کارگل

by Ivan Klíma, فروغ پوریاوری (Translator)

The title My Golden Trades comes from a Czech proverb: "For him with nine trades, the tenth is poverty." The narrator of these stories, however, does not have the option of perfecting his trade as a writer. Forbidden to publish by his country's repressive government (like Klima himself), he must instead work a number of odd jobs to survive.

Genres: Fiction, Czech Literature, Short Stories, Historical Fiction, Literature, Literary Fiction

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

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.

Biography from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Kl%...

Reviews

[ZaRi]

"سالهاست با کسانی که کتاب را به مواد منفجره ومواد مخدر تشبیه می کنند یکریز بحث می کنم. در خلال این مدت نطق بلند بالایی آماده کرده ام که در آن از آزادی آفرینش که بخشی از زندگی درست و محترمانه است دفاع می کنم اما هیچ موقعیتی نداشته ام که این نطق را ایراد کنم. حالا وسوسه ایرادش نیرومند است. اما نباید مقهورش بشوم. سپردن اعتقاداتم به این مردهای اونیفورم پوش حالا هم درست مثل دو قرن و نیم پیش کار ابلهانه ای است."

[Deidra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took a Czech literature class when studying abroad in Prague while I was a college student, and was completely blown away by the great novels and plays that had been produced in the Czech Republic by authors I had never heard of.

While I had read Milan Kundera before (and who's going to disregard Franz Kafka?), Ivan Klima was a writer I had never come across in the states. And that was a total shame. Klima writes with a simple, but poetic style about everyday life, momentous events, everything. For example, My Golden Trades is about a young man who does not have a set goal in life; instead, he wanders from job to job, some mind-numbing, some mundane, most low-paying, learning from co-workers and ordinary people, and trying desperately to figure his life out.

As a college senior who had no idea what she was going to do upon graduation, this cut right to the core: who hasn't been totally aimless, unsure of what their next step will be? And who hasn't feared the cookie-cutter mold a modern economy forces us into? It's a sad fact that for as much freedom as our society supposedly affords us, with a troubled job market, disappearing trades, and ever-increasing pressure put on young people to find a career and stick with it as soon as they can, it's almost impossible for people to question what they want/ change what they want to be. Reading this book comforted me because it showed that there were other people who weren't content to just find a job, stay put and kill their soul in the process.

I gave this book to a friend who has never stayed with a job longer than a year. Who knows if she read it. But for anyone else who's questioned their life's path, I highly recommend it.

(On a sidenote, tons of other Czech authors are amazing to read. Bohumil Hrabal, Karl Capek (wrote a play about robots before anyone even knew what they were), and Jaroslav Hasek to name just a few. T.G. Masaryk, the first President of Czechoslovakia, wrote an amazing biography that makes it even more obvious that our current president is a complete horse's ass).

[Soheil · Rating 4 out of 5]

داستان کتاب، درباره نویسنده‌ای اهل چک است که مجبور به ترک نویسندگی و روی آوردن به کارهای مختلف و تجربیاتش از این کارها -که گاها خلاف روح نویسندگی است- و نحوه مواجه او با آن است، که به شکل استادانه نوشته شده.

[ZaRi · Rating 4 out of 5]

از مرکز شهر و تونل ویشه هراد، که آن طرفش جاده مستقیم باریکی در امتداد رودخانه ولتاوا کشده می‌شود، عبور کرده بودیم. کمتر از پنج دقیقه با خانه فاصله داشتیم. در این هنگام بود که اتومبیل زرد و سفید دوم ناگهان از اتومبیل اول سبقت گرفت و از کنارمان عبور کرد. لحظه‌ای جرأت کردم امیدوار باشم که ول‌مان کرده‌اند تا کار مفیدتری انجام بدهند، اما بعد دست اونیفورم پوشیده‌ای که چوب‌دستی دستور‌العمل خروس قندی ایست را تکان می‌داد، از پنجره بیرون آمد. ترمز کردم، اتومبیل پشت سرمان هم ترمز کرد.

دو افسر اونیفورم‌پوش از اتومبیل اول پیاده شدند و به طرفم آمدند. در را باز کردم. یکی‌شان گفت:” راننده، لطفا بیا بیرون. مدارک!” با من با لحنی حرف می‌زد که احتمالا هنگام حرف زدن با مجرمانی که دستگیرشان می‌کرد، به کار می‌برد. از افسر دیگر کوچک‌تر و پرتر بود. آن یکی که بنیتا قوی‌تر بود، چند قدم پشت سرش ایستاد.

