Authors

The novelist Jan Novák tends to work with real or autobiographical subjects. His personal experiences are his starting point, and from there he often turns to key historical events of the 20th century for their dramatic stories and self-contained situations. His progressive creative journey has seen him merge fiction with pseudo-documentary realism. Reality is mirrored in the author’s effectively simplified style, which avoids bringing unnecessary attention to itself through pretentious narrative gestures or techniques. He uses skilful narration, with an ear for natural dialogue, for this “observation of the world as though it were more important than the observation of one’s own viewpoint” (Václav Havel). The experience of emigration has influenced his writing greatly, and the key areas for him are freedom and heroism in various guises. But there are many more facets to Novák’s screenplays and dramatic works. The author’s literary debut was with a collection of short stories entitled Striptease Chicago which was brought out by Toronto’s 68 Publishers. The book is partly written in Chicago Czech, “a surrealistic dialect understood by the Czech emigrants,” but since then he has written only in English. By means of a striking play on linguistic styles, the author in this first work revealed himself to be a master storyteller inspired by Hrabal, Škvorecký and modern American literature. In these stories of Czechoslovak exiles in the USA, rather than having characters with noble ideals disturbing a “fragile bliss”, with everyone looking for their dream of “little America”, the author places himself entirely within the unsentimental stream of literature in exile, free of any illusions. Here we can already spot an interest in key moments in history and a refreshing view of “Čížky” (Bohemia) from a detached American perspective – and vice versa. The author’s second work of prose came out in New York in 1985 under the title The Willy’s Dream Kit, later brought out in a Czech edition as “Milionový jeep”. Here Jan Novák attempted a grand epic that was to a large extent autobiographical. In the background of the story, his family, and his father in particular, help to paint a picture of Czechoslovakia from the 1940s until the Soviet occupation, and afterwards the experience of emigration, first of all in an Austrian refugee camp and then in the 1970s the reality of the “American dream”. The unconventional figure of the author’s father as the main protagonist of the story (he embezzled one million crowns from the farmers’ cooperative bank of Kolín, which he gambled away on the lottery, and then he used the events of 1968 to escape from the republic), ensures from the outset that any view of historical events will not be in black and white. The first of Novák’s heroes not only fights a bizarre battle with the “totalitarian grinder”, but first and foremost with the demons within. The Willy’s Dream Kit demonstrated the author’s ability to work on a large scale, whilst the merging of the private with more general history was the great strength of his poetics. The Grand Life (1987) has only been published in English up until now, and it traces the author’s experiences in a computer firm, where he linguistically plays around ad absurdum with a technical and bureaucratic “gobbledegook”. On the border between literature, diary writing and essays are two collections which the author brought out after a temporary return to his native country after the change in political conditions. The first of these, Samet a pára (Prague in Velvet) is set in Prague during the Velvet Revolution, when the country awoke from the “narcosis” of realsocialism. His impressions of the events of the revolution are interspersed by Novák with memories, reflections on writing and stories about the various characters involved in the revolution. Disillusionment with the post-revolution development can be seen in the book Komouši, grázlové, cikáni, fízlové a básníci (1997) [Commies, Crooks, Gypsies, Spooks and Poets] in which the author made good use of his year-long stay in the Czech Republic. Once again, originally for the eyes of American readers, he assembles fragments of experiences, impressions and observations of post-communist chaos in the heart of Europe. Amongst other things he formulates his artistic credo in which he distances himself from the idea of art for art’s sake and sees his “raison d´être” as being at the border of literary fact and fiction. He pushes this method to its limit in the “true story” Zatím dobrý (2004) [So Far So Good]. The central theme of the book focuses on the resistance group of Ctirad and Josef Mašín and their subsequent escape from the republic in 1953 across Germany, with thirty thousand policemen and soldiers in pursuit. However, the scope of the prose is much broader and includes both the anti-Nazi activities of Josef Mašín the elder, as well as the fate of the whole family and all those people tied into their story, as well as several other more general historical events. “A true novel is a paradox of the genre, which sticks to the facts when it suits, but applies its own finishing touches…” comments the author on how he approached “the greatest story of the Cold War”, which contains specific moral dilemmas along with the heroic ethos. However, Novák doesn’t philosophise on guilt and punishment, leaving any absolution to the readers themselves. He concentrates on the thrilling story, which has something of the unbelievable heroic legends about it. It is not a reproach that, apart from the description of the paradox of the age, the author is drawn to the exciting, adventurous aspects of certain moments in history. In his case, however, he is not attempting a simple “Westernization of history”. The authenticity of the story gives it its strong foundation. The author’s literary gifts then help to enliven the events with inner monologues, carefully thought-out situations and attention to detail. This book of just under 800 pages represents the summit of Novák’s achievements, winning the Magnesia Litera book of the year prize in 2005. It also had a large impact in the Czech Republic due to its controversial subject matter. His family’s life story has also inspired the author in his latest book, laconically entitled Děda (Grandpa). He has not restricted himself to the title’s protagonist, but he describes the fate of the wider family at the turn of the last century. His own story begins at the end of the 1950s when the author was a child. Novák has delegated the role of narrator to the young boy who does not understand what is going on around him (in the 1950s). He is looking for the reason behind his grandpa’s “concrete heart”, and through this he slowly opens up the past of both his family and the whole country to the reader. However, this is no “Honzik’s Upside-Down Journey”. Novák’s writing is too sanguine with a “rustic” honesty for that, as well as being both masculine and skilful. In the subtext we sense the attempt to search for heroes and heroism. And as we are not operating in the realm of detailed prose, the heroes we discover here are incomplete or questionable. Amongst his other creative activities Novák also writes for the theatre. In the plays Czechs (1979) and Bohemian Heaven (1980) he returns to “the theme of Czech life at the end of the 1960s and to the trauma endured by Czech emigrants”. At the moment, most of his plays are only in English: The Wrong Way Out (1982), The Sperm Count (1984) and Uncle Joe (1987). The play Aljaška (1994) [Alaska] has been performed in Czech. Novák worked as a screenwriter on the films Valmont, Šeptej (Whisper) and Báječná léta pod psa (Wonderful Years That Sucked). He is also the co-author of an autobiography of director Miloš Forman.

(jn)

This profile was last updated on August 1st 2007

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