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Aviaries
Aviaries is a novella composed of random diary entries, vignettes, dreams, observations, interior monologues, meditations, short anecdotes, newspaper headlines, and excerpts from poetry and prose, central among which is a passage from C.G. Jung's essay on the Kore. All these elements meld together in a collapse of time to create, similar to the work of Unica Zürn and Leonora Carrington, a phantasmagoria of the life of a woman navigating a city indifferent to those living on the margins. Interactions with other residents of Prague's Smíchov district, characters who might be figments of her imagination, and the other women in her life – infirm mother, artsy sister, absent, dumpster-diving daughter – have reached a point where fantasy and reality have seamlessly merged. The death of Vaclav Havel in 2011 provides the opening, and from there the prose throbs in a kaleidoscope of contemporary news reports, flights of hallucination, wordplay, and metaphoric association to testify to what it is like to be alone and lost and indigent in a world that has stopped making sense. It is a brutal vision of present-day Prague where life has become a morass of the bizarre and the grotesque.
Brabcova's final book before her unexpected death, Aviaries received the Josef Skvorecký Award in 2016 for best prose of the year and was shortlisted for the Magnesia Litera Book of the Year Award in 2017.
Brabcova's final book before her unexpected death, Aviaries received the Josef Skvorecký Award in 2016 for best prose of the year and was shortlisted for the Magnesia Litera Book of the Year Award in 2017.
132 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2016
6 people are currently reading
216 people want to read
About the author
Zuzana Brabcová
5 books9 followersThe daughter of Jiří Brabec and Zina Trochová, both literary historians, she was born in Prague. After completing her schooling, she worked in the University Library in Prague, in a hospital and as a cleaner. She later became an editor, working for several publishing houses.
Her first novel Daleko od stromu (Far from the tree) was first published in a Samizdat edition in 1984 and then in Prague in 1991. It received the Jiří Orten Award in 1997. This was followed by the novel Zlodějina (Thievery) in 1996.In 2000, she published her third novel Rok perel (Year of pearls), the first Czech novel to deal with lesbian love.
Brabcová was awarded the Magnesia Litera for fiction in 2013 for her novel Stropy.
Her first novel Daleko od stromu (Far from the tree) was first published in a Samizdat edition in 1984 and then in Prague in 1991. It received the Jiří Orten Award in 1997. This was followed by the novel Zlodějina (Thievery) in 1996.In 2000, she published her third novel Rok perel (Year of pearls), the first Czech novel to deal with lesbian love.
Brabcová was awarded the Magnesia Litera for fiction in 2013 for her novel Stropy.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
February 4, 2019
In his “Preface” to ‘L’Assommoir’ Émile Zola claimed the novel “is a work of truth, the first novel about the common people that does not lie and that smells of the common people. And readers should not conclude that the common people as a whole are bad, for my characters are not bad, they are only ignorant and ruined by the conditions of sweated toil and poverty in which they live.”
The protagonist narrator of Zuzana Brabcová’s last novel, ‘Aviaries’, Alžběta is a common person, and is linked inextricably to Émile Zola’s ‘L’Assommoir’;
Underneath the mattress
The trap snapped shut and firmly clamped around my memory. On February 18,1961, my mom had wedged a book underneath my mattress to make sure I’d be sleeping on a flat surface. She forgot about it. Hanging from a long string, a monkey-shaped rattle quivered above me, and I didn’t take my eyes off it for a single moment. They say the blind live in time, not space. If that’s true, I was a blind person back then. All of Grandpa’s clocks ticked away within my veins, and in my left hemisphere, my grandma diced apples from the garden for strudel.
Mom’s friend later took the crib for her own child. She discovered the forgotten book underneath the mattress. It was Zola’s L’Assommoir. (p69)
Whilst Zola’s “project is indebted to the Positivist philosopher’s isolation of three principal determinants on human behavior: heredity, environment, and the historical moment”, Zuzana Brabcová’s novel adds in the influence of literature, literally sleeping on a book, which can determine behavior and in this case fate.
