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Rating:
THE REVIEW
The detachment of someone who knows human beings and reports objective reality with a fierce impersonal compassion, a detachment that determines the meeting point of the lies we tell ourselves: "And in the cities, courses were organized for women on the cremation of corpses... and the ashes of the corpses could be used as fertilizer in orchards and gardens... And a woman refused to saw the corpses, and the leader of the cleanup crew wanted to have her shot for sabotage, but in the meantime, the soldiers of the execution squad had deserted."
Absurd delirium, madness, shipwreck, nonsense, hole, ideology, alignment, degeneration, disbelief, mockery, lobotomization, hysteria, psychopathy, deception, ridicule, raspberry... Ladies and gentlemen, the 20th century! Emancipation from commas, after the emancipation from the body and its desires...
Patrick's caustic third eye is open and lays bare and makes tangible the absurdity of life when it escapes the control of the soul: "And most people in Europe... thought it was a necessary and just war that would bring peace to the world... And everyone thought they would be back for the harvest or at least for Christmas."
The honesty of the probe of the past century changes wonder into monstrosity, for better or worse, so as to find an aseptic placement that allows us to merrily enjoy the circus of the 20th century with all its side-show phenomena: "The great disappointment of the 20th century is that progress had not made man better... and that many murderers and torturers and war criminals were art lovers, connoisseurs of opera and poetry, etc., and had studied the humanities and medicine."
Historical revisionism stemming from the unpredictability of the absurd raised to the umpteenth power: History is "stubborn" and reiterates the right not to learn from experiences. However, we are History...
God wants it, the reverse swastika wants it, Dux wants it, Marx and Lenin want it, Zyklon B wants it, the "bomb" wants it. Wall Street wants it. Plastic wants it. Cancer wants it. But who is this "wants it"? More than wanting something, what do we really need?
"But many did not know this theory and continued to make history as if nothing happened."
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Summary by Bot
Patrik Ouředník’s Europeana is a sharply detached, candid exploration of the 20th century's absurdities and dark realities. Through brutal honesty and irony, the book exposes the chaos, violence, and contradictions of a century marked by ideology and human failings. The review highlights the author's ability to reveal uncomfortable truths while maintaining a critical, almost clinical detachment. It celebrates the book’s depth in portraying historical events and human nature with brutal clarity.
Patrik Ouředník
Czech author best known for Europeana, a satirical condensed history of the twentieth century.01 Reviews
