Via Prague

It was while reading an interesting article in The International Herald Tribune recently, an article on American painters living in Rome in the late 19th Century, that I came across a reference to Daisy Miller.
'I was bound to see the Colosseum by moonlight!' Henry James' fatally innocent heroine cries. ' I wouldn't have wanted to go home without that.'
I'd never read the novel (I've always studiously avoided James, who I, somewhat unfairly, thought of as one of those American writers who try so hard to be English writers). Still, my curiosity aroused, I found a copy of it while browsing through Prague's English bookstores, and decided to pick it up. At 72 pages, written in frank, clear prose, I polished off the book in an afternoon lying in the park near the Vltava. It didn't take long for me to figure out what it was about that provocative quote that startled me. I was amazed at how much of myself, and other Americans I've known living abroad, I could see in Daisy Miller, of how true her character still rings today. Her shades and echoes pervade the romantic capitals of Europe more than 100 years after she first appeared in print.
For those unfamiliar with the story, Daisy Miller is an attractive young woman traveling to Europe for the first time in the company of her mother and young brother. Pretty, vivacious, a born flirt, Daisy is in many ways typically American -- outspoken, free-spirited, curiously 'innocent.' While in Rome she pursues, to the dismay of her older, respectable countrymen, a relationship with a young Italian man who appears to be of low society and only interested in corrupting her or marrying her for her money. Defiant in the face of outraged sensibilities, Daisy goes her own way, and ultimately meets an unexpected and tragic end.
Of course, Mark Twain explored similar terrain in "Innocents Abroad,' in which he comically depicts Americans, fresh from the wide open pastures, farms and factories of the New World, in all their naive, brash, contentedly ignorant charm. Indeed, I'm sure more than one literary thesis has been written about how Daisy Miller, and the characters in Twain's work, represented at the time America as a new country and emerging power, venturing out into the wider world.
But I suggest putting aside moldy geopolitical metaphors and enjoying the story on its most basic level. There is something enchanting and haunting in Daisy's story ( I see in her a vague, passing resemblance to another young flirt, Nabokov's Lolita, and, perhaps also to Capote's Holly Golightly). It could almost be read as a cautionary tale; troubling, and yet touching, at least for those of us who identify with the heroine. How many times have we, in the flush of excitement, of wonder, rushed headlong into foreign capitals, down blind alleys, ignorant of local customs, without any thought of risk or consequence? For myself, I can say too many times, and very often not to my credit. At times I've had to silently thank a benevolent Grace, or at least the generally passive nature of many Czechs, for sparing me a fate similar to Daisy's, especially after too many beers in some dark pub in an unfamiliar quarter of the city. Once, for example, upon my arrival in Prague, I spent a late night at a pub in Žižkov, a neighborhood known for its artsy residents but also for its share of criminal activity after dark. After leaving the pub, it was late and I, at that time still learning my way around the city, found myself lost. I ended up crashing out in the doorstep of some apartment building until dawn, when I awoke, sober to find the metro station. That probably happened a half-dozen times my first year. Once, I was again lost and drunk, and decided to crash in Letna Park. I remember being awakened by a Gypsy man, who instead of robbing me (to the disbelief of my Czech friends), took me by the arm and escorted me to the nearest tram stop.
All of this, in kind of a dim mist, came back to me as I read of Daisy Miller and her fate. I think now of Tomaš, a teacher and friend who has seen me on my best and worst nights out. We were talking of my leaving soon to teach English in Istanbul. He cautioned me:
'Be careful when you get to Istanbul -- they might not be like us Czechs. You could actually get killed there for doing some of the things you've gotten away with here.'
And yet, like Daisy, the part of me that identifies with her, still rebels, seeks enchantment and wonder in the dark. After all, the Colosseum by moonlight is -- well, the Colosseum by moonlight, right? Just watch out for the mosquitos.
Anyway, summer's nearly over, but if you've already finished your summer reading list, maybe give Daisy Miller a read. Cautionary tale or not, it's a book full of atmosphere, well-drawn characters, and something of Daisy, in all her fetching defiant eagerness for experience, stays with you, no matter where you go.

Posted by James Tressler at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (476)

