This is a wonderful book and would definitely recommend. It is full of useful information and the writing was beautiful.

these stories are deft and interesting slotting into that kind of post-WWII Eastern European literature that gives us glimpses into a rather strange emotional and psychological aesthetic

I have related the reason for this blog's name before, but somehow Pushkin Press continues to give me reasons to do so over and over again. So, I named this blog A Universe in Words because for me reading has always been about learning, discovering and exploring. I grew up reading books in three different languages and this set me on a path of continuously looking for books in other languages, realising there are whole worlds, universes even, out there waiting for me. And thankfully to publishers like Pushkin Press, who work hard to bring previously untranslated works into English, this blog and I can keep going. Which brings me to my latest translated read, The Last Bell, which is a delightful collection of short stories. Thanks to Pushkin Press and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am continuously astounded by how Anglocentric my literary worldview occasionally still is. I guess studying English Language and Literature didn't do much to help, but I figured growing up bilingually (neither English) would have done something to change that. But I am still surprised to find there are masters of literature waiting for me in other languages, or waiting in translation, rather. Johannes Urzidil is an author I had never heard of, despite writing in one of my native languages, German. Until the release of The Last Bell, his work had never been translated into English. Bilingual himself, Urzidil was a celebrated Czech writer for whom German was his language, never making the transition to English despite spending his last two decades as an immigrant in the United States. His stories, however, are of Prague, that centre of Bohemia in the early 20th century. His characters are oddities, are "other" in some way and know it, but they are also irrevocably human. Despite being so clearly rooted in his homeland, Urzidil's stories are globally human and will resonate with their modern readers.

The Last Bell contains five stories, selected by David Burnett from a variety of collections written by Urzidil over time. Burnett himself, in his informative introduction, gets to the very point of what makes these stories so touching and what links them together:
'...these stories illustrate this very point: that no one can act or be in this world, without becoming guilty - a very unmodern, biblical notion in our ideal world of transparency and accountability.'
It might not sound very enticing, but I was fascinated by this concept of, perhaps, "guilt by association" which cropped up in each and every story. The collection's first, and eponymous, story 'The Last Bell' is perhaps the finest example. A Czech maid in Nazi-occupied Prague feels burdened by the things she is given or told by others. Whereas she herself hardly acts, except for once, her very presence in the story's situations makes her complicit, makes her guilty, and she does not know how to deal with the weight of this guilt. In 'The Duchess of Albanera' we see a man who cannot face the unintended consequences of a single, mindless thought, whereas the third story, 'Siegelmann's Journeys' gives us a man very aware of and dreading the consequences he will have to face. The final two stories, 'Borderland', probably my favourite in The Last Bell, and 'Where the Valley Ends', Urzidil himself appears in the stories as an unnamed outsider, an objective observer, who sees the unintended victims of other people's actions and beliefs. Although it is perhaps not the most optimistic of messages, it is a very true one. Perhaps in our world we should all be a little bit more aware that none of us are blameless, that we are all in some way guilty. Perhaps it will make us kinder if we learn this lesson.

Urzidil's writing is surprisingly fluid. This may sound like a backhanded compliment, but once Burnett's introduction made me aware of Urzidil's links to Kafka I was slightly concerned. Although Kafka is doubtlessly masterful, he is also highly complex. Urzidil's stories are compact and crafted in a way that gives hints but unravels at its own, perfect, pace. His writing, however, flows easily and evocatively. There are moments of absolute beauty in his stories, phrases that are just so true. Let me give you a little gem:
'History books know nothing about real life, least o all about the life of a woman.'
How true. Urzidil doesn't shy away from the darkness in life, but also lingers in those moments of beauty that life bestows upon us. Especially in 'Borderland' he describes Czech woodlands in such a beautiful way I want to book tickets to Prague right now. Burnett does a wonderful job at translating his work into English, capturing both the preciseness and tentativeness of Urzidil's language. I am incredibly grateful to Pushkin Press for casting light upon another author who deserves to be known. I will definitely be looking for his work in German as well, however.

