Jan Neruda - Prague Tales

As an Indian and a connoisseur of small town tales I have loved and continue to be in love with R K Narayan and Ruskin Bond stories. They both have been influential in pulling me in a the cozy resting chair of semi urban living and slice of life stories. As I grew older and shuttled between two countries and their culture - Qatar and India and with access to so many books, documents, online reading of both the cultures, I continue to explore more on world culture.

So when I spotted this unknown(to me) book with a sweet little picture on the cover, I knew it would turn out to be a quaint one. I am a certified sucker for illustrated and painted covers of books and this one had me floored. Anyone else think that a great design for a cover is an indication that the book will be amazing?




Prague Tales by Jan Neruda is a collection of Jan Neruda's quirky, wry, daily life stories of a small population of Mala Strana, the Little Quarter of nineteenth century Prague. That is where Neruda spent his life, and one of the main streets is named after him.

Neruda was born in 1834 Prague (when it was a part of Bohemia) and was a Czech journalist, writer, poet, and art critic. His travel and poetry and philosophy backgrounds contributed to creating a great vision of his writings.
Neruda’s portrait is on a commemorative plaque on the wall of one of the narrow streets. So famous was he and the popularity he enjoyed in Prague that there is also his grave in the cemetery at Vyshera, making the town his own for eternity.


            


The plot is simple - daily life. But to enrich your reading experience, there are a host of lovely characters. Neruda portrays the lives of the young and the old, the rich and the miserly, the jolly and the moody, the quiet aloof shopkeepers and the chatterbox ladies. Most of the stories either start or end with a view from a window or a sun setting over the distant hills while a girl walks across the street to the tailor - ‘ painting a rich canvas of life in Prague as it were in the latter half of the 19th century.’

The first story - A Week in a Quiet House, starts with the description of a clock in a darkened room. As I said before, every story starts with an image which brings you instantly to the bits of the place.

The story of Mr Ryšánek and Mr Schlegel is more on the relationship between these two characters ,which on a larger scale shows friendships universally.

Ordinary people with ordinary cares: Mrs. Lakmus who is ever the fretful, murmuring mother, worried about the future of her daughter, ready to get her married to the first eligible (or not)man. An aging bachelor Doctor Loukota with a story of his own. The ever hopeful poet Bavor, the young ladies Matylda and Klára, and many more.





‘ Those images of young and old people inhabiting mid-19th-century Prague and their struggles around the great topics of life - love and death - is wonderful in its very own way of a bleak tragicomedy.’