Solitaire

by Mojmir Drvota

Book by Druota, Mojmir

123 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 4 out of 5]

After having been thoroughly impressed by Drvota's only other English-translated novel, Triptych (1980), I immediately ordered this earlier novel and, while not quite on the same level for me, it was filled with a similar nonsensical dream-logic and humor, only the dream aspects are even more magnified here, if that's possible.

It opens with the main character, Martin, who we know nothing about, waking in the middle of the night after hearing his name being called. He goes outside and finds a young woman seemingly bathing in the fountain in the square, and she takes him down streets and alleys (that he's never noticed before) until they arrive at a villa hidden in a garden, where he is given a vague, spy-type mission across the world by a man with a hole in his chest, a hole through which can be seen a scenic mountain landscape. Martin is paid with a handful of random receipts, bills, and check stubs. BTW this all happens within the first 3 pages, so I'm spoiling nothing really at all. Just setting the tone so you know just what sort of book this is.

As with Tryptich, there are loads of memorable characters and tripped-out locations during Martin's adventures across the world. Remember that it's sort of a dream narrative, so things only make sense in a dream-like way. Martin may be walking through a desert when all of a sudden he'll be in another landscape entirely. There's no real detailing of the hows and whys of everything. You just have to accept things like Martin running from city policemen and suddenly being underground, which is sometimes sewer-like and sometimes cave-like, but then with lots of people and streets and ferries across the underground river. Even a theater. It's never hard to follow, though, and Drvota manages to keep the story engaging despite the random nature of the happenings.

It certainly won't be for everyone, but as far as dream novels go, this and Triptych are hard to beat. I really hope Drvota's other novels get translated from the Czech eventually, as I've had a blast with these. Thanks again to Mark Monday for the rec.

4.0 Stars.

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I put in a request for this from the library almost totally blindly after reading Mark Monday's review of the only other Drvota novel, Tryptich. Tryptich wasn't at the library, but this arlier work, at the time complete unread on GR, was, and with no further details I plunged ahead.

And so this arrived in my hands today, with stark modernist cover design (it's in the only other review too, but I'm now uploading to GR as well) and collages leading into the first line "Someone was calling him", which dumps the reader directly into a series nearly-contextless oneiric adventure stories. Which is just about ideal way to get my full attention from the first word. Rarely have I been so rewarded by such an impulse pursuit of an utterly buried book as this.

The feeling holds most of the way, dissolves a little as the narrative tries to pull itself together into a meaningful symbolic system (which I have no real means of evaluating -- it gives a sense of order, but that might be totally artificial to the actual episodes described), recomposes around the fairy tale irreducibility of the particulars. Obviously I need to track down Drvota's Triptych as well.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

slightly strange events narrated with pedestrian prose. not impressed. but do see mark monday's review of drvota's other book. [123 pages in 2-ish hours ==shortstory. eh.]

[Raven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not great, not horrible I enjoyed it. Very peculiar book.