« Who's in charge? | Main | New posts advertised at the MLA »
July 23, 2006
30,000 hits on this blog
We had over 1600 hits on Friday and the number for July will be well over 30,000. Thank you again to everyone.
There is obviously a lot of interest in the subject- please pass on the address to book readers, library users, would-be users, people who work in libraries or in national or local government- anywhere in the world.
One of my inspirations is the Samizdat writing of Czechoslovakia in the 70's and 80's. Ivan Klima, the author, wrote that you get a special relationship with readers of Samizdat. He and some other wonderful writers brought the downfall of their government by making fun of them. Photocopying machines were not permitted so each writer typed a few pages with carbon paper copies. These in turn were copied by perhaps one or more typists. These few thin sheets were then passed from hand to hand and read avidly by many people. They were about the activities of members of the Government and they were called Samizdat.
I was fortunate to be with Ivan, his family and many of his friends in Prague during the Velvet revolution of November 1989. It was a frightening but very exciting time. I recommend his book "The Spirit of Prague" published by Granta. As a child he spent many years in Terezin concentration camp from which most of his friends were sent to be murdered. Later he was labelled a "dissident" and unable to work or move with any freedom. So he has seen more strange bureaucracies than almost anyone. As a writer he stresses the importance of connection to a country's literature and its history for he has seen them deliberately disconnected several times in Prague in his own lifetime and suffered the consequences of such acts. Generations that are brought up without being close to their inheritance of literature and honest understanding of their history are not so wise. These are essentials and it is perilous to treat themlightly or without care.
Ivan is 75 this year.
Posted by Tim Coates at July 23, 2006 11:35 AM
Comments
On Friday I met a woman who lives in a small western Massachusetts town, one of the towns known as "hilltowns" because of their remoteness (if you want to know what they were like a century ago, read the bleak novel Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton). These towns would definitely be called villages, or hamlets, in England--they have populations in the hundreds, not thousands.
She told me that she is a trustee of her town's library, a tiny stone building nestled against a stream and positioned so expansion just isn't possible--they managed to add a children's room, but that's it. She made it clear that expansion had been a subject of great community interest and discussion. But, she said, there are excellent libraries in two nearby towns, so they manage well enough.
Three active libraries in a remote rural area, with local control, and what is clearly considerable belief in their importance and relevance! Funding for libraries is local, too.
Posted by: Karen Christensen at July 23, 2006 3:28 PM
You must have been there at the same time as my husbamd. He was actually in Wenceslas Square among the crowds when everything came falling down. He rang from a phone box there and put the phone outside so I could hear everyone shouting for Havel....he has two little ribbon favours given to him by girls who were passing them round - tokens of Freedom. I woke my daughters up and made them listen and told them this was History they were hearing. I think they were a bit bemused but the elder one remembers it clearly.
Posted by: SUSAN HILL at July 23, 2006 7:12 PM
Susan
Yes, and that same evening there was a meeting of the PEN club at which I was honoured to be present. Klima translated for me the statement that they had sent out via secret courier through Poland to Sweden, for the Western Press. He had written it and it was endorsed by Havel, Vaculik and other members. In it he denounced the regime as being comparable with that of Hitler. It was powerful beyond anything I have ever since heard because of Klima's experience in Terezin. You could not deny the expressions he used. They are all very funny, ironic men (and women) who are profoundly from the tradition of Hasek and Kafka.
I had arrived from London but many of them had spent the previous night in police interrogation.
Ivan's son and daughter were very involved and his wife Helene is a wonderful woman who is a psychotherapist. Within a few days Penguin had produced new editions of the work of many of these people and we they were in all Waterstone's windows within a week. There are many stories about those days.
Posted by: Tim at July 23, 2006 7:57 PM
Tim, this is all so very interesting. When my daughter Rebecca was aged 16 in 1988, she toured Poland with the Cambridge Youth Theatre...performing Zola's Germinal at various venues throughout the country. It was her first experience of life in eastern europe. However, on her return home to the UK, asked me if I had ever heard of the author Ivan Klima?
"No" was my reply. Stunned silence.Throughout that tour of Poland, Rebecca and her very young fellow thesps, had been introduced to the works of Ivan Klima by a theatre student from the Jagonelli University, Warsaw.
Suffice to say, we can all learn alot from the youth of today? A 16 year old introducing me to the incredible literary works of Ivan Klima.
Subsequently, Rebecca and I have had enjoyed so many interesting and rewarding visits to Prague.
Posted by: Margo Harker at July 23, 2006 10:41 PM