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Daniela Hodrova: Podobojí ( A Kingdom of Souls

In his Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia, Michal Viewegh‘s alter ego comments 1 might one day understand even the novels of Daniela Hodrova. Do not let this put you off reading his work. Yes, it is not a traditional novel in that there is not a linear, more or less chronological plot and strange, decidedly unrealistic things do happen. However, it uses a technique found in other novels, namely it follows the stories of a group of people who live in the same place. This is the first in a trilogy. It takes place in the Vinohrady, a region of Prague. The residences in question are located just next to theOlšany Cemetery, the largest cemetery in the Czech Republic. It was formerly a vineyard, and traces of that can still be seen, but later became a major cemetery. for plague victims.
We meet a key character early on. She is a young Jewish woman called Alice Davidovič who has a boyfriend called Pavel Santner whom she is expecting a visit from with the hope that he will propose to her. However, this is under the Nazi occupation and he has been taken away by the Nazis. To avoid a similar fate, she throws herself from an upstairs window and the property is so close to the cemetery. that she lands there. We are not told this directly but somewhat obliquely.

We go back a little way and learn about Jan Paskal, who may or may not be related to the famous Pascals – lots of things in this book are kept deliberately vague. Young Jan encounters Kain who seems to wear a variety of clothes and we recognise very soon as simply a tailor’s dummy but he does not and indeedKain seems to be, at least to some degree,very much alive. His name may come from the biblical.Cain or a corruption of the German kein no-one.Kain seems to exist while in fact he does not, or seems not to exist while in fact he does.. However, he does pay the price for his existence/non-existence.

When he grows up Jan is attracted to Anna Houba, a deaf mute and they will have a son calledVojtěch. However, she helps smuggle food into the German prison and she will pay a price for that.Jan will later remarry.

The story is going to become very complicated. Alice. is looking for Pavel and she wanders round the area doing so. Some people seem to be able to see them, others not. Ppavel himself. turns up a couple of times, seemingly alive, though we know he is dead, once to rescue the maid of the Paskal family, who are moving into the flat once occupied by Alice and her family and indeed still occupied by the souls of her grandparents who seem very much alive but of course are long since dead . The maid seemingly tripped but it is possible that Alice, being jealous tripped her up. Pavel also drags out the body from under a table of the bad German.Mr Hergesell, who has a fight with Jan, who seemingly kills him. Jan is later charged for this but because the man was a German he is let off.
Alice is apparently pregnant and though she’s dead, she gives birth to a son Benjamin. Benjamin is seemingly carried away by an eagle which may be.Mr Hergesell and deposited in the area around the cemetery. He is found and
brought up by a man who had been a famous ball boy but had lost his touch and now spend his time wandering round looking for tennis balls, which he collects, and that is how he finds Benjamin.

The dividing line between the living and the dead is not entirely clear. As mentioned, some people who are in theory dead can be seen by the living of others cannot. Diviš Paskal, son of Jan, seemingly finds away across the line but it is a bit more complicated than that. The custodian. of the property, Briar, has a son called Georgie cursed into the form of an eternal child., also seems to see some of the dead and he too is attracted to Alice

Of course, all of these characters and several more that I have not mentioned are representative of the country at that time. I am the nation disillusioned by all its revolutions and its occupations, even by its sacrifices to fire. ”
. As we can see from that above quote various inanimate objects, such as the country here, but also a a piece of skin, a silkworm moth and a button will have their say. Souls cling to life through things, or rather through the relics of things. As if these relics hold some kind of promise of being reborn, the pledge of a new life.
Clearly, there are lots of issues going on here. Firstly, there is a fact that the dividing line between life and death is not as clear as we might think it is. Secondly, we have a portrait of a small community some of whom are alive and some after they die, who represent to a certain degree, part of the Czech nation. Thirdly, religion plays a part as the various religions get involved and occasionally conflict.Fourthly perhaps more importantly for the reader, we have a whole series of complex interesting stories about the living, the dead and those in between and which is clearly, as a subtitle of this book indicates ,influenced by Dante.
Michal Viewegh might consider this a difficult book and in many ways it is but nevertheless you can more or less follow what is going on, complicated though it may be and you will be rewarded with a host of fascinating and often complicated stories about good versus evil, religion and the dividing line between life and death

Publishing history

First published by in 19by Severočeské nakladatelství,
First published in Englishin 2015 by Jantar Publishing
Translated byTatiana Firkusny and Véronique Firkusny