Whereas usually I need a break between stories, Urzidil's The Last Bell flowed so easily from one story to the next that I couldn't help but be spellbound until I had finished the collection. His stories are odes to the Prague he left behind, but are also truly human stories. I'd recommend this to fans of short stories and European literature.

You get a great visual sense from these pages, with a clear mental film playing out for each tale, and with the author always looking back at what had been to him recent history for his settings, you get something seldom seen elsewhere. Kafkaesque has come to be an easily understood term, and a lot of his work can be read as belonging to one particular world. I read that Urzidil did set his only novel, and several stories, in his/the New World, so if anything there might be two Urzidil worlds to explore. But on this evidence I can only encourage publishers to get a lot more translated. I doubt very much these five tales are the best of a bad bunch, and have the impression we've been missing out on an important author for too long now.

Johannes Urzidil (1896-1970) was a German-Czech writer, a friend of Kafka and Max Brod, who was forced to flee from Prague after the German Occupation in 1939, escaping first to the UK and finally settling in the US. He’s largely unknown to an English-speaking readership, but has now been translated for the first time and Pushkin Press have now published 5 of his stories in this slim volume. None of them made much of an impression on me, except the title story about a young maidservant who takes over her employers’ apartment and possessions when, as Jews, they are deported. This seemed to me to be a moving and complex story about coping with the German invasion, but the other stories I found rather whimsical – although admittedly well-written – and forgettable. However, it’s always of interest to discover a previously unknown author and I enjoyed reading these stories for that reason if none other.

Johannes Urzidil was one of the most celebrated Czech writers of the 20th century. Although he spent his last twenty years as an emigre in the United States, he never made the switch to writing in English. His works continued to be published in Europe in German (one of his two mother tongues) and his works were infused with the sensibility of his homeland. Despite his importance in European literature, his works have only rarely been translated into English. Puskin Press have rectified this omission with a collection of Urzidil’s short stories, none of which have formerly been published in English, and translated now by David Burnett. Lively, moving and gently absurd, these stories focus on outsiders, people whose encounters with ordinary life and emotions leave them thwarted and unmasked as precisely the strange creatures that they are.

Generally speaking, these characters are aware that they’re different and it niggles at them. Of the book’s five stories (which are presented in reverse chronological order), the first three follow characters whose efforts to fit in don’t work out quite as they expect. In ‘The Last Bell’, published in Zurich in 1968, a woman’s newfound wealth is complicated by her efforts to appear ‘to the manner born’. In ‘The Duchess of Albanera’, published in Zurich in 1966, a man seeks love and company in the wrong place, with unforeseen consequences. In ‘Siegelmann’s Journeys’, published in Munich in 1962, another man tries to hide his unadventurous lifestyle with flights of fantasy. The final two stories, ‘Borderland’ and ‘Where the Valley Ends’, both published in Munich in 1956, are told from the perspective of visitors to the community. In both cases, the narrator meets outsider figures who are innocent but find themselves in a world which has no place for them. Throughout the book, there’s a sense of disconnection, a frustration. Our lives seem perfectly rational to us, so why does the world insist that we change to fit its pattern?

Urdizil isn’t a heavy writer. He’s much lighter and more amusing than I was expecting, but of course there are dark undercurrents to his work. These are rarely explicitly connected to the Second World War – only Marška’s story shows us the world of Nazi-occupied Prague – but one can’t help noticing that all the stories deal with exclusion and foreignness, even within one’s own community. And Urzidil shows compassion and sympathy for these oddballs, these people existing on the edge. Presumably this is all bound up with his own experiences as someone who never quite belonged – an emigre who wrote in a language which wasn’t that of his adopted country; a man who could never quite unpick himself from his native country; a stranger in a strange land. His stories shimmer with a sense of transience, a sense of everything trembling on the brink before passing away. It’s hard not to see these stories, written after the Second World War, as an elegy for a Bohemia and a world which had ceased to be.

Bravo to Pushkin Press for rescuing yet another sparkling Central European writer from Anglophone obscurity, and for introducing us to his succinct, sensitive stories. I hope there’ll be much more Urzidil to come.

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2017/02/25/the-last-bell-johannes-urzidil/