko G., an Albanian
goatherd who has escaped to Vienna
from where he regularly visits the Hotel
Ambassador because the Slovak whores
are cheap. Ultimately, believing that
Zdravko G. is a successful Yugoslav
doctor, poor generous Silvia and Edita
allow themselves to be abducted to
Austria and sold.
Rivers Of Babylon is fast and very
funny. It is also, of course, a serious
and weighty portrait of a society
sliding from the sluggish, contained
corruption of late Soviet life into an
apparently ineluctable, irredeemable
vortex of criminality where everyone
is
hostage
to
an
individual’s
Jana Juráňová
Žila som s Hviezdoslavom
I Lived with Hviezdoslav
Bratislava, Aspekt 2008
Jana Juráňová wrote a para-biographic fiction narrated by
the main protagonist – the wife of the poet Pavol Országh
Hviezdoslav Ilona – however, as a third person narrative.
Thus, the author is, comfortably, both in and out – narrating
both for and about Ilona Országhová, being her and at the
same time having a distance.
Juráňová puts the rather conventional marriage of
a dominant man and a submissive woman under a magnifier.
What makes it interesting is the fact that the dominant
man is an important public and social figure in the rather
backward Slovakia (Upper Hungary) of the last two decades
of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the 20th
century, and the submissive woman is a girl from a good
bourgeois family, bright and well educated in Prague,
whose both mental and intellectual abilities far exceed
the traditional role of house-keeping. This is set against
the firm background of values and traditions of a small
unscrupulous manipulation of power.
Reminiscent of Andrei Kurkov’s
hilarious Death And The Penguin,
it belongs to the powerful tradition
of Central European black humour
exemplified by Jaroslav Hašek and
Bohumil Hrabal. The translation is
excellent. One cannot but admire the
diligence and energy of the remarkable
Donald Rayfield and his Garnett Press
for making this splendid novel available
to an English-speaking readership.
town and its society. In his love relationship with Ilona, the
bard to-be hardly plays the first fiddle, but Ilona knows she
“must meet her duties”, so her mother reaches her “how to
run a household that is important for the whole town as the
home of an important man.” Out of love, her sense of duty,
and true to the good morals, she accepts her fate – to live
with the greatest Slovak poet.
The price she pays is her suppressed ego. Identity reduced
to the role of the bard’s wife. Juráňová conveys her resolutely
negative view of Ilona’s life role softly, yet very effectively
– with gentle, yet pungent sarcasm. In ironical takes, she
acknowledges Ilona’s dignity with which she accepted her
fate by highlighting her devotion to her husband and his
mission to the point of unbearable suffering, which easily
invokes the reader’s repulsion – and, without a doubt, the
author’s.
Even more bitterer are the author’s representations of
Hviezdoslav. Through his wife, she is building and at the
same time undoing his monument – if not entirely, then
at least littering the bronze with pigeon’s poo, which is
stronger and hurts more.
How Hviezdoslav was in the entire scope of his personality,
whether he was really great and what made him really great
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10
| 39
Reviews
we will not find, although, at least in this book, he keeps
being visited by a professor from Prague, who wrote his
monograph. The author selected the material from his life
which she needed to write this book. If looking for a deeper
and more complex picture of the life of P. O. H. and his wife
Ilona, the reader can be disappointed, and rightly so. That,
however, was not the point of Juráňová’s book – she treated
the story of the woman who lived with Hviezdoslav with
a gentle, though clear intention. And wrote it well, in her
own right.
Ján Štrasser
(Appeared 2 January 2009 in SME daily.)
Gabriela Futová
Dokonalá Klára
The Perfect Clara
Bratislava, SPN – Mladé letá 2008
„Well, I am skillful. And almost perfect.“ The six year old girl –
perfect Clara – of the book’s title has this unchallengeable
idea of herself, nourished as it is by adults, too. Clara is
a fresh first year pupil, entering school ahead of her
fellow-pupils as she can already read and do some math.
Her emotional and social skills are somewhat inadequate,
though. Devoid of respect, she cannot develop healthy
relationships with her peers or older people outside of
her family circle. All she expects from her surroundings is
adoration and service – that’s what she learned at home.
Clara is a more convincing character than the “little witch
baby” Mimka (Keby som bola bosorka, 2003). The author
focuses on the girl‘s problem as a result of pretentious
ambitions and overrating by her loved ones. Typically
Clara’s first person narrative, the book offers no cheap
happy-ending. Although now confronted with her doings
and aware of her failure, she nevertheless still cherishes the
Volume 14, Number 2
illusion that, due to her skills, improving will be easy, if not
automatic. The author has tackled what some children find
an acutely real issue. This, distorted self-reflection is not
uncommon today. The family often fails to give the child
the necessary feedback for sound development. Futová
seems well at ease with difficult characters. They are vivid
and a good read, as she let’s them be free, allowing them to
show what they apparently are. Simply, they are not shaped
like bonsais.
