Vaclav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts

The result is a thrillingly vivid picture of the man and his times that captures not merely the essences of the revolutionary hero and fading elder statesman but something of the despair and excitement of a troubled country in a violent century.--Robert PottsEND

Reader Reviews:

Badly written, poor history, but useful information (3/4 people found this helpful)

It seems to me that Keane's book is the reverse of what he would wish. For him it is HIS construction of Havel's life which is important. For me Keane tries to make this book too much about himself. So obsessed is he with the idea that all history is refracted by the prism of the author's subjectivity, that biography is a kind of fiction, that the book becomes too much about Keane. How else to explain the tedious and superficial summaries of the history of political theory, than as the preening display of the self-regarding academic. See, for example, the extraordinary deviation on the history of the idea of political sovereignty. Is it anymore than self-congratulatory self-publicism to insist on likening Vaclav Klaus to an obscure Roman emperor.

There is much interesting information, but the nearer we get to the present, the more infuriating the book becomes. Havel faces up to the implications of death in wise words, we are told, but then we are told that he is committing the arrogance of the powerful in refusing to face up to mortality. This is simply rubbish. Indeed, from 1989 onwards, Keane's obsession with the political-historical literature about power leads to contradictory and unsympathetic accounts of Havel's behaviour. It reads like the work of a man who, disappointed to find that Havel was a human being, sought to put the worst light on all his subsequent misjudgements, little vanities and fumbling explorations of a man who found himself in the surprising position of power (or, says Keane, ambitiously manipulated his way into) power. Havel, the power-hungry, self-regarding not-quite-villain is not unconvincing. The drive of Keane's thesis leads one to question his presentation of the facts. He begins to give descriptions of events, unwitnessed by him, as a cheap novelist. The movement of a leg, as seen on a newsreel or witnessed by an on-looker, is given psychological meaning, to attribute nervousness, confidence etc. The book becomes an unsatisfactory series of contradictions, as the author tries to stay true to his documentary evidence, while keeping his theory intact.

At times badly written, replete with self-indulgent displays of irrelevant learning, this book is worth reading for information and sources (though a bibliography would have been useful and more in keeping with Keane's pretensions) and some great photographs. Grit your teeth and curse the self-indulgent authorial voice.

Morality Judgment, Anglo-Saxon Perspective (3/4 people found this helpful)

John Keane's book sets out on an ambitious course to prove that Havel is unfit to be a leader of anything, let alone the moral leader of Europe, as some have tried to portray him. His two main arguments for his conclusion are that 1) he is rotten morally, and 2) he is a power hungry politician just like you average party hack on his way to the top, and once at the top, becomes corrupted, in the sense of seeking more and more influence over his subjects.

The first issue, of morality, is of course written from an Anglo-Saxon perspective. Having lovers while being a married man is a no no in this world. It is morally wrong. Keane dismisses the possibility that one can be a true person even while having such affairs, provided that there is some understanding between the wife and the husband. In my opinion, this is the preferred way over becoming a frustrated man due to not being true to oneself.

The issue of power has some validity, but only up to a point. A political scientist like Keane should know that any politician who rises to the top, under any regime, has to posses certain drive to be on the top, no matter that he was a dissident playwright. That fact that Havel was in prison for expressing his opinion should not fool anybody that he is detached from the little and big things that make everybody else a human being.

Keane's book further falls short on the description of the political realities in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. For example, he is done in one paragraph (!?) with the subject of disposing with Dubcek when the Federal Presidency was up for grabs in late 1989. He is totally unaware that since the late 1960's it was a matter of unwritten law to divide the Presidency and the post of Prime Minister between a Czech and a Slovak. Thus, while Calfa, a Slovak became a Prime Minister on December 10th 1989, Husak, also a Slovak, still remained a president, although slated to be bounced into history's waste basket. It was only according to this unwritten rule that a Czech had to become the new President of the newly free Czechoslovakia. Havel may have dealt with Dubcek, but it was before December 10th, and not, as Keane writes, days before his election on December 29th. The selection of the Slovak Calfa as Prime Minister was Havel's smartest move because it precluded Dubcek from assuming the Presidency. Keane totally ignores this aspect of the Czech-Slovak affairs.

I must say that I like one part of the book very much--the narrative of Havel's life between the establishment of Charter 77 and his election as President. This is a well researched and well written part of the book, and if I were to grade it alone it would get 5 stars from me. Unfortunately, it represent less than 1/4 of the total volume.

A history of 50 years in Prague, not a biography. (2/2 people found this helpful)

John Keane's biography of Vaclav Havel is ultimately misleading in its subject matter. Rather than provided a conventional biographical account of the life of this intriguing figure, Mr Keane concentrates on providing the, often fasinating, context of the events as they occurred in Prague from the Second World War to the present date. This account is then supplemented by extensive and predisposed political theory. The result is to leave very little of Mr Havel in the book.

For example, the account of Mr Havel's acension to the presidency following the collapse of communism leaves impressions of drunken evenings in smoky rooms and occasional speeches but fails to satisfactorily provide answers to even the most obvious questions, such as why Havel wanted to become president and how this was achieved. Similarly, upon having achieved the same, no clue is offered by the book as to what Havel wished to achieve, what his policies were. Rather, the approach of providing a detailed historical context overcomes the efforts at giving an insight into Havel the man. Perhaps some may regard the above comment as an old fashioned approach to biography, but I believe a reader of a biography is entitled to expect a degree of insight into the protagonist, rather than an account of the political beliefs of the author.

There is also the matter of style. For example, most may agree with the author's views on Chaimberlain, but the use of the words "folly" and "foolish" at the rate of over 10 per page when discussing him is somewhat adloescent. Also, at the stage when the communist state collapses, one might expect a portrait of a moment frozen in time, of the thoughts, hopes, fears or actions of the principal actors and the populace as a whole. Instead, we get an account of the author's visit to Havel to interview him.

Notwithstanding the above, there are some interesting parts to the book. The account of this period in Czech history is well researched and the author succeeds in giving the eastern european context from an eastern european vantage-point, but in the final analysis this is insufficient to outweigh the lack of true biography.

Vaclav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts

John Keane

Editorial Review:

Reader Reviews:

Badly written, poor history, but useful information (3/4 people found this helpful)

Morality Judgment, Anglo-Saxon Perspective (3/4 people found this helpful)

A history of 50 years in Prague, not a biography. (2/2 people found this helpful)

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