To the Castle and Back (Vintage)
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Manufacturer: Vintage
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780307388452
ISBN: 030738845X
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: 2008-05-06
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2008-05-06
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Reviews:
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From the former president of the Czech Republic comes this first-hand account of his years in office and the transition to democracy following the fall of Communism.
A renowned playwright, Václav Havel became one of Czechoslovakia's most prominent dissidents under Communist rule – and the president after the Velvet Revolution, making him a key player in European politics. Here we see first-hand the challenges of creating a new government, tempered with Havel's revealing insights into the difficulties posed by an era of increased globalization and conflict. He discusses not only the situation in his own country, but also such pressing issues as the future of the European Union, the war in Iraq, and the role of the United States in contemporary affairs. Written with an eye towards both the political and the personal and a witty, well-honed eloquence, To the Castle and Back is a rare glimpse into the minds of one of the most important political figures of modern times.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Candid Look at Fascinating World Leader
Comment: What Havel lacks in chronological narrative structure, he makes up for in depth and candor. In the intro to the book, he acknowledges that this is not a traditional memoir and he encourages the reader to move on to the next section should he or she become bogged down in and bored by the intricacies of Czech politics. To quote Havel in his introduction, he writes, "[W]hether you read it whole or piecemeal, I will be satisfied if you feel this book has given you something of value."
As a professional writer, Havel demonstrates the ability to express his wit and his gravitas with equal quality. This comes through even in translation. Havel breaks up his story into sections: memos between him and his closest staff while he was president of Czechoslovakia (and later the Czech Republic), reflections from his then-current perspective and finally, answers to questions from a Czech journalist. The three parts are intercalated with each other throughout the text and give a very unique and enriching story of one of the 20th century's most fascinating world leaders.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Reader as vicarious president
Comment: Vaclav Havel communicates with the open-hearted clarity of a good friend who happens to be a world-class writer. I find myself using his perspectives as I go about my life, far as it is from the great transitions of the Czech and Slovak nations from totalitarianism to democracy. Paul Wilson's translation is superb. Vaclav Havel deserves his reputation as a very human hero.
Customer Rating:
Summary: For Havel Fans Only
Comment: I enjoyed this book, but I don't believe it is for everyone. Two themes give this work its form: a Heideggerian commitment to the notion that his Being over the past 15 years is best disclosed by sharing the "average everydayness" of his former presidential responsibilities; and a profound physical and spiritual exhaustion with his role as fairytale hero. For hardcore fans of Havel, and for scholars engaged in close examinations of the post-communist era in Central and Eastern Europe, there be gems here. But you have to rummage for them. For the reader looking for a memoir possessed of the usual pleasures of clear chronology and steady narrative, To the Castle and Back will be extraordinarily frustrating. One other word of caution: I found the few passages devoted to Havel's first wife, Olga, pretty hard to take. My lasting impression of Havel's account, though, is of a man who worked prodigiously for the good of his country: One reads over and over again how he readily spent his meager political capital to remind citizens there and everywhere of the big picture issues. Perhaps nobody has ever played the role of public intellectual quite so well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A mortal Sisyphus
Comment: I just finished Vaclav Havel's memoir, To the Castle and Back, and the harsh feelings I had towards the book as I began it dissipated a bit by the end. It has an odd structure, equal parts an interview done concerning events before he was president, memos he wrote while he was president, and recollections he wrote some years after he left office, all interspersed randomly among each other, with occasional repetitions of texts. As a biography, it's a failure. By the end of the book, I still know little of the history of the Czech Republic, or what Havel did while in office. Readers looking for that should go to Havel's book, Disturbing the Peace. That book remains one of the most influential books I've ever read, and I still count myself as lucky for stumbling on it in a friend's bookshelf.
As a piece of literature, though, To the Castle is a success. Fundamentally, it casts Havel (and all writers and activists) as a sort of postmodern Sisyphus. He writes in depth and at length about his difficulty getting motivated and starting to write. He write, to the point of being whiney, about his intense doubt that his writing and political projects will ever achieve their high objectives. Indeed, he seems to argue that writing is fundamentally futile: "man will carry the complete truth about himself to the grave." And yet Havel write, driven on by the "somewhat ridiculous" idea that "the world desperately needs the work in question, and will fall apart if it doesn't appear." I too like writing and thinking yet have intense self-doubt, and so I get great joy seeing that someone way more gifted than I like Havel suffers the same. I agree with Havel's quote: "I sometimes ask myself whether I did not originally begin to write... only to overcome my essential experience of inappropriateness... in order to be able to live with those feelings."
Yet somehow the Sisyphean task of the writer gives him meaning: "He simply tried to capture the world and himself more and more exactly through words, images, or actors, and the more he succeeds, the more aware he is that he can never completely capture either the world or himself... but that drives him to keep trying." Imagine Sisyphus as conscious of the absurdity of his task, yet still drawing meaning from it. Camus would be proud.
This book is also a lament, for it is perhaps his last, and is certainly written as such. Havel is sending a message: he did his best to write himself into the world, but ultimately failed to communicate his internal self. Like a mortal Sisyphus in old age realizing he will never reach the top of this hill, nor could have.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, but not for Havel beginners
Comment: To those of us deeply involved in Czech history or culture, this is an essential book. It's a fascinating insider's look at the choices a dissident was forced to make when he became President of a postcommunist country. But for people not deeply familiar with Havel's work, this is not the place to start. First read "Open Letters" and "Disturbing the Peace," then John Keane's (similarly unconventional) biography.
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