اعتراض کردم که همکارش در آن یکی اتومبیل، که هنوز پشت سرمان است، مدارکم را دیده.

جم نخورد. کف دستش را دراز کرد و آن‌قدر صبر کرد تا مدارکم را به او دادم. نگاهی به آن‌ها انداخت، و بعد حرفی زد که متعجبم کرد. “آقا، نحوه رانندگی‌تان حاکی از این است که مشروب خورده‌اید. مایلید به آزمایش سنجش الکل تنفسی گردن بنهید؟”

اعتراض کردم. آخر یک ساعت پیش آزمایش شده بودم، و از آن به بعد هم که مدام تعقیبم کرده بودند. خیلی بعید بود که هنگام رانندگی چیزی نوشیده باشم.

“حاضر نیستید این آزمایش را بدهید؟”

احساس کردم تله‌ای در کار است و به علاوه این آن‌ها بودند که عین دلقک‌ها رفتار می‌کردند، نه من. با انجام آزمایش موافقت کردم.

تیوب را باد کردم، آن را از من گرفت، پشت‌اش را به من کرد، اعلام کرد که زنگ تیوب سبز شده. آیا متوجه‌ام که این امر چه عواقبی می‌تواند برایم داشته باشد؟

با این‌که به بیشتر این جور چیزها عادت کرده بودم، باز تعجب کردم. سال‌ها بود که سعی کرده بودم از این بازی‌ای که در این مملکت جای‌گزین سیاست شده، بیرون بمانم. بازی‌ای که در آن یک طرف رذیلانه بازی می‌کند، حال آنکه طرف دیگر، هرچند شرافتمدانه، اما بی‌هیچ امیدی بازی می‌کند…

…امکان ندارد تیوب سبز شده باشد. نشانم بدهیدش!

جواب داد ملزم نیست تیوب را نشانم بدهد. بنابراین، همه چیز به کنار، خجالت می‌کشد ادعایش را با واقعیت رویارو کند…نمی‌گوید که زیاد مشروب خورده‌ام اما رنگ مایع تغییر کرده و معنایش این است که به عنوان راننده وظیفه‌ام را نادیده گرفته‌ام…بنابراین گواهی‌نامه‌ام را توقیف می‌کند. سرنشینان اتومبیل باید پیاده شوند. باید خودرو را قفل کنم، کلیدهایش را به او بدهم و اتومبیل را همین جا پارک کنم…

دخترم مضطربانه صحنه‌ای را نظاره می‌کرد که بی‌تردید به مراتب زنده‌تر از نمایش‌نامه‌های بهتری که توسط بازی‌گران بهتری اجرا می‌شوند، در حافظه‌اش نقش می‌بندد. متأسفانه، من در این نمایش‌نامه نقش داشتم و نحوه رفتار خودم هم یادش می‌ماند.

گفتم، “هیچ کس از اتومبیل پیاده نمی‌شود. کلیدهایم را نخواهم داد و به علاوه از رفتارتان هم رسما شکایت خواهم کرد.”

… افسر اونیفورم‌پوش دوم که تاکنون ساکت ایستاده بود و این همه را نظاره می‌کرد… گفت می‌داند که ناراحتم. آدم‌ها وقتی احساسات‌شان تحریک می‌شود عجولانه رفتار می‌کنند…. اما اگر حالا کلید‌ها را تحویل بدهم، می‌توانم به خانه بروم و بخوابم و وقتی الم‌شنگه خوابید دوباره پس‌شان بگیرم. رویم خم شد و تقریبا در گوشم گفت: “در این میان… یک دسته کلید دیگر هم که در خانه دارید، مگر نه؟”

می‌دانم که در خلال بازجویی‌ها معمولا نقش‌ها را تقسیم می‌کنند. یکی از بازجوها نقش مرد خشن را ایفا می‌کند و دیگری سعی می‌کند با مهربانی اعتماد زندانی سیاسی را به خود جلب کند. اما این بازجویی نبود و به نظر هم نمی‌رسید که به این‌ آدم‌ها نقش‌های پیچیده‌ای را محول کرده باشند…. اما هنوز نمی‌توانستم بر احساس مقاومت و نفرتم چیره شوم. آیا آدم برای پرهیز از پیامدهای بسیار ناخوشایندتر باید به اتهامی دروغین گردن بنهد؟ اگر حالا گردن بگذارم بعدا چگونه می توانم دنبال عدالت بگردم؟…

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his Afterword, Klima writes, "Something of this book is linked to a reality that (fortunately) belongs to the past."

