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Bettie's Books
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The Questionnaire: Or Prayer for a Town and a Friend by Jiří Gruša, Peter Kussi
bookshelves: hardback, one-penny-wonder, published-1974, translation, czech, newtome-author
Read from November 12 to 15, 2014
Description: In completing a standard employment questionnaire, narrator Jan Kepka manages to write a beautifully impressionistic history of his life, his family, and his hometown as he obeys - with mock solemnity - the handwritten command on top of the form: "DO NOT CROSS OUT."
From the front cover: When 'The Questionnaire' was first circulated in a samizdat[**] edition of ninteen typewritten copies in 1974, the Czech authorities arrested Jiří Gruša, accusing him of "initiating disorder". He was released two months later and the charges against him were eventually dropped, but Gruša has since left Czecholslovakia and is now living[*] and writing in West Germany.
*He died 28 October 2011, in Hannover
**Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader. This grassroots practice to evade officially imposed censorship was fraught with danger as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials.
Chlumec (Kulm)
Opening: On September 19, 197-, in the city of Prague (i.e., right here, not in the town of Chlumec), I visited the enterprise GRANIT, the sixteenth organization I had contacted over the past two years, and I recieved my sixteenth Questionnaire (in room 102, second floor), from the hand of Comr. Pavlenda (Comr. = Comrade; i.e. friend, mate, companion, fellow member of Communist society).
In contrast to those previous questionnaires, this one was marked in the upper right hand corner, in blue pencil, most probably by Comr. Pavlenda himself, DO NOT CROSS OUT! - an exhortation I considered highly significant, since nothing like it had appeared on any of the previous forms.
Sometimes, abstract is the bee's knees, however if it isn't of ::the:: abstract that appeals, then the book is not appreciated. I have a strong feeling that in the right hands: ·Karen·, Fionnuala, Kallipe, Traveller etc., it will be well received.
From the front cover: When 'The Questionnaire' was first circulated in a samizdat[**] edition of ninteen typewritten copies in 1974, the Czech authorities arrested Jiří Gruša, accusing him of "initiating disorder". He was released two months later and the charges against him were eventually dropped, but Gruša has since left Czecholslovakia and is now living[*] and writing in West Germany.
*He died 28 October 2011, in Hannover
**Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader. This grassroots practice to evade officially imposed censorship was fraught with danger as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials.
Chlumec (Kulm)Opening: On September 19, 197-, in the city of Prague (i.e., right here, not in the town of Chlumec), I visited the enterprise GRANIT, the sixteenth organization I had contacted over the past two years, and I recieved my sixteenth Questionnaire (in room 102, second floor), from the hand of Comr. Pavlenda (Comr. = Comrade; i.e. friend, mate, companion, fellow member of Communist society).
In contrast to those previous questionnaires, this one was marked in the upper right hand corner, in blue pencil, most probably by Comr. Pavlenda himself, DO NOT CROSS OUT! - an exhortation I considered highly significant, since nothing like it had appeared on any of the previous forms.
Sometimes, abstract is the bee's knees, however if it isn't of ::the:: abstract that appeals, then the book is not appreciated. I have a strong feeling that in the right hands: ·Karen·, Fionnuala, Kallipe, Traveller etc., it will be well received.
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