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Title: Love and Garbage by IVAN KLIMA ISBN: 0-679-73755-3 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 31 March, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Klima's typical blend of musings and The Muse
Comment: As with his other writing--essays, short stories, other novels--Klima mixes lots of pondering with a slow-moving, at times suspended, plot. He favors thinking about Kafka, Kampuchea, the Bomb, garbage, and corrosion of the moral and physical type. It takes a very slow accretion of these reflections, alternating with the narrator's work on a sanitation crew, the decline of his father's health, his marriage and his mistress, and his own impotence as--you guessed it, a writer..to emerge into what manages to be an appropriate ending to this reflective, meditative narrative.
I like Klima's refusal to give into the cliche, the accepted role, and his determination to peer over into the abyss: the quality he fears and admires in his predecessor Kafka. As with most of his work, you find out less about the streets of Prague than his inner labyrinthine intellect. I do wish, however, that Klima could break out of his familiar narratorial role: his protagonist always seems like himself, despite at the novel's start a disclaimer. Which is wise, considering Klima's faithful rendition of a love triangle that motivates what plot that exists to thread the multiple digressions and sub-plots along. His account of infidelity certainly carries the whole theme of lies and decay forward and grounds the novel in its elaborations.
Actually, the garbage crew proves the least interesting part of this novel, and the relationship between him and his wife and his mistress the most engrossing--I expected to be excited by just the opposite motif! Klima comments elsewhere that he took on the garbageman job as "research" for a novel. On the other hand, under the communist regime, he may not have had many alternatives. See "My Golden Trades" for some of his other tasks.
More admirable than Kundera, in my opinion, is Klima's moral stance; you can read his interview with Philip Roth in Klima's essay collection "Spirit of Prague" to understand more about how the two Czechs differ in their decisions. For readers willing to be moved more by insight than titillation, this is a fine place to begin your introduction to Klima's world.
Rating: 2
Summary: Read Kundera Instead
Comment: Although I enjoyed this book, I found it strikingly unoriginal. Klima covers many of the themes found in other Czech literature written during the rule of the communist regime: love, hate, body, soul, oppression, and freedom. If one is interested in exploring such themes, Milan Kundera's 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' is a much better choice than this particular work. Given that 'Love and Garbage' is Klima's response to Kundera's 'Unbearable Lightness...' I find it difficult to see how one could fully understand this book without first having read Kundera's novel. When one reads both books, one immediately notices the marked difference between the two authors: simply put, Kundera is better.
Rating: 3
Summary: Complex, but worthwhile
Comment: Klima writes beautifully, but I found the book to convoluted to give it a higher rating. I think he tried to squeeze too many themes and sub-plots into one book, and also that the narrator takes too long to resolve his inner turmoil about his extra-marital relationship. But the book is nonetheless worth reading for the prose, which is exemplary. This is not a book to read in small chunks on trains and planes, and should be tackled under perfect reading conditions.
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Title: Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal, Michael Henry Heim ISBN: 0156904586 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light : A Novel by Ivan Klima ISBN: 0312140924 Publisher: Picador Pub. Date: 15 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Spirit of Prague and Other Essays by Ivan Klima, Paul Wilson ISBN: 0964561123 Publisher: Granta (NY) Pub. Date: 01 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Prague Tales (Central European Classics) by Jan Neruda, Michael H. Heim ISBN: 9639116238 Publisher: Central European University Press Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Closely Watched Trains (European Classics) by Bohumil Hrabal, Edith Pargeter ISBN: 0810112787 Publisher: Northwestern Pub. Date: 09 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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