The Prague Orgy

Look, it's Roth ... the dialogue alone is worth the cost. Fun stuff, as always. The only drawback is you'll only wish it were a much longer rift.

The small novel, or rather novella, The Prague Orgy" can be treated as an appendix to the trilogy about the Jewish-American writer Nathan Zuckerman. This slim volume is the example of the real wave of the novels appearing in the 1980s by American authors, who described the Eastern European countries under the communist regime, most often based on the personal experience from their travels. Nathan Zuckerman, already a renowned writer, finds himself in Prague under Soviet occupation in the mid-1970s. He has a mission to recovers the manuscripts of the short stories written by the father of a Czech emigre writer. The book is given as excerpts from Nathan's diary, starting with the meeting with the Czech writer, Zdenek Sisovsky, and his lover, a tragic actress Eva Kalinova, in New York, and continuing with the relation of his trip to Prague. The reader is presented with an amazing array of intellectuals, demoralized by the system. The enormous number of delightfully colorful characters and their stories, skilfully woven into the concise text is perhaps the major achievement of The Prague Orgy", which gives is a stand on its own, athough it has more of the gems to be uncovered by an attentive reader. There are numerous literary allusions, jokes and irony - the whole book is more like a pastiche in Roth's unforgettable style. I can imagine that when the book appeared, it was one of the shocking reports from behind the Iron Curtain, which, additionally, had to be taken with a grain of salt (I wonder what were Roth's real impressions...). Nowadays it still reads well. Although The Prague Orgy" is a complete work in itself, it is recommended to know other novels about Nathan Zuckerman before reading it, to fully understand the character of Zuckerman and his attitude.

I loved this book. It's about the madness that ensues among artists and the intelligentsia when imprisoned by a totalitarian regime. Some may recognize that same mania occurring during our present administration, as more and more Americans lose their rights - to free speech, abortion, etc. Right on, 'Zookermann!' (Hey, sounds like Superman!)