City, Sister, Silver

Says Jáchym Topol: “the tongue I use is one of Czechs, of Slavs, of slaves, of onetime slaves to Germans and Russians, and it’s a dog’s tongue. . . . It’s a tongue that often had to be spoken only in whispers.�€? Fortunately, that constraint no longer applies. This first novel, a fantasia of the Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution, is anything but quiet. It blusters and wails, and its keening is often songlike. Its characters, who cobble together an informal syndicate in an attempt to make sense of their new freedom, are reminiscent of the revolutionaries in Vollmann’s You Bright and Risen Angels, and its dreamy unreality recalls Bulgakov, but the presiding deity here is Anthony Burgess. As in A Clockwork show more Orange, Topol’s “accelerated city-speakâ€? employs countless neologisms and portmanteaux to dazzle readers and depict a uniquely unfamiliar environment. While occasional infelicities arise, as when the bedeviled translator must somehow render rural Bohemian dialect and Laotian-accented Czech into English, the overall effect is a healthy disorientation that mimics the sensation of living through flux. The rapidity of these changes in Prague produces the feeling in Potok, the twentysomething narrator, of living outside of history and time; one minor by-product is that he sees the children around him as part of a completely different generation, subject to sometimes pernicious new influences. Shops that once held teddy bears now stock plastic, western-style “Nuclear Asexual Homonucleoidsâ€? that, in Topol’s private symbolism, are referred to as “toyfilsâ€? (homonymous for devil in German, Teufel). Given the American media’s current fascination with kid culture, Potok’s unease may ring particularly true for Gen-Xers who feel they’ve been supplanted by their younger siblings, but Topol’s dynamic voice will exhilarate anyone who can still be swept away by a torrent of words. show less

This novel is set in post-Velvet Revolution Czech Republic. The sense of unrest, of people not knowing who to trust or how to conduct their lives, is very well represented. The book is narrated by Potok, a young man who is an actor by trade, but part of an "Organization" that makes money in all kinds of underhanded and illegal ways. They are brothers, he and his organization, not just associates and they all have very particular roles. Potok's adventures take dangerous and ill-fated twists as he pursues his "sister"- the woman he loves.

The language in the book is not always obvious in meaning, but it's not difficult once you fall into the story. I think I could read it a dozen more times and get more and more meaning out of it. As I show more was reading (and I found the book to be compulsively readable, even in the midst of dream sequences that were hard to comprehend), it was easy to let the words wash over me without having to work at the story. The use of ellipses is rampant throughout the book, but I got used to the rhythm of the story quickly. Read this book when you have time and space for it. It's not quick or easy, but it was worth reading. Bone up on the Velvet Revolution a bit, too- helps things make more sense. show less