A monitored week in the life of (My Merry Mornings: Stories from Prague - Ivan Klima)

Member Name: mo79

Product:	My Merry Mornings: Stories from Prague - Ivan Klima
Date:	16/02/02 (340 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A short collection of surprising, grim, funny and polite autobiographical tales, delicately threaded

Disadvantages: Seems pricey, a bit awkward to fully absorb in areas, personally, and not an overly exciting read

George Theiner's translation of banned Czech writer Ivan Klima's 'My Merry Mornings' is a short and pleasant read of 7 short autobiographical tales, one for each day (morning) of the week.
These somewhat ordinary tales take on an engrossing darkness when you realise that they're set in a Communist Prague which silences everything to a grey and mutes those who threaten to give a colourful holler, thus making the simplest of events significant. So it's no wonder that Readers International have published this work when they special in modern major world literature, mainly produced by writers of such a predicament as Klima.

I don't claim to understand and know the significance of all these tales, and if I do, it's in my own way (maybe that's the way it's meant to be) as I don't have a particular political inclination or knowledge of Prague, but whether you do or don't it's easy to be lulled into a state of machine-like absorbance and take in with appreciation what enters your head, especially since the stories are short, simple and easy to devour, but also because they feel empowering and the characters, including Klima himself are likeable to the extreme. The tales are exercises in the funny, shocking or absurd.

Czech artist Jan Brycha is reponsible for the few sketchy illustrations within the book and the cover art. The actual design of the book isn't that eye catching, and I only know this book by the fact I borrowed it.

The first tale recalls how the young son of a dysfunctional Jewish couple leaps out on to Klima's terrace in order to kill himself but survives in a bloody state, which the boy oddly desires, and recalls a desire to kill his father while at the hospital.

The second tale is a nostalgic one where a woman from Klima's past calls out of the blue in order to rekindle the joy of sex at lunchtimes in the bushes they had in their youth, unfortunately many
variables have changed stunting that.

Then there's a tale that shows the cycle of conspiracy when Klima and a friend try to make some money selling carp outside of a supermarket (the cover art depicts the main scene); a conspiracy that appears to please everyone on the outside, atleast cosmetically.

The fourth tale describes how male dominated the world has become with many phallic examples, and in the meanwhile couples engage in sex from behind a scrap heap. - The sex in this book is hardly explicit or elongated, which is either dissapointing or fine (perfect) according to your taste.

Friday's tale sees Klima working as a hospital orderly and accounts his encounters with the characters there, a death of an elderly woman and the uncovering of a secret.

The sixth tale finds Klima and his friend in search of some plank for some building work where they come across a stripper entertaining businessmen.

While the last tale lets us learn a bit more about Klima's opression via his conversations with a respected professor, his priest friend a runaway woman and two eccentric religious devouts.

There is a certain thread that runs through all the tales, either subtley or overtly, and that is the continual monitoring of Klima by 'them'...

For a £7.99 (RRP anyway) paperback the price is a bit steep, considering the book's lastingness is about a week long, but there is a slight desire to maybe re-read the stories to discover more layers and meanings if they exist.
My first and only read has only absorbed most of what isn't transparent, but I do understand the metaphors laying beneath a few of them (not that this is a very deep read), and as mentioned before it was just comfortably easy to read, even if there hadn't been any point in the words, and they do burn a certain impression on your brain, but for how long? I don't know; maybe that's just because I've just started
another book occupying my temp memory space.

I did find it funny, surprising, polite and above all original, apart from enjoying reading it, so I guess I can't divert from giving it 4 stars really. I can't quite put my finger on why I like it, I just do - I hope this ambiguity isn't annoying, all I can do is end here now and hope I've made my point, even if it is a tad hazy.

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