I like to lose myself in one of those works set in Nazism, or in the Second World War, or in the atrocious postwar period with that contradictory spirit of victory amidst the prevailing misery.
In the case of book Good night sweet dreams we travel to the days after the victory of the allies. We move to Brno, the city of Jiri Kratochvil one of the Czechoslovakian cities most integrated into the expansionism of the Third Reich and that continues to suffer, after the Allied victory, destabilizing movements that seek to regain the freedom of its inhabitants.
On the same day of liberation, April 30, 1945, Konstantin intends to carry out the task of obtaining penicillin for the decaying sanatorium in which it is used saving lives and letting others go according to imperative criteria of the lack of means and medicines.
Konstantin moves through the city of Brno, where the SS still angrily carry out its latest summary arrests.
At a certain point in the novel, the plot begins to plunge into fantasy, a surprising fiction that flies over the cruel prevailing reality to bring an impossible magic over the disastrous events. The story of the events begins to soak up a surreal humor, without abandoning the feeling of precariousness and fragility of life, an acidic, almost delusional fantasy makes its way through a fundamental character: Henry Steinmann.
This character, as appeared from the imprint of an author jaded with his gloomy story, brings that fresh perspective, almost wrapped up in childhood. As if the human being could shelter from disaster and evil through an absolutely dreamlike viewing of events.
I had read in the synopsis of the book certain references to Kafka, and it may be that yes, that Jiri Kratochvil draws on that same surrealism to move us through the most surreal fact of all: war, hunger and death.
You can buy the book Good night sweet dreams, Jiri Kratochvil's latest novel, here: