City Sister Silver (authors influenced by Pynchon)

[Ya Sam]

The exodus continued, here and there panic seized the incoming Germans that 
the Czechs had put a stop to their departure that there were machine guns on 
the rooftops that the Stasi were roaming the streets of Prague along with 
the StB, dragging off Germans and Czechs that the StB was foment-ing hatred 
among the Czech people against the traitors to communism the same way the 
Gestapo had fomented hatred among the German people against the vermin of 
the Reich the Germans, stretching through the streets and across the square, 
and the Czechs, observing them from windows and balconies, surrounding them 
down on the sidewalks, silently watching the flight from communism with 
nowhere to go themselves because this was their only country all of them 
well aware that the whole thing could still be stopped, aware of the force 
that could cut them off from one another, from that silent contact when the 
Germans filled the streets they dragged, slow and sluggish, crews of 
long-haired boys and girls, holding hands, sometimes, like me and She-Dog, 
only going somewhere else old ladies with purses, parents with little 
children clutching teddy bears and dolls but when the crowd thinned out into 
smaller groups, alarming reports caught up to them from behind, from all 
over the city, maybe it was strange vibrations from the Prague train 
stations, from their homes back there in Dresden, Karl-Marx-Stadt, Gera, 
Zwickau, from bor-der towns and villages where they were hastily packing 
their last things, jewelry food and clothing, and for the last time 
nervously examining their passports and taking flight, fleeing Big Brother, 
who seemed to have nodded off for a spell, probably after downing a large 
bloody nightcap as they picked off another, shot him dead, left him lying 
there by the Wall Die Unbekannten. But the Monster could awake at any time, 
refreshed and ready, to dole out punishment here and there reports spread 
that it was over, that they were too late, that they were going in vain, 
into a trap and the clusters of Germans began to move faster, some even 
sprinting the last hundred, twenty, ten meters, and then it was triumph, a 
game leaving behind in the streets of Malá Strana their heavy bags and 
suitcases, blankets they'd huddled in at night when the embassy was too 
full, inflatable pillows, propane-butane tanks, all the things they wouldn't 
need in the West of their dreams forgotten toys lay strewn about the street, 
a teddy bear with its head twisted off and rubber duckies flung out of the 
bolshevik pond of the gee-dee-ar onto the cobblestones of Prague, lost in 
the rush and confusion, no doubt since replaced by that silky-haired slut 
Barbie I saw a skillet and a schoolbag, the square was full of cars, a 
Trabant with a comforter on the roof lay on its side
stride after stride
pots and pans knocking at their side
children with comforters in wagons ride
flaming crosses up in the sky
days with salty anguish undone
and no one here can tell them why
where to go or what will come,
she said.
Well, I dunno if it's all that dramatic.

http://www.ce-review.org/01/4/topol4.html







>From: "Ya Sam" <takoitov at hotmail.com>
>To: fqmorris at gmail.com
>CC: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: authors influenced by Pynchon
>Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 17:38:15 +0300
>
>Almost bought it in Prague...
>
>
>>From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>To: "Ya Sam" <takoitov at hotmail.com>
>>CC: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>Subject: Re: authors influenced by Pynchon
>>Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 09:33:36 -0500
>>
>>This book sure has a nice cover.  It sounds great from the review
>>below.  Has anybody here actually read it?
>>
>>On 10/16/06, Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>Jachym Topol
>>>
>>>City Sister Silver
>>>
>>>
>>>"Despite its episodic feel, City Sister Silver isn't about plot. In 
>>>essence,
>>>this is a story *about* telling stories, and the events of the narrative
>>>serve to that end. Topol, a playful mythomaniac and raconteur at heart,
>>>embraces the tradition of oral storytelling and the accuracy-flaws 
>>>inherent
>>>in such babel. CSS of the East Germans," when thousands from that country
>>>sought asylum in Prague's West German embassy in 1989); Native American
>>>history-cum-legend; Old Bohemio-Celtic tribal-war tales; revisionist 
>>>Greek
>>>mythology (a re-imagining of Odysseus and Penelope that has Homer rolling 
>>>in
>>>his grave); mock-American tall-tales; Urban legends (a snuff film); 
>>>modern
>>>cliche's (a prison rape); Grimms' fairy tales; a riff on a fictional 
>>>comic
>>>book; and most unnerving, a chilling Auschwitz dream sequence, replete 
>>>with
>>>a talking-skeleton tour guide and an endless morass of human bones. 
>>>Someone
>>>is always telling a story in CSS, but the tales always entertain and 
>>>engage;
>>>they never seem forced, superfluous or pretentious.
>>>
>>>In raving about CSS to various friends, I found myself comparing Topol to 
>>>a
>>>host of different writers, and yet, as in all great literature, this 
>>>novel
>>>remains unique. Topol invokes everyone from fellow Czechs Bohumil Hrabal,
>>>Franz Kafka and Jaroslav Hasek, to others such as Celine, Pynchon, 
>>>Kerouac,
>>>Irvine Welsh, Blaise Cendrars, and Anthony Burgess. Every reader will 
>>>find
>>>as many different comparisons (I saw one reviewer liken the novel to the
>>>best of Gunther Grass and Salman Rushdie).
>>>
>>>One caveat, which is confession by Potok, and at first punctuation seems
>>>arbitrary (e.g., Topol is fond of ellipses and the sentence
>>>fragment-as-sentence). Like Burgess's Clockwork Orange and Welsh's
>>>Trainspotting, it takes a good fifteen or twenty pages to get into the
>>>rhythm of the slang, but once you get with it, the book flows like water.
>>>Afterall, this is a book about the beauty and elasticity of language, and
>>>the tales one can spin using creative language. Finally, I should point 
>>>out
>>>the smooth translation of this novel by Alex Zucker, who took on an
>>>obviously gargantuan task, and who rounded out his duties with an 
>>>engaging
>>>translator's preface and insightful and erudite end notes."
>>>
>>>"Although it's a difficult book to handle in its Pynchonesque, Joycean
>>>ambition, it rewards you with hundreds of vignettes, miniature scenes 
>>>pulled
>>>out of reveries and terrors for our delight and instruction. A more 
>>>serious
>>>book at its core than the punkish surface may let on, the respect for 
>>>mercy,
>>>faith, and humanity beneath the mayhem and alienation reminds us that the
>>>search for enduring values persists in the most unlikely fictional and
>>>factual terrains. And, like Dante at his quest's end, somehow he sees and
>>>does not see his Beatrice again. At least that's my guess. See for 
>>>yourself.
>>>This book marvelously conjures up images from its descriptions, and you 
>>>too
>>>drift through space."
>>>
>>>
>>>http://www.amazon.com/City-Sister-Silver-Jachym-Topol/dp/0945774451
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>David Morris
>
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