THE FACADE

Maltzahn, Orten, and Podol--three artists attempting to restore the frescoes of Bohemia's greatest Renaissance castle--and Nordanc and Qvietone--two archivists ricocheting across Eastern Europe--do their bit to undermine communism in Czechoslovakia

The Soviet occupation of 1968 is never far from the thougths of Orten, Maltzahn, Patera and Podol, cynical Prague artists who in the late '70s are restoring the damaged facade of a famous Bohemian castle--a hopeless project, as the restoration, attacked by industrial pollution, immediately begins to deteriorate. As they irreverently reinterpret the fading frescoes, the trio engages in a wide-ranging discussion about the fate of Czechoslovakia and their own domestic affairs, punctuating all with a scathing gallows humor. Unfortunately, the uniformity of Monikova's portrayal of the artists detracts from their witty repartee. Only with the introduction of two quirky castle archivists, Qvietone, an earnest entomologist, and Nordanc, a gay historian, does the novel take off. When Orten is asked to create a bas-relief wall in Japan, Maltzahn, Podol, Qvietone and Nordanc invite themselves along. On the cross-continental journey, the group finds itself stranded in Siberia, an opportunity the author exploits to the fullest, contrasting the caustic, civilized Czech spirit with the wilder "great Russian soul." In a series of broadly drawn, irresistibly funny incidents, the gang is hijacked by a lonely scientist to Akademgorodok, adopted by a band of Evenk herdsmen and flees across the barren taiga on a snowmobile. One of the most likable characters is a witch who is busily turning Soviet officials into reindeer. Monikova's off-beat sense of humor makes the reader glad to be along for the ride. A first novel, this has been translated from the German.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The best of modern Czech fiction, comic though it may be, is done in the grays of sarcasm, irony, philosophy; it can make you forget the great baroque tradition of Czech art, the overmuchness and the gilt and the gaiety. First-novelist Mon¡kov , now living in Berlin, makes you remember, though--in this spectacularly classic comedy that manages at once to be: a slapstick epic; one of the very few novels that credibly portray artists; and an astounding sweep in the highest spirits through Czech and Russian history. The ``M.N.O.P.Q.'' of the subtitle are three Czech art- academicians--Maltzahn, Orten, Podol--at work on restoring murals on the facade of a historic Bohemian castle; and two young resident scholars at the castle--Nordanc and Qvietone. The five, deciding on a group vacation to Japan, where Orten is invited to work on a mural, set out on a journey that lands them (thanks to impossible Russian travel arrangements and language-difficulties) in Siberia instead. With only their national hatred for the depredations of '68 to orient them, the group finds itself stuck in a Siberian think tank--Akademogorodok--that they've been brought to by accident; it'll finally take an amateur theatrical of Gogol's The Inspector General, and then a Czech-Russian hockey game, to win their release (this whole section being a brilliant revision of Kafka). Science, folklore, history, they rush over the book like successive waterfalls--punctuated by hilarious chases, brawls, and vaudevillian adventures. A book that makes most ``magic realism'' or ``pendanto- fiction'' (Eco, Pavic) read like five-finger exercises. You have to go back to Bellow's Henderson the Rain King to find a novel so exuberantly imaginative, high and low, bursting with such steam and intelligence. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The second major work of fiction by a Czech-born Germanist currently living in Berlin, this inventive, humorous, and encyclopedic meditation on Czech and Russian culture and politics was first published in German, a sad irony. Clearly indebted to the fantastic strain in Czech literature, The Facade tells the story of several artists and archivists working on the restoration of the great castle at Friedland and their misadventures in Czechoslovakia and in the Soviet Union when trapped there one winter on their way to Japan. The narrative's raucous energy and wide-ranging erudition compensate for the frustratingly shallow characterizations of the major characters, the M., N., O., P., and Q. of the subtitle. A major and often enjoyable work that rejuvenates the literary traditions of central Europe.
- Michael T. O'Pecko, Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.