My Golden Trades evokes that past with haunting clarity - As I read, I felt transported to the Czechoslovakia of my youth, the distant land my parents visited when I was an infant, the regime my already adult cousin fled to end up housed semi-permanently in our guest bedroom in Indianapolis. I taught him that, yes strangely, dimes really are worth more than nickels. He showed me what it meant to truly be a jack of all trades - he'd done the factory circuit in Western Slovakia - building arms, etching mass market crystal, and making machine parts that would later make more machines. At my house, he found work as a handy man, he studied English (when he arrived, he barely knew "Hello"), learned photography then contracted himself out for cheap children's portraits. He returned to Slovakia and became a photojournalist. He helped his sister (who was a Sister in the godly sense as well) open a school in South Africa. He killed a black mamba with a broom handle. He built a luxury duplex in Zilina with his own hands, from foundation to wiring to tile-work. As Klima reminds us, "For him with nine trades, the tenth is poverty." So too with my cousin.

Each of the book's chapters could stand alone. An odd comparison kept cropping up in my mind as I read - I was reminded of Kurosawa's Dreams - a Japanese, surrealist film, a compilation of evocative vignettes. I watched the movie the first time in high school Japanese class, found it odd and unsettling, but promptly forgot about it. Somehow, though, the scenes stayed with me for years. I didn't know where they came from. They seemed too foreign to be my own dreams, but each scene was so disjointed that none seemed to fit into any narrative I knew - movie or novel. One day, many years later, I found my brother watching the Kurosawa film at our parents' house. I felt like it had been ripped from my own subconscious. I'd remembered each scene so vividly, but I'd long forgotten their origin. I'd not thought about all the scenes together, but I'd remembered each individually many, many times before.

My Golden Trades seems to have the same potential. Each vignette contains within it an unsettling scene, simple but sticky. An example:

The narrator is pulled over and falsely accused of drunk driving, in spite of an obviously clean breathalyzer. His keys are confiscated, he and his family left in the middle of the highway in formal wear. When he later requests his keys be returned at the police station, he is told that the request amounts to a false accusation against the officer who completed the traffic stop, an accusation that could earn him jail time. A few weeks later, he is sent a message from the police station - does he think them some kind of baggage repository? He must come at once to collect his keys. Exasperation and resignation radiate from Klima's bureaucracy, somehow much more ominous to me than Kafka's.

[Mitra.Daal · Rating 3 out of 5]

اين سومين كتاب نويسنده محبوبم ايوان كليما بود كه خوندم.
داستان زندگي كليما كه به دليل شرايط موجود مجبوره يكسري شغل ها را صرفا براي داشتن يك منبع درآمد امتحان كنه و از شغل مورد علاقش كه نويسندگي هست دست بكشه.
"يك ضرب‌المثل در زبان چك هست كه ميگه آنكس كه نه تا شغل دارد، شغل دهم‌اش تهیدستی است، به این معنا که اگر هیچ کسب و کاری را درست و حسابی یاد نگیری، هیچ وقت پولدار نمیشی.”

[Hosna · Rating 3 out of 5]

گاه می خواستم به کلیما بگویم جانا سخن از زبان ما می گویی.

[Old Man JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with all of Klima's short story collections I have read these are semi autobiographical tales. This features the variety of jobs he had under the strict Czech regime that restricted his ability to work as a writer. My favorite of the six stories were "The Smugglers Story" that really wasn't about one of his jobs but was about a friend of his who smuggled books to him from abroad and the extremes he went through to prevent the authorities from finding out and "The Surveyor's Story" about his work as a surveyors assistant and the meager accommodations he lived in while doing this. Klima is a magnificent story teller who not only tells a very entertaining tale but, also, reveals much of the very harsh and corrupt system that Czechoslovakia was under at the time.

[Pedram Behroozi · Rating 3 out of 5]