‘Aviaries’ is a collection of fragments, labelled from December 20, 2011 to February 19, 2015, however they are not simply diary entries, there are recollections, newspaper headlines, interior monologues, dreams, excerpts from prose, poetry and psalms (including a passage from C.G. Jung’s essay on the “The Psychological Aspects of the Kore” from 1951 and Oliver Sack’s “An Anthropologist on Mars, 1995). This is a work full of contradictions, that move the reader in contradictory directions, from anger to empathy within a paragraph. It is not unusual for a sentence to spin off in a tangent. All adding to the fragmentary nature of the book;
This frightens me: what if disintegration into prime elements, the fragmentation into particulars, is also true for other phenomena, and reality will churn before my eyes in an incomprehensible muddle? (p78)
Our narrator is from the fringes, being treated for mental illness, recently made redundant with no prospect of reemployment – although she tries – she spends her days emailing her dumpster diving daughter – who is going out with Bob Dylan – and sharing her time and space with a homeless alcoholic who has had “a tumor the size if a lemon removed from his brain”, a soul mate, Melda, who she met in the neurological ward of the local hospital.
“I have no money,” I said to keep the conversation going. “I have no money, no job, no family. Apart from Alice, that is, who’s found lifelong lover in the flap of a discarded wallet in a dumpster, and my sister, Nadia, whose sets all burned down.”
And suddenly, with no warning, Doctor Gnuj quite unexpectedly fixed on me his brown-pink gaze, matching the waiting room, the gaze of a polyp: “Your inner world is like that basement lair of yours. Kick down the doors, file through the bars! Do you even notice the world around you?”
I do. Don’t you worry. I know well enough what the world around me lives for: the season of wine tastings and exhibitions of corpses. (pgs 31-32)
A deeply moving work of social exclusion, it is akin to William Kennedy’s ‘Ironweed’ on magic mushrooms, a melancholic work where we wonder if there is to be any redemption for the narrator as she slips further and further into decline.
For my full review go to https://messybooker.wordpress.com/201...
The protagonist narrator of Zuzana Brabcová’s last novel, ‘Aviaries’, Alžběta is a common person, and is linked inextricably to Émile Zola’s ‘L’Assommoir’;
Underneath the mattress
The trap snapped shut and firmly clamped around my memory. On February 18,1961, my mom had wedged a book underneath my mattress to make sure I’d be sleeping on a flat surface. She forgot about it. Hanging from a long string, a monkey-shaped rattle quivered above me, and I didn’t take my eyes off it for a single moment. They say the blind live in time, not space. If that’s true, I was a blind person back then. All of Grandpa’s clocks ticked away within my veins, and in my left hemisphere, my grandma diced apples from the garden for strudel.
Mom’s friend later took the crib for her own child. She discovered the forgotten book underneath the mattress. It was Zola’s L’Assommoir. (p69)
Whilst Zola’s “project is indebted to the Positivist philosopher’s isolation of three principal determinants on human behavior: heredity, environment, and the historical moment”, Zuzana Brabcová’s novel adds in the influence of literature, literally sleeping on a book, which can determine behavior and in this case fate.
‘Aviaries’ is a collection of fragments, labelled from December 20, 2011 to February 19, 2015, however they are not simply diary entries, there are recollections, newspaper headlines, interior monologues, dreams, excerpts from prose, poetry and psalms (including a passage from C.G. Jung’s essay on the “The Psychological Aspects of the Kore” from 1951 and Oliver Sack’s “An Anthropologist on Mars, 1995). This is a work full of contradictions, that move the reader in contradictory directions, from anger to empathy within a paragraph. It is not unusual for a sentence to spin off in a tangent. All adding to the fragmentary nature of the book;
This frightens me: what if disintegration into prime elements, the fragmentation into particulars, is also true for other phenomena, and reality will churn before my eyes in an incomprehensible muddle? (p78)
Our narrator is from the fringes, being treated for mental illness, recently made redundant with no prospect of reemployment – although she tries – she spends her days emailing her dumpster diving daughter – who is going out with Bob Dylan – and sharing her time and space with a homeless alcoholic who has had “a tumor the size if a lemon removed from his brain”, a soul mate, Melda, who she met in the neurological ward of the local hospital.
