The Memorandum
by Václav Havel
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Description
Václav Havel, one of Czechoslovakia's great playwrights and a renowned political maverick, received international attention in the summer of 1979 when he and other "dissidents" were imprisoned by Czech authorities. The Memorandum, written and performed during Czechoslovakia's era of relative political freedom in the 1960s, is a provocative and witty assault on the madness of "efficiency" peculiar to total bureaucracy. In a large office, and unknown to the Managing Director, a new show more language called "Ptydepe" is installed as the official means of inter-office communication, despite the fact that it is known to only a handful of people, that only the most resolute can learn it, and that it is, when learned, almost impossible to use. The Memorandum was first produced in the country by Joseph Papp in 1968, and received wide critical acclaim, including the 1967-8 Obie Award for Best Foreign Play. -- Provided by publisher. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
CGlanovsky absurdist take on the workings of bureaucracy
Member Reviews
In his introduction, Tom Stoppard says that in the play's Newspeak Ptydepe, a more frequently used word has fewer letter than a less frequently used one, and that the word for "wombat" therefore has 319 letters. You know what that means? That Prague's problems could be solved if it had more wombats. And really, the same could be said for anywhere.
Pretty entertaining-- and still representative of office/government/work-related absurdity.
So focused on making a point about the society that it doesn't hang together as a play.
A very Kafka like story (actually a Play) of Russian bureaucracy, or any governments bureacracy for that matter, at its worse and cleverly depicted.
read this ages ago, and on the re-read skimmed.
1 of 2 copies available in the BSCED Library
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Author Information
129+ Works 3,467 Members
Václav Harvel (October 5, 1936 - December 18, 2011) was a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, philosopher and politician. He was the ninth and last president of Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) and the first president of the Czech Republic (1993-2003). He wrote more than 20 plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally. At the time of show more his death he was Chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. Havel received many recognitions, including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, the freedom medal of the Four Freedoms Award, the Ambassador of Conscience Award and the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award. Havel died in his home in 2011. He was the author of many poetry collections and plays including, The Garden Party, The Beggar's Opera, Mountain Hotel and The Pig. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Notable Lists
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Cape Editions (06)
Slavische Cahiers (27)
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Has as a student's study guide
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Die Benachrichtigung
- Original title
- Vyrozumení
- Alternate titles
- The Memo; The Memorandum
- People/Characters
- Jan Ballas (Deputy Director); Josef Gross (Director); Hana (Secretary to the Director); Margaret Lear (Teacher of Ptydepe); Ferdinand Pillar; Alex Savant (Ptydepist) (show all 11); Otto Stroll (Head of the Translation Center); Tom Thumb (Clerk); George (Staff Watcher); Chairman Helena; Maria (Secretary to the Translation Center)
- Original language
- Czech
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genre
- Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 891.8625 — Literature & rhetoric Literatures of other languages East Indo-European and Celtic literatures West and South Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Slovene, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, and Macedonian) Czech Czech drama 1900–1989
- LCC
- PG5039.18 .A9 .V913 — Language and Literature Slavic languages and literatures. Baltic languages. Albanian language Slavic. Baltic. Albanian Slavic Czech
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 127
- Popularity
- 256,829
- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (3.53)
- Languages
- Dutch, English, German
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 2
