Baradla Cave

by Eva Švankmajerová

Baradla is a living organism, both place (Prague) and person (a woman). With shifting language and voices--pseudoscientific jargon, common vernacular, metaphoric stream-- the author satirically explores maternity and femininity, the mother-state and consumer society. Her sense of the absurd is without limit, taking in all urban existence: durg addiction, murder, sex crimes, corruption and dysfunctional family relationships as scenes of episodic sexual violence alternate with humorous reflections on various ingrained customs and habits.

Genres: Czech Literature

100 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Eva Švankmajerová (September 25, 1940 – October 20, 2005) was a Czech surrealist artist. She was born Eva Dvořáková. A native of the Czech town of Kostelec nad Černými Lesy, she moved to Prague in 1958 to study at the Prague School of Interior Design and later the Academy of Performing Arts (Theater Department). From 1970, she was an active member of the Czech and Slovak Surrealist Group. She was a painter and ceramicist, and her poetry and prose regularly appeared in the journal Analogon. Most recently, her work has appeared in English in Surrealist Women: an International Anthology (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998) and Baradla Cave (Twisted Spoon Press, 2001). Švankmajerová was married to the Surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer, with whom she collaborated on such films as Alice, Faust, and Conspirators of Pleasure. They had two children, Veronika and Václav, and lived in Prague until her death in 2005.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eva S. was the partner of Jan Švankmajer, creator of sensationally surreal stop-motion classics Alice and Little Otik, whose illustrations accompany this volume. Described by the translator as a “babbling brook arising from the depths of the Austro-Hungarian Empire”, whose “nuances are best appreciated by Czech readers only”, Bardala Cave is an alienating, rampantly surreal experimental novel that pulls the English reader through a series of scenes and sentences whose connections mainly elude and bemuse, sometimes charmingly and startlingly, sometimes frustratingly and hair-pullingly. As the translator points out, perhaps the novel was untranslatable, and this messy soup is the result of an heroic yet doomed attempt to English magic from the Czech magic.

[Merl Fluin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Given how much I love Švankmajerová's visual work, I'm mortified only to be giving this little novel two stars. No doubt the fault is at least partly mine: I'm too ignorant of Czech society, history and culture to catch the drift or get the jokes. But the truth of the matter is that the book was hard work, and it only intermittently repaid the effort.

[Nate D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eva Svankmajerova, perhaps best known for her art direction on her husband Jan Svankmajer's stop-motion films, surreptitiously published this bizarre little book sometime in the 80s. Conflating a series of Baradlas -- a women, the cave, even the entire city of Prague, it seems -- Svankmajerova's prose is constantly coming unmoored from any sound-footed reality, and full of tremendously strange associations.

The remains of all these highschool students could form layers up to a hundred meters high and, through physical and chemical processes, change into organic compounds which could then be turned into oil.

Unfortunately, though, I think I'm out of my depth. The lapses from social to scientific descriptions, Jan Svankmajer's collages of suggestive cave formations (as on the cover), the occasional bits of commentary on family, gender, commercialism that I can catch -- these bits are often hilarious and clever and very interesting. But they're spread pretty thin compared to the exceedingly jumbled stretches that surround them, stretches that I have a feeling are doing all kinds of interesting things that I am unequipped to parse out due to lack of specific cultural content, perhaps associations that don't really translate, definitely a general unfamiliarity with a lot of the tools of surrealism. I really like this when I like this, but I'm not entirely up to it. Or probably a lot of confusion is intentional:

Since each individual word has many other special words around it, which are supposed to clarify it, he therefore asks the reader to excuse his occasional imprecision...

Whatever my bewilderment, though, I'm totally pleased that this is in print and that Twisted Spoon seems to be so committed to keeping such oddities around and in English.

[Ruby · Rating 2 out of 5]

so much going on. was crazy. i don’t think i could tell you a singular thing that happened. no idea what was ever happening and as soon as i started to grasp it…it slid away, flipped on its head and became another scene or the same scene out-of-reach again. so cool to read something finally from twisted spoon 🩶🩶

[Joanna Forde · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 FOR THE LOVERS OF CHAOS. spans across decades and acres, between flight and fight, the body becomes the map and there is no direction up or down. many accepted faults but the women are their own.

[D.R.O]

yeah this was not my business, but it's probably good i tried

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part way through this I wondered why on earth I was bothering: it is surreal and therefore a little like listening to a rambling story while tripping – but then that is the point. Eva Švankmajerova rates as one of the finest surrealist artists of the 20th century and this shows why – we are supposed to feel like we are watching someone else's dreams: extrmely difficult but totally worth it (a second time).

[auiliuinti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro que pude calificarse de ser surreal (aunque de ese termino con frecuencia se abusa) y con laureles!

Un poco de background de historia de Praga no estaría mal leer antes de comenzar este libro.

No dudo que de la página 14 tendrán que regresar al principio del libro para captar el no linear hilo de la narración.

La edición de Twisted Spoon Press incluye ilustraciones del autor y de Jan Svankmajer.

[Cristcaci · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely unlike anything else I have read. Some parts were actually hilarious.