Status Updates From Tales from Two Pockets

The Last Judgement is a fascinating story about a murderer of nine people, judged before three judges with God as a witness. Because God knows everything, He cannot judge people. Therefore, people need human justice.

The Oplatka's End was a disturbing story. Despite all the deaths, the way the killer was riddled with bullets is unsettling. Killing for revenge doesn't completely satisfy anyone, I guess. Because everyone felt a sense of emptiness.

Apparently, they used to call it "Reiger Park" instead of "Riegrovy Sad" back then.

The narrator of The Selvin Case came across as a genuinely witty character, and I really enjoyed his storytelling. Footprints was also a nice story that made me question some of the details.

Mejzlik solved another case with a clever deduction, but unfortunately, the book never mentions it at all. I also wonder why the story is called The Fall of the House of Voticky.

There again, our young police captain Dr. Mejzlik, in this The Poet story

Žitná street detail 😌 yet written wrong again…

STOLEN DOCUMENT 139/VII, Sect. C / He offered 10,000 to anyone who found the missing document, then said he would’ve paid 50—and that 20 would have been enough 🤭 If it had been a private detective, he would have paid up, but since it was a policeman dealing with ordinary crimes, he didn’t care at all.

THE MISSING LETTER If you’ve started learning Czech and see “Bozena” in an English text, you’ll be tempted to pronounce it “Božena,” because “Bozena” just sounds wrong. The cabinet minister blaming his own mistake on the expert detective and then acting as if he’s the victim is unbelievable. But I’m sure we’ve all done something similar. Sometimes we blame our spouse, children, or parents for things we’ve misplaced.

The Experiment of Professor Rouss: A Czech expatriot solves a murder through an intriguing association experiment, but later thinks his second experiment has failed when, unbeknownst to him, he happens to come across a journalist. He may not realize it, but this is actually an achievement in itself.

Proof Positive: Don’t be too arrogant. You may think you understand everyone and could never be fooled, only to have someone deceive you right under your nose.

Can we really understand who a person is from a few lines of handwriting? No—people are far more complicated than that. Just look at Rubner, who made such a fuss the night before, only to say sheepishly the next night, “the wife might start complaining that I’m always leaving her by herself.”

Should I focus on the Prince’s ability in The Clairvoyant, or on the character of the district attorney?

If you know Karel Čapek even a little, you can more or less guess what will happen in The Fortuneteller once the fortuneteller makes her prediction. Is she a fraud, or can she really see the future? That is the whole point...

The Blue Chrysanthemum is about Klara, the village idiot, turning up with a blue chrysanthemum while Fulinus tends the gardens of the old Prince Lichtenberg. Fulinus even stood up to the prince over the flower, which he found entirely by chance. But what good is that? Despite having had it for fifteen years, he has never seen it bloom. Still, Fulinus hopes that one day Klara—named after the village idiot—will bloom.

Dr. Mejzlik’s Case was a very short, strange story that ended almost as quickly as it began. Yet it reminds us how unavoidable instinct, intuition, chance—or whatever you want to call it—are in shaping our actions.
The mention of Vinohrady immediately drew me in. Also, shouldn’t Dlážděná Street be written correctly? Otherwise, it’s likely to be misread. I couldn’t find the place called the Three Maidens either.

Only relative truth is accessible to us, Čapek was saying, not absolute truth; it's just that we often tend to confuse the one with the other.

"Nor, despite Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk, was there a tradition using everyday, conversational Czech in literature."
The fact that everyday language was virtually absent from literature in 1928 doesn’t seem strange at all if you’ve learned Czech. Two distinct forms of the same language coexist in everyday life.