Hordubal / Povětroň / Obyčejný život

by Karel Čapek, Ivan Klíma (Afterword)

Trilogie s autorovým doslovem se skládá z baladického příběhu Hordubal (1933) z Podkarpatské Rusi, z exotického příběhu o zřítivším se letci Povětroň (1934) a z Obyčejného života (1934), civilistického příběhu, ukazujícího bohatství zdánlivě prostého života. Jednotlivé její články spojuje totéž poslání a Čapkova umělecká technika, rozklad reality a její nový sklad z hlediska různých postav. Tento postup umožňuje autorovi ukázat, že co nejdokonalejší poznání člověka je podmínkou lásky k němu, základním bodem praktické mravnosti.

Obsahuje doslov autora.
Doslov „Čapkova Trilogie“ napsal Ivan Klíma.
Obálku a vazbu navrhl a typograficky upravil Zdenek Seydl.
Náklad 50 000 výtisků.
ISBN 22-008-65.

Genres: Fiction, Czech Literature, Literature, Novels, Classics, Science Fiction, Collections

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1934

About the author

Karel Čapek is one of the the most influential Czech writers of the 20th century. He wrote with intelligence and humour on a wide variety of subjects. His works are known for their interesting and precise descriptions of reality, and Čapek is renowned for his excellent work with the Czech language. His play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) first popularized the word "robot".

(Arabic: كارل تشابك) (Hebrew: קארל צ'אפק) (Japanese: 카렐 차페크) (Russian: Карел Чапек)

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

Čapek’s noetic (knowledge that transcends the five senses or inner wisdom) trilogy is a bold philosophical and narrative experiment spread across three riveting and enlightening novels. In Hordubal, a farmer returns from America to find himself usurped and cuckolded in his village by a popular farmhand. The novel is told from the perspective of the protagonist, the police, and the court and interrogates the impossibility of narrative ever viewing with crystal vision many complex psyches, and the ease with which time and others distort the “truth”. In Meteor, a comatose man who fell from the sky has his life reimagined by a nun, a clairvoyant, and a poet, in a playful novel that explores our imagination’s endless capacity to festoon the unknown with sexy lies. The pinnacle of the trilogy is An Ordinary Life, where a boring man’s life story is interrogated by a chorus of conflicting inner voices, unpicking the scabs left unexplored in the narrator’s attempt to sanitise the darker elements of his psyche. A total triumph of ideas and execution, Čapek’s work shares the restless need to examine the sham role of narrative in capturing what is “real” explored in Gilbert Sorrentino’s Pack of Lies trilogy, and reads as one of the most entertaining works to explore explicit philosophical ideas with flair, humour, and genuine nous.

[Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Capek is one of the most under appreciated authors of the 20th century. He wrote, literally (pun intended), in almost every single genre. Also, Capek was a candidate for the noble prize in literature, but was not awarded because he refused to write less critical Nazi and Communist literature. Being born in what was then Czechoslovakia, Capek's sentiment uncannily predicted Czechoslovakia's history for the next 50 years after his death.

"Three novels" is an entertaining and thought provoking collection of Capek's series of novels defending the inefficient, the simple, and the pragmatic.

The narration swoops in and out of 3rd, 1st, and 2nd in a very fluid and revealing way. It's very difficult to describe, however if you appreciate Czech literature this is a good and fun read. These novels reflect the mindset of Czechoslovakia during the interwar period quite well: The simple life.

[Michal Kolacek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this noetic trilogy was a deeply philosophical experience – much more than I expected. But that's just classic, ingenious Čapek.

Each part opened a different door into what it means to be human, to remember, to interpret, and to exist:
- Hordubal left me feeling sorrowful – not because of what happened to him, but because he couldn't face reality, even when it stood right in front of him.
- Povětroň made me think about legacy and truth – how our inner life disappears with us, and all that remains are stories others tell, shaped by what they saw (or wanted to see).
- Obyčejný život showed me that we all lead our one "ordinary life" on the outside – but really we are many people across time. Maybe "myself" is really just whoever is holding the flag at the moment.

As usual, Čapek doesn't give answers. This time, he simply peels back the surface and asks: Who are we, really, underneath the stories?

And maybe that's enough...

---

A teprve tady se to autorovi ozvalo: Vždyť je to v pořádku, vždyť právě proto můžeme poznávat a chápat mnohost, že sami jsme taková mnohost! Similia similibus: poznáváme svět skrze to, co jsme sami, a poznávajíce svět objvujeme sebe samotné.

[Tobias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ziemlich gut, alle drei - die ja auch zusammen gehören. Ganz viele Blickwinkel auf die im Endeffekt gleichbleibende Frage, was Wahrheit ist und was das für das tatsächliche Leben eines Menschen bedeutet. Das ganze war allerdings am Ende etwas zu lang und zu deutlich.

[Jersy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hordubal - 4 Sterne
Ein Bauer kehrt nach 8 Jahren harter Arbeit aus Amerika zurück zu Frau und Tochter und findet diese entfremdet vor, der Hof hat einen neuen Schwerpunkt, zu dem ihm die Expertise fehlt und im Dorf gibt es Gerede. Schönes, gut geschriebenes zwischenmenschliches Drama dessen Wendung am Ende ich gar nicht gebraucht hätte.

Der Meteor - 3 Sterne
Ein Mann fällt vom Himmel - ohne jede Spur, wer oder woher er sein könnte und eine Nonne, ein Hellseher und ein Dichter spekulieren über sein Leben. Die Dialoge zwischen den Charakteren und den Schreibstil mochte ich gerne, es war mir aber zu esoterisch und die mogliche Vergangenheit nicht ganz so interessant.

Ein gewöhnliches Leben - 4 Sterne
Ein Sterbender schreibt seine Biographie eines Durchschnittsleben auf und enthüllt damit ungewollt die Tücken des Zwangs ein "ordentlicher Mann" zu sein. Ein Interessenter Einblick in die damalige Zeit und die kleinen Lügen, die man sich selbst jeden Tag erzählt.

[Patrick Al-de Lange · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a hard one to rate.
Three novels in one. The first, Hordubal, is the best of the three by far. A wonderful, almost absurd tale of a man who comes back home after years and can't tell his wife is having an affair. As a twist, it ends as a sort of detective story. This novel is the perfect example of why I like to seek out books native to the country I am visiting. It has a bit of history and gives a view on Czech culture of the time and region the novel is set in.

The 2nd story is the sketch of a man who's in hospital and in a coma. A nurse, poet and a clairvoyant all give a supposed history of the man based on absolutely nothing.

The last story starts off all right, but near the end dissolves in philosophizing about personalities which left me struggling to finish the novel.

Perhaps I went into the 2nd and 3rd novel in the wrong frame of mind, but I don't think so. If Hordubal hadn't been there, this collection would have got a maximum of 2 stars, mainly due to An Ordinary Life, but Hordubal was so lovely, on its own I would have rated it at least 4 stars.

[Smrt. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hordubal se mi líbil moc, hlavně ten jazyk, jména a Hordubalovy myšlené rozhovory - ****.
Povětroň mě nenadchnul - ***.
A Obyčejný život je naprosto geniální! *****

[Zbigniew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trzy pozornie nie związane ze sobą opowieści o całkiem innych protagonistach. Nie powiązane pozornie jedynie, bo każdorazowo łączy je wielość spojrzenia na dany wątek, osoby i ich motywacje. Okazuje się, że nie ma jednej prawdy o człowieku. Trylogię rozpoczyna kryminalny ‘case’ chłopa Hordubala. Początkowo czytanie jest nieco męczące, ale namawiam do wytrwania. W ostatniej części ‘Zwyczajne życie’ porządny i niezwykle ustabilizowany obywatel stojąc nad grobem opisuje swoje jakże zwyczajne życie. Do głosu dochodzą jednak jego liczne alter ego, wyjawiając jego prawdziwe motywacje i niespełnione pragnienia. Stawia to pod znakiem zapytania pierwotnie tak jednoznaczną ocenę moralną tego życia. Dowiadujemy się ponadto w jak wielkim stopniu całe to życie zostało zdeterminowane przez miejsce urodzenia, rodziców i wszystkich innych przodków wreszcie. Powieść stanowi klucz do autorefleksji. Każdy z nas jest całym tłumem rzeczywistych i możliwych istot. Teraz możemy szanować człowieka, dlatego że jest od nas odmienny i możemy go rozumieć, ponieważ jest nam równy.

[sberatelka.knih · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smekám klobouk před Čapkem. Tímto se stává oficiálně mým oblíbeným českým autorem.
Hordubal byl jedno velké překvapení. Na styl psaní Čapkova jsem si zvykla rychle a hned se do něj zamilovala! Je neuvěřitelné, jak je český jazyk tak pestrý.
Povětroň nebyl tak dobrý, trochu jsem se v ději ztrácela. Bylo to více postavami, a každá z nich vyprávěla jiný příběh o té samé osobě. Ale nakonec to nebylo zase tak špatné.
Obyčejný život to ale zase vylepšil. Životopis obyčejného člověka, který nakonec neměl tak obyčejný život, jaký očekával.
Všechny tři příběhy spojuje téma samoty a hledání smyslu života. Silné příběhy napsané velmi krásným stylem.
Tuto četbu doporučuji! :)

[Prez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three separate novels by Čapek (most impressive for me was "Hordubal") that are bril example that psychological literature can tell us something deep and interesting about a human. That it doesn't have to be like all contemporary American psychological literature in which "All the bad things that happen to me and all the evil I do are caused by my parents".

[H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hordubal: dull and dry, regardless of the author’s philosophical intentions.

Meteor: structurally interesting, and eventually becomes engaging.

An Ordinary Life: radiant by the end, thanks to a number of ideas to which I am sympathetic.

[Eo Ipso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hordubal 5*
Povětroň 2*
Obyčejný život 4*, nebýt příliš filozofujícího konce, dal bych pět hvězd taky.

[Nasumi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jest to średnia ocena trzech opowiadań.... Polecam "Meteor":), pozostałe dwa nie wywarły na mnie takiego wrażenia.

[Lucia Bajtosova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Výborné čítanie odporúčam.

[Radynka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hordubal 3,5*
Povětroň 1* (kdyby to bylo samostatně, tak to vzdám)
Obyčejný život 1,5* (kdyby to bylo samostatně, tak to vzdám taky - i když začátek vypadal zajímavě)

[Jakub Sláma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hordubal – 6*
Povětroň – nápad 4*, provedení 2*
Obyčejný život – 4*

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

(četla jsem jenom Hordubala)

[Vel Veeter]

Three novels packaged together from 1933 and 1934 by the Czech science fiction writer (those these, not so much!).



Hordubal – 1933

When Juraj Hordubal goes off to the United State, he didn’t realize it would ruin him for the world. It’s no so much that America was so amazing that he could hardly stand to be back in his old life, nor is America so ruinous that it chewed him up and spit him out. Instead, it had a disrupting influence all told. That the world is this big and this different in other parts creates in him a broken existence. How could someone possibly return to a life of mundane farm work and an increasingly stressful and loveless marriage? Lucky for him he’s about to be murdered.

In this novel, we have a kind of send up of mystery novels, which generally start with the crime and focus on the killer, their means, motives, and opportunities, and investigate and pursue them as a consequence. In this book, we begin with the life of the victim, who doesn’t even become the victim until 2/3 thirds the way through, and once is the victim, never returns to narrative centerplace for the rest of the novel, and of course in the final cynical moment, is completely erased from existence.

This novel shares some similarities to a poem like “Miniver Cheevey” or like the novel Amerika by Franz Kafka. It also has some of the same disruptions of form and genre as Trent’s Last Case or The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but than any of these it’s an existential novel at its heart.



Meteor – 1934

A truly bizarre novel in its own way, this is a kind of reversal of The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Four different people witness what they originally believe to a meter landing nearby and when they investigate, they find a crashed plane and a dying pilot whose fever racked body and head leads him to explain his story to each of the three primary witnesses, each who interpret his story through their own lens. The novel then proceeds to give each of their accounts of the pilot’s backstory written as a document for an official inquest of the crash.

The three stories are: a Sister of Mercy who hears in the ravings of the dying pilot a witness to sin and salvation; a Clairvoyant who uses the sparse information supplied by the pilot to craft a series of signs and portents; a Poet who takes the pilot’s ravings and writes an entire short novella of international intrigue of sex and smuggling and adventure and theories about novels!

At the end, the doctor, a mere scientist merely constructs the report.

The book is again a kind of satire of the different ways of capturing human condition and putting into different forms of writing and language. Whether that form privileges spirituality, metaphysics, language and ontology, or simply the bare existence of life, the story attempts to piece it together. None of them get it right, or maybe they do, like them, we also cannot pull naked truth from the different forms any better than they can.



An Ordinary Life – 1934

In this third novel in the collection, we meet a reluctant memoirist looking back on his life. His reluctance comes in two distinct varities: a reluctance to tell what he considers to be too boring and too mundane a life to worry too much about and two, a reluctance to tell of a life that he might end up regretting for any numbers of reasons. And of course, both can true and can spiral back on one another in various ways.

He has had an ordinary life. He wanted to be a teacher, having gone to college and developed a love of learning, and even when speaking with his father found love and support for the idea. But something happened along the way and he instead became involved a regular sort of business. The resulting choice created that kind of destiny for him and left him out of sorts.

This memory opens up for him further elements of the choices he made along the way and how those choices did and didn’t allow for other choices.

As these digressions and iterations in his choice become more and more clear from a retrospective sensibility, his current writing begins to spiral more and more out of control.

This is a book about choices, the longview, reflection, but also about the difference between descriptive and prescriptive language.

[Katriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

2015 - Zatraceně dobrá povinná četba (kéž by taková byla každá).. Nemohu dát plný počet, protože se v každém z příběhů sem tam objevila část, kterou jsem se nemohla prokousat a víceméně mě nudila, ale jinak byly všechny tři příběhy svým způsobem dost silné a ohromně zajímavé, plné podnětných myšlenek..
Skvělá zkušenost.

2023 - Po letech vesměs souhlasím s předchozím vyjádřením. Jen je zajímavé, jak se postupem času mění prožívání - zatímco tehdy mnou nejvíc rezonoval Obyčejný život, tentokrát ve mně ponejvíce tlouklo právě srdce Hordubalovo.

[Jake Cooper · Rating 2 out of 5]

A triptych consisting of three ~150 pg novellas, each (according to the excellent preface) about identity, and the possibility of knowing a person. Well-written, but often dull. I didn't make it to the 3rd story.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually only read Hordbul, but it was great.

[Joel Pelanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing collection of novels. Like Beckett, without the crushing hopelessness (okay, maybe a little bit).

[Marek Herman · Rating 2 out of 5]

We had to read this mandatory at school, when compared to other Capek's book, this one was terribly boring...

[Róbert Šedivý · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pôsobivá trilógia. Hordubal výborný, Povětroň trochu pritiahnutý za vlasy, Obyčejný život skvelý.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The travesty that is "The English Patient" is a rip-off of the excellent Capek story "Meteor."