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Chargement... Two Murders in My Double Life: A Novelpar Josef Škvorecký
Translingualism (68) Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. Imagine Agatha Christie inviting Vaclav Havel over for tea. Picture the two of them, the dame of mysteries and the Czech president, sitting down to a nice steaming mug of Earl Grey and discussing murder and politics. Think of the wild swings the conversation would take. That’s the kind of literary trampoline you’ll be bouncing on when you read Two Murders in My Double Life, by Josef Skvorecky (who, incidentally, dedicates his novel to Havel). As the title implies, there are two murders in this bipolar, bicontinental novel. There’s the killing in the tradition of Christie, P.D. James and Ellery Queen: a professor at quaint little Edenvale College in Toronto has been strangled in a traditional Locked Room Mystery (the biggest piece of evidence is a piece of chipped-off nail polish found in a file folder); the other murder is a larger, more intangible crime involving a McCarthy-like witchhunt in Prague—it is “a total crime,Â? as Skvorecky puts it in a brief introduction: North America leads, by a wide margin, in the worldwide statistics of murder, but North Americans have never experienced total crime. In Europe and Asia, millions of people fell victim to it, many millions in large countries, but it is not only the body that is murdered by this mega-assassin, it is the soul: the character of the community called a nation. However, one can hardly write a murder mystery about the assassination of souls. These are big issues heâÂÂs wrestling with and, to be brutally honest, he doesnâÂÂt always pin his narrative to the mat. The story is sharply divided between a traditional murder mystery and a political saga (the likes of which you might find if you tuned into National Public Radio on any given afternoon). Two Murders in My Double Life is not for everybody; but for those it is for, theyâÂÂll probably be captivated by whatâÂÂs inside. The writing is authentic enough to make you wonder how much of this is autobiographical. I had never heard of Skvorecky before I picked up the novel, but his approach feels awfully close to the bone. And, in fact, the photograph on the dustjacket is an old photo of the author and his wife: heâÂÂs seated on a rock on a hillside, she stands next to him, and both of them have their backs turned to the camera as they look out over the countryside below. Curious and intriguing. At the center of Two Murders in My Double Life is the Skvorecky figure, an unnamed professor at Edenvale whose colleague is strangled with a piece of string one night and whose wife is under investigation for a past Czech âÂÂcrime.âÂ? The novel flips back and forth between the two halves as the professor flashes back to how his wife was blacklisted for stray remarks she made about a friend of hers who was once involved with a Communist. For those unfamiliar with European politics of the Cold War, the Czech portions can get a bit murky and difficult to follow, but Skvorecky has a tart, bracing style that keeps you reading all the way through. The Toronto scenes, however, are a pure delight to read as the author has a great deal of fun at the expense of university politics and mystery writers. At times, reading like a Lite Version of Kundera, Kafka or Camus, Two Murders in My Double Life spreads a veneer of wicked satire over every pageâÂÂespecially those set in North American academia. This is a world where long debates rage over whether or not an instructor should leave his door open when a female student shows up for office hours orâÂÂmore preciselyâÂÂwho is the facultyâÂÂs biggest and best adulterer. There are no lack of catty cocktail parties in these pages. ThereâÂÂs also no lack of sly humor, which mystery fans should quickly catch. One character, a police detective, is named Dorothy Sayers; another is Raymond Hammett; and so on. Skvorecky had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek while composing this, his first novel written in English. His other works include The Cowards, The Engineer of Human Souls and Dvorak in Love. No two ways about it, Skvorecky has a good grasp of our languageâÂÂin these pages, it is alternately a light brush of the fingers and a hard slap across the face. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
In Josef Skvorecky's first novel written in English, the narrator lives in two radically dissimilar worlds: the exile world of the post-Communist Czech Republic where old feuds, treacherous betrayals, and friendships persevere; and the comfortable, albeit bland world of middle-class Canada. Murder intrudes upon both world. One features a young female sleuth, a college beauty queen, jealousy in the world of academia, and a neat conclusion. The other is a tragedy caused by evil social forces and philosophies, in which a web of lies insidiously entangles Sidonia, the narrator's wife. A brilliantly stylish tour de force in which the bright, sarcastic comedy of one tale sharply contrasts with the dark, elegiac bitterness of the other, "Two Murders in My Double Life" confirms Skvorecky's reputation as a versatile and engaging writer. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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The Sidonia storyline was much more interesting than the murder investigation. How she came to be listed – and the narrator’s involvement – is just one example of the accommodation and uncertainty under the Czech Communist regime. The narrator also relates other stories of ordinary people forced to collaborate and how little the actual collaboration could be. The murky ambiguity of those days is contrasted to the fiery rhetoric surrounding the list and the multiple hypocrisies on display. Sidonia initiates a lawsuit but it becomes clear that she might never be able to prove her innocence when the accusation is a moving target. One of the slightly annoying quirks in this half is the appearance of unnamed characters obviously based on real people – the Czech “playwright president” and the female writer from the GDR revealed to be a Stasi collaborator. Also weird is the absence of diacritics and some Anglicization (?) of names – the Vltava is called the Moldau.
The murder mystery has name weirdness also – a lot of the characters have literary names – the murder victims is Raymond Hammett, the sergeant is Dorothy Sayers, a professor is named James F. Cooper and so on. Sayers and the narrator treat the murder almost as a thought exercise and the college atmosphere didn’t really seem to reflect that a murder had taken place. The narrator’s casual sexism was also rather irritating. It was interesting enough to read and the exploration of post-Communist guilt and innocence felt realistic and sadly muddled but overall didn’t compare to the glorious grab-bag The Engineer of Human Souls. ( )