Der Mann mit dem Rasiermesser.
Schubert, Peter Z.
After the suppression of the attempt at social revival in 1968,
censorship intervention of the normalization policy focused on the
authors who came to prominence in the second half of the 1960s and those
who became involved in the Fourth Congress of Writers and the events of
1968. Some of them had to leave the republic; others opted for internal
emigration. Jaroslav Putik was among the latter group. Until the
publication of his first novel, Smrtelna nedele (Fatal Sunday), in 1967,
Putik was relatively unknown, or was known only as a communist
journalist who had published several volumes of journalistic prose.
Smrtelna nedele, a psychological novel dealing with topical issues
against a backdrop of modern history, changed all this. It was
immediately acclaimed as one of the artistically best novels of the
time, and, perhaps because of the depiction of the fate of Putik's
own generation, the author was frequently compared with Milan Kundera
and Ludvik Vaculik.
Putik received the 1968 Mlada Fronta (publishing house) Prize, and
his future as a writer seemed secure when, one year later, he published
another psychological-social novel skeptically reviewing the
unsatisfactory moral results of twenty, years of communism, Brana
blazenych (The Gate of the Blessed). At the time no one expected that
Brana blazenych would remain Putik's last published book for the
next two decades. Cervene jahody (Red Strawberries), written in 1968,
was submitted for publication in 1969 but, despite the contract, did not
come out until its samizdat distribution in 1975.
In a 1976 interview Putik mentioned a novel on which he had worked
for some time, but it was not yet finished because he had no time for
writing. The book was Muz s britvou (The Man With the Razor), which
began to circulate in samizdat in 1984, was published in Czech by Index
in Cologne in 1986, and eventually was issued in Prague in 1991. The man
with the razor (the protagonist of the book), Jan Baudys, is a barber,
but he is also a freethinker, eccentric, folk philosopher, and
dilettante in various fields. The author himself says of Baudys in an
interview: "He is a comical figure. Nevertheless, I believe that
these ridiculous types are greater and more permanent than the bronze
heroes. I do not know why, but they have something everlasting in
them." This thesis is also reflected in the repeated conviction of
the hero that "small is great, and great is small."
Jan Baudys was born in a small Czech town in the Labe River region on
26 July 1914, the day the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef called
his "loyal peoples" in preparation for World War I, which led,
inter alia, to the declaration of independent Czechoslovakia on 28
October 1918. The premature death of his father forces Jan to abandon
his studies after only one year and seek an apprenticeship with a
barber. The barber's philandering wife contributes to Jan's
education in her own way. Distraught by his wife's perpetual
affairs, the master eventually disinherits her and leaves his curious
towered house (completed on the same day as the Empire State Building)
to Jan. On 15 March 1938, when German armed forces enter the republic,
Jan climbs the house's tower armed with a machine gun, intending to
resist the German military forces. Fortunately, his attempt is
suppressed without any dire consequences for our hero. Jan also helps a
daughter of a German Jewish jeweler to emigrate by marrying her and
refusing the offered reward. This necessitates forging some documents,
which comes in handy later when Jan helps the resistance movement by
preparing false documents.
After the communist takeover in 1948, Jan is so enthusiastic to
become a member of a cooperative that he is suspected of provocation and
in staged proceedings is tried for helping the class enemy and for
treason. Fortunately, he is recognized as a fellow resistance fighter by
one of the officials and released. The aforementioned tower on
Jan's house becomes also the source of conflicts with Jan's
quarrelsome neighbor, first a brakeman, later an informer, and
eventually a National Committee official - rather characteristic of the
time. Jan's life ends on 16 February 197-, when he drowns during a
Black Sea holiday (his only sojourn abroad) with Ema, his last lover and
the daughter of his first one.
The story is narrated by the protagonist's nephew, who receives
his uncle's notes at the funeral from Jan's friend, Mrs.
Cervena. Gradually, by means of flashbacks, digressions, and cyclical
returns, the nephew reconstructs Jan's life, records his deeds, and
attempts to determine their motivation. The text also includes documents
from Jan's legacy - unedited according to the nephew - including
horoscopes, diary excerpts, love letters, commented slogans from the
walls of his shop, et cetera. The narrator emphasizes the chaotic
sequence of events, subject to neither logic nor chronology, which
stands in stark contrast to the carefully prepared composition,
interwoven with numerous repetitive motifs. Still, a reader, while
enjoying individual episodes, may find making his way through fifty-nine
chapters varying in length from three lines to seventeen pages rather
tedious. A footnote on page 10 refers the reader to nine pages of
explanatory notes on terms, names, and the historical context needed for
understanding the main text, notes which are complemented by a page of
notes on Czech pronunciation. Those explanatory notes are most helpful
to a reader not familiar with Czech history and culture.
The narrative begins as a travesty - the detailed depiction of
personal relations between inhabitants of the small conservative town
presents an ironic portrait of the Czech bourgeoisie - and ends as a
hymn to the common man, which gives rise to comparisons with the work of
such masters of Czech literature as Karel Capek or Karel Polacek.
Nevertheless, it seems that reading individual episodes from the
entangled narrative may be - particularly for a foreign reader - more
rewarding than plowing through the entire book.
Peter Z. Schubert University of Alberta
