Vlogging My Way to Eastern Europe
Theme: Eastern Europe
Welcome to the new theme here at Salonica as we travel to Eastern Europe. I look forward to traveling with you and recommending some reads you might not know about. Also, can you spot the black cat in the background? He gets extra pay.
Nice to see you again! All hail the Collins facial structure.
On the book front, do Czech writers lump themselves with Eastern Europe, or do they prefer to be Western Europe post-breakup with Slovakia?
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Laughing, laughing. There is not much I can do about the Collins facial structure. I have tried, believe me. Bizarre features all slapped together around a large honker. But, as far as Czech, I think I can safely say Central Eastern Europe-pre and post Slovakia amicable parting. Of course, I haven't spoken to them all personally. Just an general Czech email blast. Thanks for stopping by and watching...as funny as it is.
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Just found your blog because I was looking for some reviews of Hrabal. This topic of yours is going to be very interesting! This Central European literature is quite underrepresented in the Western European languages. Way too few translations available...
Hm, concerning your local cousin's question: As far as I can see, in nowadays Czech republic the idea of being "Central European" is preferred over "Eastern European". They see their little country as a kind of transmission station between east and west (as one can see for example in Jiří Kratochvil's interesting novel "Uprostřed nocí zpěv" / "Singing in the midst of the night" - I don't know if it's translated into English). You can also find the strong notion of being the center of Europe in Kundera's essays, where he often speaks about "the Central European novel" and then includes Polish, Czech, Austrian and Hungarian examples into his discussion, focussing on their similarities.
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