Postmodernism and Quasipostmodernism(Michal Viewegh)

Abstract

The present study deals with postmodernism and quasipostmodernism on the material of the works of the contemporary Czech prose writer Michal Viewegh, especially his pseudodetective novellas The Case of the Unfaithful Klara and The Pig-in-the-Middle (which is not the exact translation of the original Czech title Vybijena) - both published in two years's time (2003-2004) taking into account some of Viewegh's political essays and as well as a wider literary background linked with Czech traditionalists. The period of transformation in Viewegh's prose works is considered a manifestation of radicalism, of the breach of mass literature and of the permanent impact of dilettantism and imitation. The demonic character of his vision of the world means in this case the conception of the artifact as playing with man's deeds and fates which might remind us of the similar works of Milan Kundera and Pavel Kohout. This fact, of course, is closely connected with certain political circumstances; Viewegh intentionally imitates postmodernist poetics forming a specific kind of quasipostmodernism with the central subject of man's transformation. Viewegh's “new men” use the language of mass media, advertising, apply various topical hints, their greatest value is not yesterday or tomorrow, but today. Perhaps it is again the Central European environment that produced the signals of both threat and hope just before a new fatal big bang.