Letnice / Rozpomínání na konec světa – Hlaučo Miroslav (2024)

To walk on water with dry feet, to break stone with whistling, to converse with angels and the statues of saints – these are all completely ordinary things for the inhabitants of the remote town of Saint George. At the beginning of the 20th century, they live completely cut off from the world, but they are slowly beginning to sense that the time of great technical wonders, which will replace their traditional ones, is approaching. The local native Odysseus, who has been presumed dead, returns to the town. As an experienced globetrotter, he helps his neighbors prepare for the upcoming revolutionary changes. At the same time, he competes with his younger brother Tomáš for the affection of the beautiful and temporarily mute Julie, whom Tomáš found a few years ago half-dead in the forest. Unprecedented excitement also comes from an administrative inspection from the capital, before which some things, including the still-functioning wonders, must be kept secret. Everyone in 1904 is looking forward to a great new century, in which everything will be beautiful and happy even without magic. Everything as it should be. The novel, creatively utilizing elements of magical realism, refers to the great narratives of the past from Odysseus through Don Quixote to Tristram Shandy.