Zbabělci - CDmp3 (Čte Jan Meduna)

Attention, the homeland calls for heroes! However, the revolution also demands observers... Even in the border town of Kostelec, it seems that the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is nearing its end and peace is in sight. In the eight days of May 1945, twenty-year-old Daniel Smiřický will put down his tenor saxophone and set out to 'fulfill his patriotic duty.' And that will be just the jazz kickoff, as he will demonstrate with a sense of irony that he is a valid member of the nation of laughing beasts. After all, while the local elites are organizing the takeover of power, collaborators are revealing their true colors, and the rest of the Czechs are hanging flags according to how the situation is developing, Danny comments on the chaos in a way unmatched in Czech literature. The style, after all, has always been the strong suit of Josef Škvorecký's alter ego. And so he credibly describes how he lets himself be arrested in a showy manner, how he acts as a spy liaison and experiences harassment at the training camp, how he accommodates refugees with the zeal of a provisioning officer, sees his neighbor die, and helps neutralize a tank of the retreating Wehrmacht. However, he does not seek a medal. Gradually, he is sobering up not only from his unfortunate love for Irena but also from a rather lukewarm belief that the revolution can achieve something, especially when communists are lining up alongside hordes of Red Army soldiers. Lest that freedom soon turn back into just blues! What was in our prose...