“I have no money,” I said to keep the conversation going. “I have no money, no job, no family. Apart from Alice, that is, who’s found lifelong lover in the flap of a discarded wallet in a dumpster, and my sister, Nadia, whose sets all burned down.”
And suddenly, with no warning, Doctor Gnuj quite unexpectedly fixed on me his brown-pink gaze, matching the waiting room, the gaze of a polyp: “Your inner world is like that basement lair of yours. Kick down the doors, file through the bars! Do you even notice the world around you?”
I do. Don’t you worry. I know well enough what the world around me lives for: the season of wine tastings and exhibitions of corpses. (pgs 31-32)
A deeply moving work of social exclusion, it is akin to William Kennedy’s ‘Ironweed’ on magic mushrooms, a melancholic work where we wonder if there is to be any redemption for the narrator as she slips further and further into decline.
For my full review go to https://messybooker.wordpress.com/201...
March 25, 2025
Is it possible to remain sane in a world that feels so surreal everytime you look at the news, everytime you walk the streets, everytime you're reminded that you do not matter to society?
But no, I'm not talking about the mental states of many of us today, I'm talking about Zuzana Brabcová's novel Aviaries, written a decade ago.
News reports, hallucinations, lines of prose and poetry, anecdotes that take the reader on expeditions across contemporary Prague, nods to Zola and Jung, the lives of those on the margins. It's a kaleidoscope of all these things, of madness, where time and reality collapse. Brabcová is often compared to Unica Zürn and Leonora Carrington with her ability to write about insanity and darkness with a light and fantastical touch. A gem of a book that has perhaps aged a bit too well.
tr. Tereza Novická
But no, I'm not talking about the mental states of many of us today, I'm talking about Zuzana Brabcová's novel Aviaries, written a decade ago.
News reports, hallucinations, lines of prose and poetry, anecdotes that take the reader on expeditions across contemporary Prague, nods to Zola and Jung, the lives of those on the margins. It's a kaleidoscope of all these things, of madness, where time and reality collapse. Brabcová is often compared to Unica Zürn and Leonora Carrington with her ability to write about insanity and darkness with a light and fantastical touch. A gem of a book that has perhaps aged a bit too well.
tr. Tereza Novická
June 16, 2021
I couldn’t finish this book fully, but am still rating it highly, as I think this is more about me and what I am wanting from a book right now than the book itself. This book is rich and curious, a winding story weaving illusion, dream, and un/reality in a crumbling landscape. I was captivated by some of the diary entries, which is how the book is broken up, and found them to be worthy of a lot of thought. However, at the point I began to get deeper into the book, I wanted more of a clear narrative story, so the style (although great and necessary for this book) wasn’t working for me. In other words, the fault wasn’t with the book, but just a difference in what I was wanting as a reader when I dove into the book. I’ll likely return to it at some point, and think it could be worth a slow read — diary entries at a time, stretched over days and months. The book is short, but maybe that reading style would be better.
June 9, 2017
Deník proplouvající mezi měsíci, lehce favorizující ty zimní a jim předcházející; světy reálné i fantaskní, vzpomínky a momentky, náhodná setkání s významem. Pozvolný sešup z dna, na kterém lze ještě občas žít, ještě trochu níže. Život se láme z té své horší poloviny do něčeho dalšího, co následuje. Kdo se někdy zkoušel vypsat, chápe, kdo má v sobě ještě nějaké city, rozumí; za napsanými větami je schováno více a ti méně unavení a zdatnější jezdci velkoměst snad dokáží rozplést další umně ukrytá poselství...
-----
Sedla si do proutěného křesla, začla si balit cigaretu, ale hned zase vyskočila a běhala po pokoji a roztančila se a gestikulovala, zase si sedla. Její tělo, náhle tak konkrétní a zřetelné, bylo neustále v pohybu, ve víru, v kroužení kolem té abstraktní sochy, v níž se za těch pár měsíců proměnila její matka.
„Každý ráno musíme dva kilometry pro vodu a zase zpátky a na záchod chodíme do lesa, vyhrabeme díru a zase ji zahrabeme...“
Smála se! Šťastně se usmívala nad uloupeným cárem ráje, nad tou iluzí, kde z hvězd nevisela splachovadla a záře monitorů rozšlápla pata temnoty.