The other night I was sitting in the Žaba with a friend, Ondrej, when he suddenly produced a curious and unexpected remark. We were talking about my leaving soon for Istanbul.
'I hope when you get to Istanbul you will write about your time here in Prague,' he said, looking at me reflectively. 'About us here, I mean. I think it would be interesting.'
I was surprised because I didn't recall ever telling Ondrej I wrote (although he has a good memory and would remember if I had). But also it triggered in me a series of emotions, namely irony, cagey suspense and bewilderment. After all, I had written about Prague, much about Prague, some of it good and much of it bad. I'd even written about the Žaba and my friends there, including Ondrej. But in any case, I'd written virtually nothing at all in months.
There were the usual reasons -- laziness, drink, indifference, lack of confidence in the material at hand and my ability to make anything of it -- but before Ondrej produced this perceptive garnet (I was flattered, but then I'm easily flattered just as I'm easily bruised), the truth is I was worried, scared even. Had I lost the ability to write? Was that part of my life over? Or worse, had I simply stopped caring?
This fear was not assuaged when, that same day, I got a message from Mr. James Faulk, my good friend and former colleague at the Times-Standard. In sending his warm regards, Mr. Faulk made teasing reference to my 'playing Hemingway' in Prague. Though this was obviously well-meant, I couldn't help but feel it scored. Five years in Prague, with sojourns to Paris, Belfast, Bratislava, Dresden, and what had become of this ambition to become a serious (successful) writer? A few articles, a poorly maintained blog, maybe, but mostly only the manners and poses of a writer: sipping drinks on sunlit terraces, strolling thoughtfully along cobbled streets, occasional bursts of scribbling in increasingly neglected notebooks; attitudinizing, daydreaming.
Speaking of Hemingway, he once wrote he learned how to write while wandering through the Luxembourg Gallery in Paris looking at paintings on an empty stomach. Maybe that's the problem. I seldom go to galleries here in Prague, and certainly never on an empty stomach. Here in Prague, as an American teaching English, you'd have to be a complete idiot to starve. Maybe I just had it too easy. Those kind of thoughts have crossed my mind at various times. I don't know if any of that is true, or just excuses. Each day in Prague you have the reassuring knowledge that you are living quite comfortably in a romantic, storied city - the Golden City -- a city that no one can deny has splendid literary possibilities. A murder lurking in one of the narrow winding streets in Old Town, an airy romance drifting high among the numerous towers and spires. The teaching is well-paid, regular and the pace generally laid back. You have ample time to take long walks, explore paintings in museums (stomach content optional) if you so choose, time to think, to see, love and even write.
So -- what was the problem? That evening with Ondrej his unexpected remark was a revelation, and as I said a flattering one, but I forgot it and we continued drinking beer and talking. We talked of the upcoming burčák season (burčák is virgin wine), when people go to the markets set up in the squares and sip the young wine from plastic cups, the first touch of autumn in the air. Later on I went to see friends at another bar up the street and got home late.
In the morning I slept til noon, forgetting that I had a nine o'clock class specially arranged for a student who was leaving for London on holiday. Fortunately he's a cool guy and it was no problem. I decided to cancel the rest of the day's classes. Outside it was a lovely afternoon, the sun reflecting off the yellow and rose-colored buildings in the neighborhood. I went to Shakespeare and Sons (not because of Hemingway but because it was close), where they let you use the Internet for free. I checked Facebook, then watched a documentary about Marlon Brando on YouTube. After a while, I had that empty, anxious guilt that comes when you know you're wasting the day, so I decided to take a walk.
It was then, walking up the hill on Krymska Street, toward the Czech Inn, that a memory came back to me that was the reason for my writing this piece. Earlier I'd been thinking of Hemingway and his comment on museums and writing, and also I'd been thinking about Brando, how his biographers and friends felt that the reason for Brando's decline in later years was that because he'd simply ceased to care, about his work, about his appearance, about the wider world. At some point we all stop caring; we have a misfortune, a failure, a set-back, pain; we just get tired. But then usually something happens, we make a change, even a very small one, and it's like life starts all over again and we look back on our depression with relief that it's gone. We wonder how we could have ever been so down, and vow not to let it happen again.
Five years ago I came to Prague, and I felt that way, utterly reborn and reawakened to the world. Since then there has been a perceptible lesion in my writing, a disregard for detail, a tendency to settle for slop, or worse, to be dishonest to myself about my work. But walking up the street, that was not the memory that startled me. Rather, it was of visiting the Metropolitan Museum in New York during my first visit to the city in 2003. Maybe it was the Hemingway that provoked it. Several images came to mind in a procession ... A Phoenician sandstone sculpture of a man, the sandstone smooth and glowing in blue lighting ... an El Greco painting, the forms of men towering and ghostly, as though they were being sucked into the mouth of an angry god ... Van Gogh sunflowers, the paint thick, yet the strokes so delicate that it's like looking at the weavings of an intricately designed wicker basket ... finally, the Rembrandt Room, its handsome wood paneling and cool dark interior ... the 'Portrait of a Man,' with its subtle degrees of black in the man's costume, the white plumes so exquisitely captured you feel as though you could reach out and touch them, the man's gaze frank and immediate.
As I gazed at the paintings, gradually I realized that those who produced these works were people, just as I am, and it was hard to believe. Later, looking at the Rembrandt paintings, I became aware of a sound, a guitar softly strumming. The tune was familiar and suddenly I recognized it as a song I myself had written, discarded and forgotten. Why it came back to me then I don't know. Could it be true, as it is often said, that great art gives back to us ourselves, our scattered, rejected selves?
Maybe the same could be said then of friendship, thinking, as I am now, of what Ondrej said the other night at the Žaba. At any rate, after lunch I grabbed a notebook, and headed to Grabovka Park to have a look at the vineyard.
The park had that stillness that comes on a hot, late summer afternoon, except for a light wind that whispered in the trees. The vines were in full bloom, the grapes, white and red, were dusty and nearly ready. Earlier in the spring they'd expanded the vineyard to include a new stone walkway with benches, and there were several rows of newly planted vines. Also the wall had been replastered. It all had a fresh, neat feel.
I was happy, for the upcoming harvest, for the new work that had been done, and thought of the men who'd done the work. I'd seen them there throughout the summer, bare-chested, hearty fellows, with wheelbarrows and picks and shovels, and as I sat down to write I wished them well. I also thought of Hemingway and Brando, of El Greco, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, of Ondrej and James Faulk. All of them to me are friends, as are anyone who has I feel benefited or shaped me. That's why we do this right? Work, have friends, eat, drink, look at art, make love. Not just because of what may come at the harvest, but because it is we who give the harvest its meaning.
As a post script, that evening at the Žaba, I asked when the burčák would be ready. The barman, Jirka,
shook his head and waved me off.
'You'll be in Istanbul then,' he said.
Oh yeah. Well, considering the past five years, maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.

Posted by James Tressler at 07:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (334)