Sukova „komedie“ z časů normalizace

This review was originally published in English in the German periodical Bohemia, vol. 53 (2013), no. 2, pp. 493-95. (To access it free of charge, go to http://recensio.net/r/4e2937fb30d447aea90d2d5cf58cb326) As the author notes, Suk does not aim to provide a comprehensive biography, but instead concentrates on Havel the dissident, political writer, and co-founder of independent opposition groups and projects. Suk achieves this with an original approach to the primary sources, first and foremost Havel’s voluminous correspondence and the secret-police files kept on him. Suk writes as a member of the generation that grew up in the period of Normalization policy and came of age in 1989. His attitude to Havel is positive, respectful, but not idolizing; he does not shut his eyes to controversial aspects of Havel’s life. The reviewer then comments on Suk’s choice of the term ‘comedy’ (as understood by the literary critic and theorist Northrop Frye) as the genre of his book. This genre, the reviewer argues, would have been better served had Suk brought Gustáv Husák and Alexander Dubček more fully onto the stage as Havel’s adversaries. .