Napadlo mě, že ony dvě události spolu souvisejí, výprask a smrt, musejí spolu souviset, ale vzápětí jsem se za tu ubohou představu zastyděla: nic tu nesouvisí s ničím. Žádné souvislosti prostě neexistují. Všechno se děje na tomto světě rovnoběžně, a nikde se nic s ničím neprotne.
-----
Sedla si do proutěného křesla, začla si balit cigaretu, ale hned zase vyskočila a běhala po pokoji a roztančila se a gestikulovala, zase si sedla. Její tělo, náhle tak konkrétní a zřetelné, bylo neustále v pohybu, ve víru, v kroužení kolem té abstraktní sochy, v níž se za těch pár měsíců proměnila její matka.
„Každý ráno musíme dva kilometry pro vodu a zase zpátky a na záchod chodíme do lesa, vyhrabeme díru a zase ji zahrabeme...“
Smála se! Šťastně se usmívala nad uloupeným cárem ráje, nad tou iluzí, kde z hvězd nevisela splachovadla a záře monitorů rozšlápla pata temnoty.
Napadlo mě, že ony dvě události spolu souvisejí, výprask a smrt, musejí spolu souviset, ale vzápětí jsem se za tu ubohou představu zastyděla: nic tu nesouvisí s ničím. Žádné souvislosti prostě neexistují. Všechno se děje na tomto světě rovnoběžně, a nikde se nic s ničím neprotne.
March 16, 2019
Přečetla jsem tuto knihu za jedno odpoledne. Něco mne nutilo ji neodložit, snad ze strachu, že bych už neměla odvahu se k ní vrátit. Zůstala mi pod kůží jako tříska, která se ozve při každém neopatrném pohybu . A tak jsem ji vzala do ruky znovu a tentokrát otevírala na přeskáčku, jen tak libovolně a opět se začetla do zápisků - vzpomínek, deníku, fantazií, filosofických úvah, obrazů malovaných slovy, obrazů depresivních, tvrdých, jdoucích až na dřeň. Vrátím se k té knize ještě někdy? Nevím. Ale některé obrazy mi už asi zůstanou v hlavě navždy.
March 13, 2019
This was such a disarming and beautiful read. I had extra fun digging for the original Czech underneath the suberbly meticulous translation by Tereza Novická. Zuzana Brabcová has restored some of Smíchov's anti-magic for me, and as this was her very last book, I can't wait to read the rest of her work in reverse order.
September 13, 2016
Nevím, jestli se někdy smířím s tím, že to je poslední kniha, kterou si od Brabcové přečtu.
October 25, 2024
Zuzana Brabcová’s final novel is a little gem, a scathing evisceration of life on the margins of the contemporary Czech city.
Composed from a scattered form cluster of texts – new reports, diary entries, anecdotes and stories, ponderings and musings on life and the state of the world, or at least her place in it – Brabcová takes us into one woman’s life in the Prague suburb of Smichov. Her social circle is small – there is her mother, an absent even when present sister, a barely around daughter, and a friend or two – and it is unclear whether she is an out-of-work-and sorts intellectual, or suffering severe mental health problems, or both. This is made more unsettling by the shift in form between the surreal and grimly real, which might also be assign that what seems fantastical, what seems most surreal, is little more than the contemporary city.
Brabcová’s pen is light and her voice engaging keeping the story, even in most bizarre moments, lively and at the very least hinting at a sense of wonder amid the marginalisation of her character’s existence. What’s more, she grounds it in just enough historical moments (it opens with Vaclav Havels’ death) to enhance the sense of reality, and while it is not part of the city I know well I felt as if I recognised Smichov as a constant presence. All in all, a reminder of why I am so fond of Twisted Spoon Press and its mission to make available translations of contemporary and twentieth century Czech and other central European literature. Quite, quite splendid.
