Tak samo, tylko lepiej? Jana Křesadly potyczki literackie

Authors:

• Anna Gawarecka

Abstract

The literary works of Jan Křesadlo, which were “discovered” just after 1989, from the very beginning have caused controversy among the reviewers and readers, and the writer himself was treated as a typical outsider who deliberately decided to function on the periphery of the contemporary Czech culture. His answer to this uncomfortable situation included ceaseless polemics and disputes with the other writers. Most often he used the postmodern narrative strategies based on the intertextual and autotelic means of literary representation. In this way, he aimed at the parodistic ridiculing of his adversaries (first and foremost it was Milan Kundera). Extensive fragments of his works can be read as belonging to the category of “novels with a key”. On the other hand, it is difficult to avoid the impression that his intertextual reliance on the esteemed (in common opinion) authors is caused by the “anxiety of influence” (the term of Harold Bloom) and by a need to overcome these “strong” role models.