My Merry Mornings: Stories from Prague

This collection of seven short stories, one named for each morning of the week, is a nice introduction to the writing of Ivan Klima. Klima loves to write and in these stories Klima's love for the word shines through. He is a teller of tales and Klima is in his element in the short story medium. The writing style evident in these stories, unlike some of his novels, is simple and accessible to any reader. The simplicity of style is not surprising when one considers that Klima praised Czech playwright and author Karel Capek for exhibiting these same traits in his biography of Capek.

The stories are light but they do reveal some of Klima's world view. In his Tuesday Morning story Klima's narrator (and in some of his stories the protagonist is referred to simply as Klima), a Czech writer, is reunited with an old paramour 20 years after she fled Czechoslovakia for the West. They had no emotional relationship but spent an idyllic spring and summer meeting for a tryst every lunch time in a vacant lot in Prague. They meet for lunch upon her return and she asks him why he never left Czechoslovakia. His response is simple: "Because I'd like to go on being a writer, and to be a writer means also to stick up for people whose fate is not a matter of indifference to me. . . All this I can do here, where I grew up."

Pungent, yet understated, sentences work themselves into virtually every story. The Sunday Morning story, which involves torrential flooding in an outlying neighbourhood, begins simply: "This was a year rich in rainfall and police raids." Klima does not hammer the reader over the head with ideology or his world view. Rather, he tells simple stories about the daily lives of the people around him. The social and political atmosphere of the time is certainly present but they are set out as a fact of life that forms the backdrop of the story. The barter system for procuring supplies or the bribes required to pay off vendors is simply there, it is not the central focus of the tale. After the narrator and some colleagues band together to build a garage for their cars on a vacant lot, two of the builders go off to steal some building material. The narrator is surprised but moved when his companion explains why he simply cannot steal the needed supplies.

Each story tells a small tale and it would reveal a bit too much to describe each individual story. However, they are well written, amusing, and thoughtful. While this is far from Klima's most profound work they do paint a picture of life in Prague as it was lived by Klima and those around them. It is also clear from Merry Mornings that Klima loves Prague. It is his city and he is as attached to it as native Parisian might be to Paris. All in all Merry Mornings serves as an enjoyable introduction to both Klima and Prague.

Witty, Thoughtful Stories from Ivan Klima (4/4 people found this helpful)

The stories are light but they do reveal some of Klima's world view. In his Tuesday Morning story Klima's narrtaor(and in some of his stories the protagonist is referred to simply as Klima), a Czech writer, is reunited with an old paramour 20 years after she fled Czechoslovakia for the West. They had no emotional relationship but spent an idyllic spring and summer meeting for a tryst every lunch time in a vacant lot in Prague. They meet for lunch upon her return and she asks him why he never left Czechoslovakia. His response is simple: "Because I'd like to go on being a writer, and to be a writer means also to stick up for people whose fate is not a matter of indifference to me. . . All this I can do here, where I grew up."

Pungent, yet understated, sentences work themselves into virtually every story. The Sunday Morning story, which involves torrential flooding in a outlying neighborhhod, begins simply: "This was a year rich in rainfall and police raids." Klima does not hammer the reader over the head with ideology or his world view. Rather, he tells simple stories about the daily lives of the people around him. The social and political atmosphere of the time is certainly present but they are set out as a fact of life that forms the backdrop of the story. The barter system for procuring supplies or the bribes required to pay off vendors is simply there, it is not the central focus of the tale. When the narrator and some colleagues band together to build a garage for their cars on a vacant lot two of the builders go off to steal some building material. The narrator is surprised but moved when his companion explains why he simply cannot steal the needed supplies

All in all Merry Mornings serves as an enjoyable introduction to both Klima and Prague.

My Merry Mornings: Stories from Prague

Ivan Klima

Reader Reviews:

Beautiful Collection of Stories (4/4 people found this helpful)

Witty, Thoughtful Stories from Ivan Klima (4/4 people found this helpful)

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