پارازیت‌ها صدای زندگی‌ای هستند که او -همان که لباس مبدل به تن دارد- مطابق با مفاهیم و امیال خودش هدایت‌شان می‌کند. او می‌داند که هر فرد در مورد تقدیر و خوشبختی‌اش تصور متفاوتی دارد، که می‌خواهد با اعتراض و سرپیچی، با حقی که نسبت به رد پای خودش، به اعمال و آراءاش، و به اندیشه‌ی صادقانه‌ای دارد که بتواند با صدای بلند بیانش کند یا دست‌کم ابراز شدنش را بشنود، بدان‌ها دست یابد. اما او معتقد است که فقط و فقط خودش می‌تواند تکلیف سرنوشت‌مان را معین کند؛ بگوید که شر چیست و خیر کدام است. آرزو دارد احکام تصویبی‌اش از صبح تا شام و از گهواره تا گور، که روزی در آن می‌گذاردمان، با ما باشند. جز صدای خودش به تمام صداها انگ دروغ می‌زند؛ تمام صداهای دیگر ممنوع‌اند و حتی از آن سوی مرزهایی که دستور داده به شدت از آن‌ها محافظت شود هم شنیده نمی‌شوند. او صدای غژغژ مفاصل خودش و نیز صدای زوزه‌ی باد را در جمجه‌ی خالی‌اش ضبط کرده است. دستور می‌دهد که این صداها را پخش کنند و هزار برابر تقویت‌شان کنند، تا تمام صداهای زندگی را در خود خفه سازند.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The younger man is waiting for an answer. He has not met many people in his life from whom he might expect a meaningful answer. He has been educated, of course: they handed him a lot of formulae, practical information and also many superstitions and half-truths about the world he lives in. At home, they raised him to be honest and diligent. One must work to live. But why he should live, that they didn't tell him, or didn't know."

[Aarmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

به نظر من این کتاب بسیار خوب شروع شد، ولی زدن حرفهای محیط زیستی به نحوی نصیحت گرایانه و بدبینانه انتهای کتاب رو به یک کتاب اتوبیوگرافانه ی خسته کننده تبدیل کرد

[Farzane · Rating 3 out of 5]

آیا سردخانه تمام دنیای من است، یا اینکه تمام دنیا به سردخانه ای بدل شده؟

[Ali Amiri · Rating 3 out of 5]

داستان‌های خوبی بودن. خیلی حیرت‌انگیز نبودن اما روی‌هم‌رفته روایت‌ها صادق و صمیمی و پیرنگ‌ها جذاب بودن .

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

"صدای آشنایی را که از تلفن می آمد شنیدم؛ سانتا کلاوس ام. امروز بعد از ظهر یک ساعت وقت دارید؟ -بله. صدا با لهجه ی تقلید ناپذیری که فقط می توانست از آن آدمی با پدر مکزیکی و مادر هندی باشد، گفت: محشره. بعد گوشی را گذاشت. معلوم بود فکر می کند که مکالمه مان هر چه کوتاهتر باشد در کسی که به آن گوش می دهد سوءظن کمتری برمی انگیزد. هر وقت خودش را سانتا کلاوس معرفی می کرد، معنایش این بود که از یکی از سفرهای کاری بسیارش به خارج برگشته بود و برایم کتاب آورده بود. ساعت یازده و نیم بود و برف شدیدی می بارید. آن روز صبح همسرم اتومبیل را برده بود و تا دستم به او می رسید ظهر می شد. علاقه ی چندانی به رانندگی ندارم، اما نمی دانستم سانتا کلاوس چند تا کسیه کتاب قاچاق خریده و آورده. دشوار می شد درکش کرد. امکان داشت که بیش از آنکه قادر به حملش باشم آورده باشد. با نیکلاس اتفاقی آشنا شده بودم. پمپ آب اتومبیل رنوی عتیقه ام از کار افتاده بود، بعد از آن که سه ماه بی حرکت توی گاراژ افتاده بود، یک کسی اسم و نشانی نیکلاس را به من داد، گفت او اغلب به خارج می رود و مطمئنا برایم یک پمپ آب نو می آورد. -وقتی حتی نمی شناسدم، برای چی چنین کاری می کند؟ علتش این است که من نویسنده ام و او عاشق ادبیات است یا به عبارت دقیق تر، همسر عاشق ادبیات اشرا می پرستد. -پولش را چه طوری بدهم؟ نگران پول نباش: برای یک تاجر ثروتمند یک قطعه ی یدکی حکم یک کیلو سیب برای من را دارد. نسخه ی امضا شده یکی از کتاب هایت را به او بده. یا به نهار دعوتش کن. تقریبا یک ماه دو دل بودم، اما وقتی پمپ آب اتومبیلم همچنان نایاب بود، زنگ در خانه ی آن بیگانه را زدم. ظرف یک هفته نه فقط پمپ، که یک بسته کتاب هم داشتم. او لبخند زد. قد بلند بود، موهای جو گندمی و پوست تیره ای داشت. گفت خوشحال است که می تواند کمکم کند. گفت برای هنر بالاترین احترام را قائل است و می فهمد که در چه شرایط سختی به سر می برم. یکی از کتاب هایم را، با یک تقدیم نامچه به او دادم و او و همسرش را به شام دعوت کردم. من که در دوره بدگمانی بزرگ شده بودم، در طول دیدار با آن ها حواسم جمع بود و اسرار نویسندگی ام را تنها اسراری را که می توانستم افشا کنم- فاش نکردم. اما نیکلاس کنجکاوی نکرد…"

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book of linked short stories, though they are only linked by the theme of "work I was compelled to do" and therefore they all work well as standalone stories.

