Authors

Thematically, Eduard Vacek’s writing draws pre-eminently on his own chequered career. Before the 1989 revolution he was a Jehovah’s Witness, then an adherent of the Jarryesque line in pataphysics and founder of the College of Pataphysics in Czechoslovakia; he spent a year in prison for ‘open disrespect for society’ and denigrating ‘the working people’s endeavour to construct a socialist society’; after the Changes that began in mid-November 1989 he was a deputy in the Czech legislature and on the management staff of the Prisons Service. Out of the dying echoes of the novel of the Absurd, gentle Dadaism and cardboard versions of Primitivism rise the pillars of the bridge over which the writer’s feet take him in two directions. In one direction he plunges dizzily into the bottomless abyss of the universe that separates men and women, whose affinity he paints either in the rich, heavy colours of deep-seated animal eroticism (Příběh muže, který nebyl účasten na lásce paní P. – The Story of a Man Who Did Not Partake of the Love of Mrs P.), or in delicate psychologizing tones that point to timeless general principles (Mí devianti mi rozumějí – My Deviants Understand Me). The other route Vacek follows is transgressive: by way of aspects recording the absurdity of life, accompanied by both self-indulgent banter (Sviňoďasi – Swinedeuces) and Kierkegaardian anxiety (Občanský průkaz prosím – Your National ID Card, Please) – the author opens up a world for himself, a landscape in which he is a demiurge, exposing the relativity of all categories, set truths and ready-made outlooks on the world. Vacek’s conceptual apparatus is essentially Postmodern, though informed more by intuition than philosophical instruction: this literature aspires to be an irrational blemish, an ingenious cipher, a blindfold of artless stupidity. Despite being initially inspired by reality, ‘reality is obviously incapable of satisfying many people’, he says. We are, he continues, ‘born into a world created by another and have, in many respects, had to adapt to survive. The agenda of idiotic socialization is to destroy human attributes and man’s capacity to realize his dreams. [...] I write mainly out of a need to come to terms with something with which I profoundly disagree. In 1986 I was convicted of open disrespect for society, but I’m the same today! This society doesn’t deserve respect. Respect is deserved by individuals I esteem, but not by the whole, which is like plankton. The whole has always been warped in some degree, according to how far it is willing to submit to manipulation. My second reason for writing is the desire to describe those things and those human affairs that strike me as in some way special or remarkable. And while I’m aware that it is almost impossible, I also want to investigate the “philosophy of the peculiar”: “the peculiar” is like a river that disappears down a sink-hole; you see it, but before you can reach it, it’s gone. These are the considerations that appeal to me.’

(rk)

E-mail: evacek@grvs.justice.cz

Deutsch Eduard VACEK, Deutsch.doc