Hochzeiten im Hause: Ein Madchenroman.

Schubert, Peter Z.

The timing of the publication of Hochzeiten im Hause, the German translation of Svatby v dome (Weddings in the House; see WLT63:1, p. 129), could not be better. While the book was being prepared for distribution, the author added to his collection of honors the most prestigious Czech literary award, the Jaroslav Seifert Prize, precisely for this autobiographical novel--although the book was published in Czech some six years earlier--and, almost at the same time, Susanna Roth, Hrabal's Swiss translator, received for her work the Pro Bohema Prize awarded to the best Bohemists. Even without the recent accolades, however, and the Nobel Prize nomination by the Czech PEN Club, Hrabal--perhaps the most popular writer in the Czech Republic--is not a name unknown to the German reading public. Although his works have been translated into some twenty-four languages, the translations into German have a commanding lead, with twenty-three of the approximately fifty titles Hrabal has published in Czech, followed by Polish with fifteen translations. English trails far behind, with only five titles.

Svatby v dome is the summary title of Hrabal's autobiographical trilogy and also the title of its first volume. The sequels are entitled Vita Nuova (New Life) and Proluky (Vacant Sites) respectively. The entire trilogy is stylized as a narration by the author's wife Eliska. Another autobiographical volume by Hrabal, Zivotopis trochu jinak (Biography in a Somewhat Different Form), which describes the author's childhood in Nymburk, logically precedes Svatby v dome but is not a part of the trilogy. Hochzeiten im Hause contains only the first two volumes of the trilogy, but it seems that the third volume will soon follow, for the 26-27 March 1994 issue of the Austrian daily Die Presse carries two extensive excerpts from Proluky--although not referred to as such, and dubbed only two stories that are to be published in the April issue of the Transit magazine, translated into German also by Susanna Roth.

The first volume describes a relatively brief period in Hrabal's life, covering the time from his first meeting with Pepsi (his wife's nickname) in 1954 or 1955 to their wedding in 1957. The subtitle "A Novel for Girls" gives the narrative outline. It is the traditional scheme of this genre: the love of a young, previously disappointed girl that has a happy ending. The title of the volume has several meanings, however, as it refers not only to the actual wedding but also to the drinking bouts organized by Hrabal (referred to as Doctor in the novel) in his apartment and to his general attitude toward life. While Doctor perceives life as a marriage feast and joy, and he and his bride-to-be grow closer during their walks and excursions, the reader is also shown a picture of the couple and of the few people around them as victims of the social change after the 1948 communist takeover, former socialites who became social outsiders living in squalor. This is also symbolized by the quote from Ivan Klima that is used as the motto: "The foundations rose high, the peaks descended to the lowest depths."

Although proclaimed a novel, Svatby v dome really is a free sequence of episodes in which the author contrasts the triviality of the genre scheme with the anti-idyllic fates and depth of his characters. Nevertheless, the first part of the trilogy still is the most traditional in form of the entire work. In the second volume, Vita Nuova, the author frees the flow of memories to attain a form akin to the stream-of-conscience method. He even does away with punctuation--not an unfamiliar device with Hrabal--in the process. This adds graphic intensity to the scenes, releases them from historical time, and brings them to the internal human world. Hence also the subtitle "Kartinky" (Pictures or Tableaux), which is a reference not only to the graphic artist Vladimir Boudnik, one of the principal characters in this volume, but also to the work's form. After all, Hochzeiten im Hause includes an introduction to Vita nuova by Hrabal (absent in the original Czech edition) in which the author refers to a "method of tracking down the buried pictures of my life." This part is dedicated to Karel Marysko and is introduced by the proverb "Whoever is doomed to hang will not drown." The motto offers an alternate version of the "new life" of the title.

At any rate, the second volume, covering the next five years, from 1957 to 1962, depicts Hrabal's new life. It is not just his marriage that is referred to, for other aspects of his life change as well. Whereas the scene of the first volume was virtually a social desert, the world of volume 2 is populated with friends, artists, and writers. Doctor writes (and we learn about his/Hrabal's method of producing automatic texts), quits his job in a recycling plant, and eventually receives a grant to write a collection of short stories. The time is not ripe, however, for the publication of the book. This part stops just short of Hrabal's realization of his lifelong dream of becoming a true (published) writer. That happens in the final volume, which is not included here.

Although some readers find Hrabal's later works disappointing, Hochzeiten im Hause certainly is worth reading both for the information it contains and for the sheer pleasure it affords. Roth's translation is so outstanding that the two words found different from the Czech original must have been subsequent changes by the author.

Peter Z. Schubert University of Alberta