Golem City: The arts and literature of Prague
CharlasThe Chapel of the Abyss
Únete a LibraryThing para publicar.
Este tema está marcado actualmente como "inactivo"—el último mensaje es de hace más de 90 días. Puedes reactivarlo escribiendo una respuesta.
1kswolff
Prague is the spiritual epicenter for Mitteleuropa, a glorious crossroads of East and West. It has been the outpost of various and sundry imperial constructions (Hapsburg, Nazi, Soviet -- and further down the rabbit hole with Roman, Byzantine, and Hun empires). It also has a rich literary history, the names reading like a Greatest Hits Compilation: Kafka, Klima, Gustav Meyrink, Havel, and others. Umberto Eco wrote about The Prague Cemetery, a satire on anti-Semitic paranoia.
I recently finished The Combinations by Louis Armand, an 888 doorstopper that takes place in Prague. The plot involves the aimless wanderings of a schlemiel named Nemec and his dealings with his dead professor. There's also digressions involving Reinhard Heydrich, the Voynich Manuscript, Emperor Rudolf II, John Dee, secret police, a sexy redheaded librarian, a dwarf, secret cabals, a crossword puzzle, and a fake antiquities scam. It belongs to the long line of encyclopedic literary behemoths like Gargantua and Pantagruel, Ulysses, Europe Central, and Infinite Jest It's not just a book, it's an experience! (It was published by Equus Press. Their other recent publications includes a translation of Bataille's oddball text Louis XXX and a stream-of-consciousness tome by Philippe Sollers)
What is it about Prague that cultivates such a grand bouquet of visionary oddballs and paranoid freaks?
I recently finished The Combinations by Louis Armand, an 888 doorstopper that takes place in Prague. The plot involves the aimless wanderings of a schlemiel named Nemec and his dealings with his dead professor. There's also digressions involving Reinhard Heydrich, the Voynich Manuscript, Emperor Rudolf II, John Dee, secret police, a sexy redheaded librarian, a dwarf, secret cabals, a crossword puzzle, and a fake antiquities scam. It belongs to the long line of encyclopedic literary behemoths like Gargantua and Pantagruel, Ulysses, Europe Central, and Infinite Jest It's not just a book, it's an experience! (It was published by Equus Press. Their other recent publications includes a translation of Bataille's oddball text Louis XXX and a stream-of-consciousness tome by Philippe Sollers)
What is it about Prague that cultivates such a grand bouquet of visionary oddballs and paranoid freaks?
Únete para publicar
