Josef Škvorecký

Josef Skvorecky, internationally acclaimed for his rich prose and expansive vision, spins a beguiling comical tale of army life under foreign occupation. The Republic of Whores takes place on an army base in rural Czechoslovakia, where the draftees of the Seventh Tank Battalion reluctantly prepare for the inevitable war with America. This is life in the Czechoslovak Stalinist People's Democratic Army at its most insane, bawdy, and raw. It's a romp through the idiocies that prevailed under Soviet occupation and bred fear and nonsense. For all the rules and regulations of oppression, though, the human spirit triumphs here. With endearing ideological indifference, the young men fake tank maneuvers, study Russian texts with horror novels tucked inside, and mock patriotic songs with their own lyrics. Tank Commander Danny Smiricky, the hero of many Skvorecky novels, is at his most subversive and charming. While Danny tries to cope with his boisterous, not-too-bright, homesick troop, he dreams of love and of getting out of the army by fair means or foul. Behind Skvorecky's characteristic ironic humor and sensual detail is the menacing shadow of thoughtless political dogma, personified in Major Borvicka (the Pygmy Devil). The Major would sell his soul (and his fellow soldiers) for Soviet accolades. Meanwhile, the troops will do whatever possible to undermine their rigid, Soviet-loving officers, while taking instructions on everything from compulsory reading tests to history, sex, and love. The drama comes to a head at the Cultural Farewell Party where the soldiers show exactly what they think of "political correctness" and their doctrine-drunk Major.

The Tenor Saxophonist's Story reveals how all the important things in life are complicated - sometimes hilariously so - by the paranoia of Eastern bloc politics. Misguided romance, jazz, fear and betrayal are at the heart of the stories here, all narrated by a young, idealistic musician. "Truths" cleverly drives home the point that some truths are better left unsaid - especially if one is pursuing a passionate, partisan woman. "A Case for Political Inspectors" demonstrates how fear and hypocrisy can shake even the highest class levels. "Krpata's Blues" confirms that the cost of true love - not to mention your own apartment - can be dear indeed. Brash and lyrical, frightening and comic, this tenor saxophonist's riff will linger in the mind long after the final note is sounded.

From Library Journal Boruvka, the melancholy Prague detective (of the End of Lieutenant Boruvka, LJ 5/1/9 and others), has escaped from the Communist Czechoslovakia to Toronto. There he helps to solve a murder of a beautiful, promiscuous woman, together with her stockbroker brother and his girlfriend, who runs a feminist detective agency. What looks like a simple crime of passion turns into an intricate whodunit, involving Czech spies, Nazi war criminals, hired assassins, would-be aristocrats, and three waves of Czech emigres. This satisfying crime story, the fourth and the best in the Boruvka series, is also a playful, witty, and humorous look at the foibles of the Canadians and the immigrant Czechs and the confrontation of the two cultures. Recommended. - Marie Bednar, Pennsylvania State Univ. Libs., University Park Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Jazz, politics, sex, fear, and the humor necessary to survive absurdity provide the backdrop as Skvorecky seamlessly interweaves his own story with those of his friends; particularly that of his childhood friend Prema, whose life stands in stark contrast to Skvorecky's own. Forced to flee the country shortly after the end of World War II for illegally broadcasting from a stolen transmitter, Prema embarks on an itinerant life, wandering as far as Australia, occasionally dropping Skvorecky "Dear Old Buddy" postcards reporting on a life robbed of its home and its promise. Headed for the Blues recounts Czechoslovakia's evolution from Nazi rule to Soviet-dominated communism, from the age of the "exhausted executioners" ("there were so many executions the Ministry asked them to slow down, the executioners are exhausted") to the age of those petty agents of the secret police called fizls ("rhymes with weasels"), a time when friends and neighbors - even family members - informed on one another. As a culture of fear and mistrust grew in the country, the lives of its people were heedlessly tossed about by the winds of politics. Throughout the book there are fascinating digressions on the subject of writing from a master of twentieth-century literature. Skvorecky discusses his own novels, the works of others, the process of writing, and the differences between real life and his highly autobiographical fiction.