The story that made the book special for me was the last and longest one, 'The Surveyor's Story', which is a multi-part narrative that takes up one third of the entire book. It could easily be extracted from the book and published as a separate novella. It is easily the finest piece in the volume.

The weakest story, for me, was 'The Courier's Story', not so much because it was badly written or uninteresting in its development, but simply for the jarring effect of the outdated technology that it constantly references. This shouldn't be a disadvantage, but somehow with computer technology from the 1980s, the obsolete systems mar the atmosphere. I don't know why. The same thing often happens with the work of (the brilliant) John Sladek.

The other stories were all good. Klíma is obviously a wonderful writer. How autobiographical these pieces are is unknown to me. Klíma in his afterword says that he actually worked as a surveyor and I absolutely believe him. The details of the work in 'The Surveyor's Story' feel intensely real, not the sort of thing you could research from books, but only gain from real experience.

[Alec · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dull journalistic hammering-in of a major trauma, however truthful the feelings and the facts.

In the style of a National Geographic investigation (the translator may be responsible for that, in part), life in the socialistic Czechoslovakia is presented through peripatetic moonlighting of a Remarque-like hero (who persistently presents himself as a writer on the prowl) with frequent and repetitious asides that are moralistic and paternalistic in nature.

Whatever found its way onto the page is the result of not being able to tell a story while also not being able to refrain from telling one, because in the end it remains unclear whether the stories are meant to carry the observations, or the ramblings are there to paste over the stories that didn't work.

As the author says in the afterword, "these experiences only provided the impulse or the occasion for me to say something I had to say". Well, I'd rather he had said something he didn't have to say.

Some of it is cute, though. And don't get me wrong, it's not that bad. Maybe it really wasn't as pointless to write it then as it is to read now.

[Mila · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Golden Trades allows a glimpse at everyday life in Czechoslovakia of the last decade of communism through the different occupations the narrator has to take up, which go from smuggling forbidden books to taking part in archeological digs or assisting a surveyor, in the footsteps of Kafka’s K.
Against the backdrop of secret police harassment, bureaucratic hindrances on the one side and extremely concrete, menial tasks on the other side, the narrator raises a quiet, grounded and compassionate voice that meanders in melancholic musings on human existence.

“It is probable that very soon we will have altered the courses of all our rivers, cut down all our forests, killed off the migrating birds, and obscured the boundary between day and night; in other words, that we will have broken the ties that binds us to our ancestors, those of our blood and those not of our blood, the tie that binds us to our homeland and therefore to the earth. And then we will have hurled ourselves into the emptiness of the universe."

[Molly Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book of short stories detailing the different labors that one writer living under an oppressive regime must do to survive. The stories contain interesting reflections on the authoritarian state, the crumbling environment, and the dignity and shame of different types of labor. The author also ties every story to the narrator's past experiences in World War II, giving each tale more significance through showing how the narrator keeps his current troubles in perspective when he remembers what he and others suffered during the war.

[Milan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Klímů je, zdá sa, více. Ono, i nejhorší Klíma je pořád minimálně za čtyři hvězdy, a tenhle není nejhorší, jenom je jiný, a mně to tak nějak zaskočilo. Je tu mnohem víc ztěžklého přemýšlení, zrcadlí se tady zřejmě víc než by bylo záhodno nějaké autorovo náročnější období, a zejména pesimistické nářky o stavu přírody a budoucnosti planety z konce osmdesátých let vyznívají v dnešním klimatu, meteorologickém i všem tom jiném, paranoidně, neřku-li komicky. Stejně ale, i tužšeji poutahovaný text je pořád nenapodobitelně hladký, pořád suverénní ve své přirozenosti.

[Kamran Sehgal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad I found this book in a used book store in Vientiane, Laos. A very autobiographical work that follows a character doing a few random jobs around Prague and the Czech Republic which the author also did whilst supporting his writing career. Through these stories we gather a wide variety of characters that gives the work a deeply humanistic feeling. Glimpses of a country under a dictatorship are on every page and some references to political situations are very evident if you read between the lines.