Composed from a scattered form cluster of texts – new reports, diary entries, anecdotes and stories, ponderings and musings on life and the state of the world, or at least her place in it – Brabcová takes us into one woman’s life in the Prague suburb of Smichov. Her social circle is small – there is her mother, an absent even when present sister, a barely around daughter, and a friend or two – and it is unclear whether she is an out-of-work-and sorts intellectual, or suffering severe mental health problems, or both. This is made more unsettling by the shift in form between the surreal and grimly real, which might also be assign that what seems fantastical, what seems most surreal, is little more than the contemporary city.
Brabcová’s pen is light and her voice engaging keeping the story, even in most bizarre moments, lively and at the very least hinting at a sense of wonder amid the marginalisation of her character’s existence. What’s more, she grounds it in just enough historical moments (it opens with Vaclav Havels’ death) to enhance the sense of reality, and while it is not part of the city I know well I felt as if I recognised Smichov as a constant presence. All in all, a reminder of why I am so fond of Twisted Spoon Press and its mission to make available translations of contemporary and twentieth century Czech and other central European literature. Quite, quite splendid.
August 6, 2023
A very loosely structured collection of short diary-like epiphanies on memory, loss, homelessness, inspiration and nationhood, vividly portrayed by way of newspaper clippings, scraps of memory, fragments of dreams and Jungian psycho-social terminology. The effect is to create a kaleidoscope through which to view the narrator's relationship with her daughter and mother and her own psychological disintegration. The shattered nature of the book can make it difficult reading, but the author's incredible descriptions, dialogue and psychological insight kept me reading.
July 25, 2022
Another short book to which I committed the injustice of reading over multiple months. Oops.
Beautiful writing, some really lovely parts, lots of dream sequences/big overarching metaphors/stuff that went way over my head. Would like to say I might read it again some day, but we’ll see. Fun to read a Prague book like this and actually know half of the place references.
Beautiful writing, some really lovely parts, lots of dream sequences/big overarching metaphors/stuff that went way over my head. Would like to say I might read it again some day, but we’ll see. Fun to read a Prague book like this and actually know half of the place references.
September 18, 2024
docteno do asi pulky. az moc divny na me, nevim
November 26, 2025
Wow! What an imagination, what an amazing wielding of language and imagery!
March 31, 2023
This book felt predictable on a semantic level. I especially disliked how I could recognize Brabcová conjuring symbols/themes in one section, then immediately referencing them in the following section, only to drop them basically as soon as they emerged (from thin air).
I read this book twice feeling like I hadn't given it the justice it was due, but I ended up liking it even less on the second read.
I read this book twice feeling like I hadn't given it the justice it was due, but I ended up liking it even less on the second read.
March 16, 2017
Pro mne vcelku těžké čtení. Styl psaní, na který nemám moc chuť se při čtení soustředit, který moc nechápu a nevím, jak strávit. Nicméně dočetla jsem. Přetrvává dojem z toho, jak neuvěřitelným způsobem asi svět autorka vnímala a jak neskutečně umným způsobem toto vnímání převedla do psané podoby.
January 28, 2019
Vlastně vůbec netuším, co jsem to právě dočetla. Neskutečně paradoxní kniha. Na jednu stranu se mi hrozně líbilo, jak je napsaná. Hutný tok jakoby náhodně seskládaných slov a vět. Na druhou mě ale nechala úplně chladnou, bez zájmu, bez chuti pokračovat.
December 27, 2020
Výborná záležitost, realistické mikropříběhy (fakt výborný nákup v Hudy a v Ikea) střídají snová a psychotická vyprávění, hranice jsou mnohdy neostré a nezřetelné, což jen zintenzivňuje sílu výpovědi.
December 30, 2025
An astonishing, poetic novella. The narrator's voice, as it attempts to describe her past and present, becomes a palimpsest of memory, reality and imagination. Recurring images and themes knit the piece together into a mesmerising patchwork. Best, I think, read in one sitting.
May 22, 2017
Strašná samota...
October 10, 2018
Už jen kvůli té barvité, fascinující představivosti, která je jako voliéra plná exotických ptáků.
August 13, 2022
Interesting book. There's a deep sadness throughout the book. The way she mixes reality with inventions of the mind is very creative.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews