The BURIED Book Club discussion

Looks like Mark Monday proposed this one years ago after writing the first review of Mojmir Drvota's Triptych (1980), but only ever added it to the Recently Unburied thread. Well, I just got his other novel, Solitaire, out of the library today, and despite only being 2/3s of the way in, I'm entirely assured that Drvota needs a thread immediately. For any adherents of fairy tales, dreams, Invisible Cities, and the Czech surrealist tradition. Here's the cover, which is mirrored by the collage design for the titles and chapter headings:



Extra points for dumping us into the story in the first line with a mysterious voice calling the protagonist/reader headlong into the story in the middle of the night.

I read Triptych recently and recommend it, although I do feel it lost steam toward the end. That said, it contains many features of good surrealist fiction, including well-crafted dream logic, nonsensical humor, and intriguing characters hell-bent on fulfilling their own cryptic quests. Also there's a talking shadow, which is pretty great. If you can track this down, it's definitely worth the read for surrealism fans.

I'm very intrigued, but looks like Triptych has mostly evaporated from the market now.

Yeah, I got it through ILL.