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Emil Hakl: O rodičích a dětech (Of Kids and Parents)

Neither title nor the premise of this book might seem particularly interesting but don’t let either put you off as this is a very fascinating book. It simply concerns an elderly man, who to supplement his pension, works as a guide at the zoo. This story has him and his son wandering around the zoo and then around Prague, commenting on and all sorts of subjects, including their family history, stories from the zoo, the problems that the country has faced and still faces and many other topics. the history of the Balkans is sombre and full of pathos like a German opera, it’s no laughing matter, there are always rivers of blood, severed heads roll about in the streets, and right next to them people dance and brass bands play.
The son. Honza, arrives at the zoo and has to wait for his father. The introductory exchange is interesting: he asked his father, what’s new?

“Nothing’s been new in this world for more than two billion years, it’s all just variations on the same theme of carbon, hydro gen, helium, and nitrogen,” Father answered.. He tells his son about the orangutan who escaped. They could not find him anywhere and the police were not interested in helping. One of the keepers noticed that his bottle of wine had been emptied and after further exploration the drunken ape was found asleep under a pile of wood.

It has been said that this book was influenced by James Joyce and the two men discuss the Irish author. The father has read the book, while the son could never get past the first fifty pages.

The father has a cynical view of life. onversations are an illusion, everyone on earth wants to talk about his own thing and, if at all possible, all the time!”

We learn that before the war a lot of Czechs emigrated to Croatia, which was seen as a land of milk and honey. However, though they helped Tito at the end of the war he was not overly grateful and many returned to Czechoslovakia.
The father had come back via Bosnia where he was nearly killed. This topic will’t occur again as the father, Ivan Benes , mentions the various horrors including the actions of the Ustaše. Indeed, regional history, particularly as it affected Ivan and his family is a key topic of discussion between father and the son.

Once the pair get going, this becomes a gigantic pub crawl, something we have seen in other books, not least of which isUlysses. They get drunk and they try a variety of specialist cocktails. Ivan seems to be a serial drinker..but what can a person do when he has to live in this fucked-up world where you can’t find sanity without appropriate local anaesthetic

Of course, as they are on a pub crawl, they make a tour of Prague and, as we have seen in other books we get a portrait of Prague, but not the tourist one, rather the seedy side of Prague. they see decay with abandoned railway factories and railway sidings, and decomposing villas

Of course it is always everyone else’s fault, Ivan states: I realised that all my life the people I’ve known, the women, Ivana, Ruzena, everybody, have always whined to me about things, and I can’t recall ever having com plained to anybody . Of course he complains and whines several times during this book. Women are, of course a key topic. Ivan soon divorced, his wife Honza, the son, was partially brought up by Pepik, his mother’s second husband.
Honza has also had a colourful romantic life. Now, forty-two, he seems to be settling down withHana, a thirty year old who wants to have a child. He states that she is the first woman he has not been unfaithful to.

They cover a wide range of topics and they do seem to be mildly obsessed with planes and the various makes of planes and discuss their pros and cons. I like airplanes that are exceptional in some way, that aren’t boring at first sight, it’s the same with women.

Of course Ivan is getting old and that means medical problems so we get some quite colourful stories about hernias and haemorrhoids and how a doctor tells him that he needs his leg amputated. That was eight years ago and he is still hobbling around on it.

In many ways, they are both still quite immature.I don’t want to be an adult,” said a seventy-one-year-old to a forty-two-year-old. They both talk about their colourful sex lives but agree that this is relatively unusual between father and son, at least because they sound like two young men boasting of their conquests.

However, they give us a colourful account of their life and lots of stories, some of which maybe be made up and some up of which may be true.

I don’t like jokes,” I said.
“And what do you like?”
“What do I like?
I just like stories about things that have actually happened in this world.

As mentioned at the beginning, this could have been very boring, but it is not. The various things going on. – the father/son relationship, the picture of the seamy side of Prague, the odd characters they meet in the various bars and dives. they visit the discussion of recent history, particularly the reference to Croatia and Yugoslavia and their not particularly successful lives and of course many stories they tell about their own own families and about the people they knew all make for a fascinating and interesting read.

Publishing history

First published by Argo in 2002
First published in English in 2008 by Twisted Spoon Press
Translated by Marek Tomin