Smiricky, from "The Engineer of Human Souls", is a witness to an event, which the Catholic townspeople insist is a miracle, but the Communist Party denounces as a fraud. A priest dies under interrogation. Twenty years later the case is reopened and Danny is drawn into the investigations. From Publishers Weekly This big, lush political novel spans 20 years of recent Czech history, culminating in the Prague Spring and the Russian invasion of 1968. Shortly after the war, Danny Smiricky, the cynical hero of Skvorecky's novel The Engineer of Human Souls , is present--although dozing--in a rural Bohemian church when a statue of St. Joseph moves on its pedestal, seemingly of its own volition. The Catholic clergy call it a miracle, but the Communist secret police conduct their own investigation. Alleging that the event was a fraud, they torture and murder the attending priest. In the more liberal political climate of the late '60s, Smiricky sets out to help a crusading journalist solve the mystery; the novel is loosely structured as a detective story, complete with clues and false trails. But Smiricky's real role is devil's advocate, standing aside from the unfolding drama of modern history--he refers to himself as a "Good Soldier Svejk"--in order to comment on it. As a writer of well-received operettas, Smiricky has special access to the intellectuals involved in the Prague Spring uprising, and he takes amusing, nasty jibes at the real participants. Czech President Havel becomes "the world-famous playwright Hejl" who is already organizing for his future political party; the writer Bohumil Hrabal, also portrayed in an unflattering light, has been transformed into the "gifted non-party novelist Nabal"; etc. Skvorecky's ambitious attempt to capture the spirit and feel of this turbulent era makes for fascinating reading. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. Language Notes Text: English (translation) Original Language: Czech

Two jazz-haunted novellas and a memoir of the Czechoslovakian novelist's own youthful obsession with jazz convey the irresistable lure of the music that celebrates freedom and spontaneity but was officially censured as being degenerate.

The Bride of Texas evokes a crowded mid-nineteenth-century panorama as it tells the story of a group of emigres who flee the oppression of the Hapsburg Empire and, in their pursuit of freedom and a better life, find themselves immersed in the chaos of an American war of emancipation. The kaleidoscopic drama is shaped by two parallel romances: Lida, the bride of the title, is a strong-willed young Czech woman who marries a plantation owner's son; her soldier brother, Cyril, falls in love with a young slave woman. And with them we are swept into a world at once unsentimental and romantic, in which love, challenged by racial and cultural boundaries, refuses to be easily snuffed out.

The Bride of Texas evokes a crowded mid-nineteenth-century panorama as it tells the story of a group of emigres who flee the oppression of the Hapsburg Empire and, in their pursuit of freedom and a better life, find themselves immersed in the chaos of an American war of emancipation. The kaleidoscopic drama is shaped by two parallel romances: Lida, the bride of the title, is a strong-willed young Czech woman who marries a plantation owner's son; her soldier brother, Cyril, falls in love with a young slave woman. And with them we are swept into a world at once unsentimental and romantic, in which love, challenged by racial and cultural boundaries, refuses to be easily snuffed out.

From Publishers Weekly Unlike its lighthearted predecessor, Sins for Father Knox , Skvorecky's latest collection of detective stories is less concerned with style than with a grittily realistic tone. In a poignant introduction, the author notes that he wanted to examine the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia through the eyes of a "simple man"; in this he succeeds admirably, his sly instruction on recent history taking second place to the sprightly energy of these five atmospheric tales. Loosely based on real murder cases, they take irrepressible Czech lieutenant Boruvka from his modest beginning as an investigator of missing persons through the tumultuous events of 1968 and their aftermath. In "Miss Peskova Regrets" a Communist Party bigwig gives a young dancer LSD, then tries to make her subsequent death appear a suicide; such disparate clues as a four-leaf clover and a saucepan of boiled-over milk figure in the characteristically elegant solution. "Strange Archaeology," ostensibly about a grisly homicide, provides a hilarious view of Prague's disastrous housing shortage. In "Ornament in the Grass," Boruvka must decide whether two mischievous teenagers were murdered by trigger-happy invading Soviets or the cynical home army. Least compelling is the melodramatic "Pirates," in which a Czech emigre attempts to smuggle a little girl into the West. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal These five mystery tales by an acclaimed Czech emigre writer feature the melancholy Prague detective of The Mournful Demeanor of Lieutenant Boruvka ( LJ 8/87) and Sins for Father Knox (LJ 2/1/89). Engaging, well written , and witty, they also offer chilling glimpses of life in Czechoslovakia around the time of the Soviet invasion. When the trails of murders of several young girls lead to people with political connections (a son of a high official involved with illegal drugs, a trucking company party secretary running a theft ring, a bank manager with years of party service, and a Soviet soldier), the cases are hushed up. To avenge his growing sense of outrage, Boruvka lets the man responsible for the death of a fanatical secret police informer escape out of the country, ending behind bars himself. Recommended. - Marie Bednar, Pennsylvania State Univ. Libs., University Park Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.