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Zdenek Jirotka: Saturnin (Saturnin)

The Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia is known for its humorous writing and Jirotka was famous in the country and before the war for his humorous works. He had been influenced by English comic writers such as PG Wodehouse and Jerome K Jerome. However, if you are expecting the straightforward light humour of those two writers who might be in for something of a surprise. Not surprisingly his humour tends to be far darker than.Jerome and Wodehouse. There are a few annoying characters in this book, but we start off with one, Doctor Witherspoon. He imagines a half empty café where a man is sitting having had his breakfast and coffee, and having read the newspaper. In front of him is a plate full of doughnuts. According to the doctor, they’re at two types of people. The first, the majority, will sit around, look at the paper again and then eventually as it gets near a lunchtime leave and go and get their lunch elsewhere, however there are a few such as a doctor to himself and, as we learn,Saturnin, will take a different approach. They pelt their fellow customers with the doughnuts.

OOur narrator is a single young man living in a flat. He seems quite comfortable there and he’s looked after by Mrs Sweeting. However, for various reasons, he decides that he needs a vaalet and sees and added in the paper fromSaturnin so he hires him. fromSaturnin did not have references from his previous employer, not least because he threw her in the pond, told her that the table was laid and quit. Fortunately, the narrator shares the same unfavourable view of the lady as Saturnin.

Saturnin is soon taking in charge. He informs his employer that the flat is too small and they need to move somewhere larger. That may be the case but that doesn’t seem to be any hurry to do so. However, one day when the narrator is having a drink with his friends.fromSaturnin arrives and informs him that they have moved. It turns out that they have moved to a house boat an early on house boat it becomes detached and goes over a weir. The incident makes the papers and, with.fromSaturnin’s interventional, narrator is referred to as I’m a famous sportsman. One night the famous sportsman is summoned because it appears that a lunatic , called Marcus Aurelius, has escaped from an asylum. Our narrator is meant to help get him. He reluctantly goes along butfinds, very quickly, that the asylum is in fact the local zoo and Marcus Aurelius it’s a lion. Fortunately the other keepers captured the lion for the readers reputation is in enhance by the fact that he came out.
Like Bertie Wooster, our hero has an aunt. Bertie’s’is called Agatha, while our hero’s is calledCatherine. Perhaps not entirely surprisingly her son is called Bertie.

One very hot day the pair turn up at the house boat. And Catherine settles in our hero’s cabin and shows no sign of leaving. Saturnin disappears and our hero is left alone with his relatives. He feels that.Saturnin has abandoned him. Of course he has not and he comes up with a fiendish and brilliant plot to get rid of the terrible pair. This is not their last dealing with them.

Our hero and Saturnin go and spend some time in the country with his grandfather, of whom he is very fond. Unfortunately there are two other guests. – and Aunt Catherine and Bertie..Saturnin, as he had done on the boat, brilliantly puts down Bertie, mocking his very feeble attempt at growing a moustache. There is also another guest expected. She is Barbara We have already met her and our hero is very much attracted to her. Unfortunately, he has a rival. – Bertie. Things get worse whenSaturnin teaches the grandfather jujitsu. This has unfortunate consequences when he practises on his grandson who ends up in hospital. Worse still Barbara arrives just as the ambulance is taking him away with heavy rains and flooding a and a totally incompetent hospital things do not work out as planned.
We will continue to follow the story of this group as the floods mean they are trapped and cannot get out and have only limited food supplies. Inevitably things get complicated as the two young men try to woo Barbara and Saturnin comes up with some ingenious plans to thwart Bertie and his mother. Inevitably, chaos ensues with Saturnin inevitably coming out on top.

Lots of issues arise. There is a disput3 as to who has what food and how it should be cooked. The entertain one another with various stories which often have a dark side to them. They are waiting for the bridge to be rebuilt as the grandfather as an agreement with the local builders to do so without contacting when a flood occurs. However, nothing has happened and they feel they have to walk over the mountain top to get to the local village. Not surprising it turns out to be very difficult indeed.

Eventually they do get back, with the bridge open, but at this point the grandfather seems to lose his marbles. Aunt Catherine i insists on looking after him and will not let anyone else see him. Clearly, she has a plot to get him to make a will in her favour. Of course she has not reckoned withSaturnin, who, as on other occasions seem to be out of the picture but is very much was not. As the grandfather saysSaturnin is a most ingenious fellow. I have never discovered.

It is an excellent story held by Saturnin’s ingenuity but, as mentioned, it is desperately darker, for example, the tales of Bert Wooster. If you can see this at one point when they are trapped in the house, they will tell stories that everyone has a dark side to it. Saturnin’s, for example, features a ghost wandering about carrying his own head..

No,Saturnin he is not Jeeves but of course both are ingenious and do all sorts of clever things to help that often less than an intelligent master. The Wodehouse stories all lighthearted. His story has its lighthearted elements use dark Czech humour to great effect.

Publishing history

First published in 1942 by F. Borový)
First published in English in 1970 by Karolinum Press
Translated byMark Corner