The Image of the City in the Novels of Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic

Abstract

Fin-de-Siècle Europe appears in the prose of the Czech poet and writer Jiři Karasek from Lvovice (1871–1951) as a mystical space full of nostalgia and claustrophobia, which force the characters to experience the hereditary involvement of history. This is, for example, how the hero of the novel “Gothic Soul” (Czech: Gotická Duše) feels. The novel shows Prague at the turn of the century as a place where the past is more real than the present. The trilogy “Novels of the Three Magicians” (Czech: Romány tří mágů), inspired by the legends about European “sorcerers”, uses Vienna, Venice, and Prague as magic or decadent territories that affect the characters’ behaviour. Karasek creates urban images with decadent aesthetics by applying special features and techniques. Among them we can highlight the night atmosphere, intentional emphasis on the artificiality of the reality, and the description of the scene with the symbols of decline or decay. Such a subjective view from the eyes of a decadent character can open up a city from a unique perspective, making it possible to distinguish previously unseen details. The image of Prague in Karasek’s works is dual and ambivalent. On the one hand, it is an aesthetically artifi cial decadent Prague and on the other, a mystical, magical Prague. Venice by Karasek is also a decadent city where only the past is alive. With help of Karasek’s prose one can obtain the prism of decadent and “gothic” novels — rather rare and original for Czech literature genres. His works also give us the opportunity to experience the lost atmosphere of pre-war Europe.