Questionaire: Or Prayer for a Town and a Friend

by Jiří Gruša

Book Overview

In filling out a standard employment questionnaire, the narrator takes the command "Do Not Cross Out " as an order not to omit anything and embarks on a search for his origins and the origins of his fellow Czech citizens.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1564782271
• ISBN13: 9781564782274
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

definitely worth your while

A very good book. Grusa writes with a very Czech sense of humor and combines it with a Grassian sense of magic. Although I'll try to avoid plot summary, a little is necessary: the protagonist, in his search for a job, is required to fill out a questionnaire with explicit instructions to not leave anything out. With these orders in mind, he then tells the history of his family from the beginning. This is typical of the Czech means of resistance to whatever oppression they face, and you can see it in Hasek's "The Good Soldier Svejk" and Hrabal's "Closely Watched Trains." Overall, it's funny, magical, epic (in its own way) and a lot of fun to read. As I said before, it's definitely worth your while.