Timotea Vráblová
Július Vanovič
Kronika nepriznaného času
Chronicle of Unacknowledged
Time
Bratislava, Tatran 2008
The reading public knows Július Vanovič as a brilliant
literary scholar, critic and essay writer. This time, however,
he tries his pen as a novelist, although the book was
actually written much earlier. It is always rather awkward
to judge a work by an expert on literature – which Vanovič
undoubtedly is. He can, ultimately, choose whatever
style and creative method he likes and knows and has the
potential to cover. In the 1960s and 1970s, the novelists
seemed more interested in the subjectivism of their
protagonists: suddenly unhampered by the previously
dutiful collectivism, they prevailingly acted as intellectual
solitary figures, often pessimistic in their view of life,
which was earlier downplayed as decadent. In this vein,
Vanovič’s protagonist is awash with scepticism, depressed
by what he finds the treason of ideals. First the 1950s,
then the “brotherly help” in suppressing socialism with
a human face; both were tough to survive morally. Those
who refused to join the crowd were often jettisoned by
their earlier comrades. In this sense, Vanovičov’s novel is
a political work – but as it is also concerned with morality,
conscience and faith in truth, its more universal appeal is
discernable. The author had relatively little to fictionalize,
as most of the material actually happened to him when he
was branded “class enemy”. This perhaps led to him to
use introspection. Each chapter is narrated by a different
character including Andrea, the ex-fiancée, Ivan, now
her husband, an associate professor and Juraj’s treating
physician, and Zuzana, the nurse. All these narratives
converge on Juraj’s destiny. Vanovič shows that having four
different narrators is only a formal vehicle for representing
the philosophy or esthetics of defiance, as formulated by
Kornel Földvári in his after-word. Protagonists are not
discernable by the idiosyncrasies of their language or
stylistically; it is a single story explaining a single personal
attitude that does not change with life’s unfolding.
Unfortunately, Vanovič’s novel arrives only thirty years
after it was conceived. Yet its testimony and remembrance
of literary efforts and accomplishments, which today are
no longer so stunning in their expressiveness, provides
interesting reading even today.
Ľuboš Svetoň
23/6/09 20:10
40 |
Oto Čenko
Ty nie si náš, teba zožerieme
You’re not one of us, we’ll rub you out
Bratislava, Slovart 2008
Reviews
Čenka‘s book abounds with humour, both in detail and as a
whole. He has managed to create – clearly for the first time
in post-November 1989 Slovak literature – a perfect parody
of the nationalist ambitions. International acclaim for Čenko’s
book, as printed on the jacket cover, adds to the series of
mystifications.
Jozef Bžoch
Jaroslav Rumpli
V znamení hovna
Under Shit
Bratislava, Slovart 2008
After reading the opening chapters of the book, everything
appears to be clear: Oto Čenko’s novel You Are Not Ours
And Will Be Devoured (Ty nie si náš, teba zožerieme, Slovart,
2008) is a parody of the first government of the “as yet tender
Slovak Republic”, when the President’s son was kidnapped to
Austria. The novel, by a previously unknown fiction-writer (the
name appears to be an alias), initially conforms to the facts of
this scandalous event, merely making up fictitious names for
the protagonists. The point of the book is different, though:
the Prime Minister’s massive campaign against the President
(including the President’s abduction and his incarceration in
Ilava prison), his gradual subjugation and manipulation of the
media. Čenka does not reconstruct the line of investigation,
often venturing beyond the then reality, making up thrilling
actions by, for instance, having the ruler organise a pompous
anti-Czech National Fighters Day. The novel is packed full
of changes unfolding one after another; the abducted son
finds himself in the hands of other – the right – hijackers; the
President is abducted home from Ilava; armed men assault
villas finding unknown manuscripts – the chaos is plentiful.
All these acts are more or less masterminded by two friends
– fellow-students René and Vajco. The reader finds them
switching sides, only to ultimately realize that everything has
been invented – except, of course, for the abduction of the
President’s son. René, having longed to see America for such
a long time, flies there after all, clutching an envelope from
his friend Vajco, who has emerged from the political changes
as the new cabinet Minister of Culture. When René opens
the envelope, all he finds is the film title “Ty nie si náš, teba
zožerieme“. Apparently, his friend is expecting him to write the
scenario we have just finished reading in the form of the novel.
The book is better than its name suggests.
After nine years, Jaroslav Rumpli is back with a book
whose name should be provocative, “indecent” and meant to
be read by underground enthusiasts rather than the “gentle
connoisseurs” and lovers of perfect national writing.
Rumpli’s narrative is a mosaic of three stories running in
parallel before they entangle in a single story. The most bizarre
part is the story of the unborn Hombre, a monstrosity living
on the dead side of life. Hombre is the vehicle of the author’s
nihilistic philosophy, which is situated somewhere between
good old black humour and slightly moralizing Christian
pro-life fundamentalism; mercifully, the black humor part
prevails in the book. Further lines appear to be taking place
in our time, and although no actual reality is named, clearly,
Slovakia of the late 20th century and early 21st century provides
the setting for authentic stories, some worn-out like the collar
of the communist youth member’s shirt, others somewhat
cliché-ridden like the representations of communist or postrevolutionary times with bad Mafiosi, even worse former
cadres now turned into dog-eat-dog businessmen.
Rather than self-confident rebels, Rumpli’s characters
are escapists cutting themselves off from any generally
acceptable modes of a conventional society, and embracing
some sort of nihilistic and existentialist nothingness.
From this perspective, Jaroslav Rumpli attempted to
pinpoint the loss of ideals, goals and moral values which
our generation is struggling to live through. From our
mothers‘milk, we know that lying is a matter for successful
survival. And that bad people are eradicable, like bad weed. If
anything, the revolution only reinforced this belief. Rumpli is
giving us this awareness accompanied by his moral thinking
on the meaning of life, which sees the only rescue in human
relationships, love and understanding. This, of course, is the
thin ice of a rose garden, which Rumpli is fortunate to handle
well, and his ultimate happy ending is counterbalanced by
yet another option – suicide.
Rumpli’s book is not as bad as the pseudo-underground
title would promise. The initially ambiguous feeling finally
gives way to the insistence of the second part of the book,
where the author actually finds both his theme and narration.
If you dig easy books, this one would be not-as-easy. If you
are looking for good contemporary Slovak literature for home
uses it’s worth a try.
Martin Kasarda
(Appeared 10 May 2008 in the Pravda daily.)
June 2009
23/6/09 20:10

Inside

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