Alexandr Kliment. Living Parallel.

Schubert, Peter Z.

Alexandr Kliment. Living Parallel. Robert Wechsler, tr. North Haven, Connecticut. Catbird. 2002. xvii + 222 pages. $21. ISBN 0945774-51-6

NUMBER 107 in the famous Czech samizdat Padlock series, Nuda v Cechach (Boredom in Bohemia, translated here as Living Parallel), began to circulate in Prague in 1976 and immediately gained recognition as a significant contribution to both the art of literature and the understanding of the author's contemporaries. It did not take long before the book was translated into German, Swedish, and Dutch, and the Czech original was published in Canada. Until now, however, it has not found an English translator. Tremendous changes took place in the Czech Republic since the novel first appeared, and there is a shift in the reader's perception of the text. This does not mean, however, that the subject has lost its contemporaneity. While acquiring a historical facet from the Czech perspective, Living Parallel sustains its ethical and psychological probing.

The story of the protagonist, architect Mikulas Svoboda, is developed in two distinct streams of the narrative. In the first one, the forty-year-old protagonist meets the painter Olga after many years at the end of 1967 and must decide whether he will leave the country with her to live permanently in France. The decision whether to emigrate is crucial for both the protagonist and the novel. The other stream consists of Mikulas's reminiscences, and presents his life from 1947 to 1967. He met Olga as an archiecture student in 1947 and has never forgotten the meeting. The communist coup followed shortly thereafter, with the political trials of the 195os and the general political opression. The protagonist's parents died at the time, and his brother's promising career ended, perhaps even fortunately, in a mental institution. Mikulas himself gave up his professional ambitions and opted for the "boredom" of the original title. As the protagonist-narrator himself phrases it, "I put up with tedious, servile work without a word of protest." Subsequently, deprived of an "active" part, his becomes tedious, boring. It is not a pure tedium, however, of the "superfluous men" of Russian literature. Mikulas lives, works, marries, divorces, but he feels estranged, outside the flow of life. As he says, "I developed a parallel existence of my own," and again, "I am a parallel person. [ stand outside events, but I breathe their atmosphere." Hence, the translator's preference for the title Living Parallel is quite understandable.

The translation reads well, and the translator's preface also indicates the attention Robert Wechsler paid to the style and linguistic devices (rhythm, sound, et cetera) of the original. Unfortunately, he is less careful in tense (present occasionally becomes past), conjugation ("you were" becomes "she was"), and at times he mistranslates single words (twelve becomes twenty, self-confidence becomes self-love, and regret becomes grieve, et cetera) or entire phrases ("skimming stones on water" becomes "throwing stones at frogs"). Years after two children "were married" by another child, they had a real, adult wedding. According to the translator, however, they became adults. The "end-of-gymnasium exams" are normally translated as senior matriculation or high-school graduation. The gymnasium here, similarly to "fizl" (cop) and "Bezpecnost" (security/police) remain without translation or explanation but may be understood from context. The repeated translation of Mikulas's surname on page 148 ("Freedom does not whine"), however, leaves the reader rather confused. There are some obvious shortcomings in the translation, but they do not interfere with the author's psychological reflection on the ethics and motivation of the members of his generation and/or on the difficult decision to leave one's country.

Peter Z. Schubert

University of Alberta