A good work for anyone looking for advice on finding a new job!

[Ross Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've also read 'My First Loves' by Klíma, which is truly beautiful.

This book isn't quite on a par with that, but it's graceful, poetic and lovely to read.

As he mentions in these accounts of the jobs he has filled, some writers choose to write about large-scale events, but that's not for him.

Instead, Klíma takes the minutiae of life, arranges it into short vignettes and renders the ordinary as beautiful. Well worth your time.

[Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad slice of life of a writer doing odd jobs in Communist dominated Czechslovakia in the mid eighties, but pretty dry. At times there was a nugget or two of unveiled truth but reading this was like chewing dry toast.

[Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad i re-read this, one of my favourites of his . ..

[Lizzy Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is written so beautifully it makes me want to feel the sun on my face and think profound thoughts.

[Furait]

aanrader. Schweikiaanse humor. Tchechoslowakije voor 1989.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Place feet in gutter. Look up at the stars. Repeat.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Amazon review:

This book is in some ways exactly what it looks like, a survey, to borrow an occupation the narrator held, of life in a police state. However, what Klima does in these connected tales is deceptively difficult. He has written in a style which remains free of ponderousness, which starts with the narrator's attitude and is reflected in the sentences and word choices.

This could not have been easy, and one can think of how pregnant each line could have been. Instead, there is a deft comic touch which helps wring events for their melancholy and, at times, frightening juices. Each story poses a problem for the narrator. As the book proceeds we are invited to watch as he fumbles for some meaning to what happens, while at the same time we know he actively resists the notion that a definite reason can be found to explain why anything happens. We float as he floats, and digress in our own thoughts when he digresses. For this reader, the book became more grave than comic with the last tale, partly due to its content, partly to the picture Klima has built up effectively.

Indeed, the comedy is quietly presented as perhaps the only way to defend oneself against the daily assaults of life under such a regime, and not a completely reliable defense at that. Therein lies the melancholy of this work, which is a good introduction to Klima's art.

One word must be said about the proofreading of the Penguin softcover edition. Perhaps that company simply purchased the text from Granta and decided not to bother with checking if words were repeated needlessly, if the past tense of a word should have been supplied instead of a present, and so on. Errors like that occur much too often (and in so short a book), and are a disservice to the author and the reader.

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the six stories that were more of a combination of essay and story told in the first person. The Smuggler's Story spoke of censorship and surveillance of the citizenry in the former CSSR while The Courier's Story alluded to the computerized documentation of an ecological disaster. Klima is always on the sidelines providing a commentary that successfully integrates the personal relationships of those he encounters along with an evocative description of the countryside; whether rolling hills or the grim desolation of a landscape despoiled by pollution. It is not until the culmination of his stories with The Surveyor's Story, and his longest story, that you begin to have some sense of the proportions of the humiliation suffered by an entire nation for over three decades under Communist rule by an idealistic cadre of its own citizens.

.

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Povídky, které ilustrují dobu, kdy autor nemohl vykonávat svou činnost, se soustředí na vztahy mezi lidmi. Autor rozebírá jejich problémy, často při rozhovoru s těmito osobami, a snaží se je navést k nějakému řešení. Klíma se vícekrát zabývá tématy jako smrt, sny a minulost: některé své příhody přirovnává k různým situacím z minulosti, ať už z jeho života nebo z úplně jiné doby (pašerácká povídka, vyprávění se prolíná s příběhem pašeráka před dvěma sty a čtyřiceti sedmi lety).
Nejvíce se mi líbila povídka řidičská a pašerácká, protože v ní bylo nejvíce akce a líčila zápletky, do kterých se dostával každý nepřítel tehdejšího režimu. Nejméně mě naopak zaujala povídka zeměměřičská, ve které autor hodně rozvíjí své myšlenky, což bylo pro ně někdy až zdlouhavé.

[BancoRadio · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is surprisingly good book. And yes, I say surprisingly - growing up during the last breath of the Czechoslovakian communism and living through through the (while deserving, for a teenager quickly exhausting) celebrations of the previously forbidden writers in all different media forms, I expected yet another complaining saga. But this book is different, it does not dwell on the descriptions of the corrupt and stupid regime, it takes the approach of the sort-of-common man (if changing jobs is something of a trade of a common person) and talks about the reality from that perspective. I found especially the last couple chapters hilarious, charming and funny but again, this might be a perspective of someone who in fact does remember something of the old era.