PRAGUE: The Mystical City

by Joseph Wechsberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 26, 1970

. . . mystical, ""pain-filled and polemical""--which might in a way, also apply to Wechsberg's tribute, more clouded and removed than most of his work, but as always graceful and immaculately styled. Prague is a city with a sinuously winding psyche, and Wechsberg touches upon history, mores, intellectual life and his own memories in that fashion. He studs his monograph with the words of Prague's writers (Werfel, Rilke, Kafka and others); legends of saints and monsters (""Good King"" Wenceslas to Rabbi Loeb's Golem); and the looming portents of ancient buildings and old streets. He touches briefly on the present drear realities of Soviet Prague and the brief spring moment of freedom in 1968. ""Nothing is clear and simple in Prague; everything is enigmatic and complex."" An endemically Wechsbergian respect for the very mystery of complexities recreates a city where, in the words of Kafka's poem, ""People. . . walk across dark bridges/ past saints/ with dim small lights./ Clouds which move across gray skies. . . .

Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION