Ivan Klíma (born 14 September 1931, Prague, born as Ivan Kauders) is a Czech novelist and playwright. He has received the Magnesia Litera Award and the Franz Kafka Prize, among other honors.
Klíma's early childhood in Prague was happy and uneventful, but this all changed with the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, after the Munich Agreement. He had been unaware that both his parents had Jewish ancestry; neither were observant Jews, but this was immaterial to the Germans. In November 1941, first his father Vilém Klíma, and then in December, he and his mother and brother were ordered to leave for the concentration camp at Theriesenstadt (Terezín), where he was to remain until liberation by the Russian Liberation Army in May, 1945. Both he and his parents survived incarceration—a miracle at that time—Terezín was a holding camp for Jews from central and southern Europe, and was regularly cleared of its overcrowded population by transports to "the East", death camps such as Auschwitz. Klíma has written graphically of this period in articles in the UK literary magazine, Granta, particularly A Childhood in Terezin. It was while living in these extreme conditions that he says he first experienced “the liberating power that writing can give”, after reading a school essay to his class. He was also in the midst of a story-telling community, pressed together under remarkable circumstances where death was ever-present. Children were quartered with their mothers, where he was exposed to a rich verbal culture of song and anecdote. This remarkable and unusual background was not the end of the Klíma's introduction to the great historical forces that shaped mid-century Europe. With liberation came the rise of the Czech Communist regime, and the replacement of Nazi tyranny with proxy Soviet control of the inter-war Czech democratic experiment. Klima became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.[4] Later, his childhood hopes of fairy tale triumphs of good over evil became an adult awareness that it was often “not the forces of good and evil that do battle with each other, but merely two different evils, in competition for the control of the world”. The early show trials and murders of those who opposed the new regime had already begun, and Klíma's father was again imprisoned, this time by his own countrymen. It is this dark background that is the crucible out of which Klíma's written material was shaped: the knowledge of the depths of human cruelty, along with a private need for personal integrity, the struggle of the individual to keep whatever personal values the totalitarian regimes he lived under were attempting to obliterate. For his writing abilities, Ivan Klíma was awarded Franz Kafka Prize in 2002 as a second recipient. His two-volume memoir Moje šílené století ("My Crazy Century") won the Czech literary prize, the Magnesia Litera, in the non-fiction category in 2010.
These twelve short stories are assembled in the chronological order in which they were written, from 1964 to 1994. Neither the style nor the themes changed much through the years. I liked the newer ones much better though: leaner and better for it. The stories are about couples, sharing something commonplace and not quite whole. The conversations (including two stories that are just dialogue) are so awkwardly shallow that they almost made me look away in embarassment. But I didn't, of course.
There was one story, though, which seemed to me perfectly crafted. In It's Raining Out, an older judge is in a 30 year marriage where there is convenience but no love. He has a brief, almost inconsequential affair with a much younger woman who had appeared before him in court. One languid afternoon the woman asks him finally, "What's the point of such a marriage, Martin?" And after much thought, the judge replies, "Maybe so that when I come home in foul weather like this I can say to someone, 'It's raining out.'" And he does precisely that, in an ending which was wryly amusing, unexpected and completely satisfying.
If this was itunes, you could just buy that one instead of the whole CD, but be plenty happy with the purchase.
At the risk of sounding like the flighty girl in class who says, OMG IF YOU LIKE MAYA ANGELOU YOU'LL LOOOOVE TONI MORRISON, I say, if you found something to adore in Kundera---- Klima ought to be your next step. Here are tales that are beautiful, blunt and a bit heart-breaking. You'll read this one quickly.
Raamatus on kolm lühijuttu, erinevatest ajaperioodidest, mille ühiseks nimetajaks võiks olla ühiselt veedetud öö. Aga samas ka äng, ebakindlus.
Mind need lood kõnetada ei suutnud. Ei olnud armastust (kuigi sõnana loobiti seda pea igas jutus; tundus, nagu peategelane avaldaks armastust igaühele, kes soostub temaga vaid rääkima või aega veetma) ega ka kirge.
Kolm lugu sellest, et inimesed vajavad enda kõrvale kedagi. Ükskõik keda.
(Eestikeelses väljaades on kolm lühijuttu, teistes keeltes vist kaksteist. Olid need kolm nüüd parimad või halvimad, mine võta kinni)
نسخه انگلیسی این کتاب ۲۴۰ صفحه هست و ترجمه فارسی ۱۲۰ صفحه! اگر کامل بود یک کتاب قطور ۵۰۰ صفحه ایی میشد ولی مقدار زیادیش سانسور شده و ترجمه هم زیاد خوب نبود فقط داستان اول از چهارتا ارزش خواندن داشت
Haunting post-communist and modern stories, varied and unusual takes on love. This book seems well translated from the original Czech. Klíma is a master at retelling conversations between his lovers in that so little is said but the depth behind the words is the story itself. One feels overwhelmingly the despair even in love left in Eastern Europe. These are not Oprah's love stories for the faint of heart.
tak tohle bylo mimo... autor míchá své nahodilé myšlenky jak se mu jen zachce. když už si konečně představíte místo, ve kterém se děj odehrává, tak se v další větě zas ocitnete úplně někde jinde. hlavní hrdiny jsou nedosažitelné mrchy a skoro každá má bílé vlasy (?). tohle mi opravdu nesedlo. třeba se k tomu někdy vrátím..
In general, I'm not a huge fan of short stories, but I picked this one up anyway. The first two were excruciating! I almost gave up, but after that they got much better, and I promptly finished. Although, I loathe the way he writes women, I would consider reading another one of his books.
I enjoyed the writing. I found it made me feel weary, which is perhaps how it felt to be in that particular area of the world. Made me feel helpless, like we are all just floating along in this world. Some of the stories will stick w/ me.
I read this for the first time in Prague. It's a bittersweet, almost melancholy little book of short stories on love and life, but each one has something poignant and familiar. Something you can't put down and can't forget.
"Because there's no escaping your fate. Only foolish people think they will manage to. The foolish are always on the run. Or on the attack. Or building towers. They think they are building towers when in point of fact they are building labyrinths in which they will die anyway."