Czech Lit Month Review: Angel Station by Jachym Topol, translated by Alex Zucker

 

 

Thank you to Winstons Dad Blog for hosting Czech Lit Month

My Interest

I admit, I did look at page count for this! Had I not, I’d likely not have finished. The landlord gave us very short notice that new flooring is being installed. I have a huge personal library, so had to box it (find boxes) and rent a storage place, etc. Thankfully, this book was really short. I had a class in Czech lit in college, but I should have dropped it (I was too shy to go to “drop & add” to change classes). It and my Polish lit class were both more aimed at graduate students and both started with the beginning of time, iirc. Boring! None-the-less, I wanted to do this challenge!

Read my intro to Czech Lit Month post.

The Story

My idea of Prague is of the Charles Bridge over the  Vltava River or Vaclav Havel or Prague Spring or….. you get the picture, I’m sure. Instead we land in one of those skeezy neighborhoods full of crack house–ala Trainspotting (so good to see Kirkus Reviews compare this to Trainspotting, too!). 

:…flies caught in the voracious web of paranoid schizophrenia, when the spider that sucs you painfully dry is your very own brain….”

“Because sometimes you just have to put up with life.”

“The sounds came down the air shaft along with the sour vapors of their gas stoves and the muggy nighttime heat of their illegal space heaters…..”

A bunch of druggies miss out on turning their lives around. They find that “hit” that can’t be beat instead. One of the women is from the family who, in prior times, owned the buildings containing the chopped up communal, Soviet-style apartments they live in. There was nothing I found “redeemable” about these people. An AA meeting wouldn’t help. A decent job wouldn’t help. Prayer might help….

My Thoughts 

“…whoever takes a drug, himself becomes a drug…”

That is the line this book is known for. Wow.

When I picked this book I thought I could care about these people–their lives, families, etc. But –nope! That’s not true. If they were real I would care.

I live in an area decimated by opioid, heroin, and meth abuse. There is nothing “romantic” or “uplifting” about drug abuse. What’s shocking is that there is no country on Earth (or so it seems) in which politicians care enough to help with money for the programs and mental health care that could heal this. For the family-supporting jobs that could free them. For the affordable housing that all need. Nope. They aren’t worth it to the politicians. 

Sorry, there is nothing much I can say to make you want to read this. Yes, in spite of the topic, it is well written and well translated. There. That’s it.

Please, Lord, let there be more to Prague than this.

My Verdict

3

Angel Station by Jachym Topol, translated by Alex Zucker