Most students on the Anglophone
Studies course know him solely as the deep-voiced erudite lecturer of Introduction
to Literary Studies. For that reason, the following interview was carried out
in order to reveal the character and views on (not only Irish) literature and
much more of Professor Ondřej Pilný.
What is your favorite word?
“Průšmatný”, at the moment. Some all-time
favourites can be found in the Czech translation of Raymond Queneau’s Zazi in the Metro.
What is your least favorite
word?
“Plédovat”. Closely
followed by “hedka” and “kilnout”.
What turns you on creatively, spiritually
or emotionally?
Sleep.
What turns you off?
Emm, sleep?
What is your favorite curse
word?
Jesetere! (As in: “Řekl
jste ‘jesetere’?” “Ano. Jesetere, jesetere, jesetere!”)
What sound or noise do you
love?
Any emitted by my
stereo.
What sound or noise do you
hate?
The sound of a
circular saw any time before 10 AM.
What profession other than
your own would you like to attempt?
A musician (the
audience would last 30 seconds), a carpenter, a publican.
What profession would you not
like to do?
A clerk of any kind.
If God exists, what would you
like to hear him say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
“Sedum kulí jako v Sarajevu.”
ON A MORE PERSONAL LEVEL:
What is it about Irish culture that appeals to
you so much?
The exceptional number of authors whose work
makes me want to read them again and again.
When did you have your ear pierced and what look
were you aiming for?
Now THAT is a long story. By way of a summary, I
refer the gentle reader to the anecdote of the snake-skin jacket in David
Lynch’s Wild at Heart.
Do you ever get agitated?
Isn’t ten times a day enough?
What is your alcoholic beverage of choice?
Gabriel beer.
Considering your tape recorder collection and
most probably a book collection as well, do you identify yourself with Walter
Benjamin’s conclusion of his famous essay about a true book collector that it
is not the objects that come alive in him but “it is he who lives in them”?
I’m not sure if this is what Benjamin meant but
given the size of our flat, we do live in books alright – they are everywhere.
And the music is beginning to spill over as well. My grandma knew what she was
talking about when she said that we needed a collapsible floor.
ON LITERATURE:
How do you imagine a
prototypical Irishman according to Joyce and according to O’Brian?
Well, it’s a bit like speculating whether Hašek
intended Švejk to be representative of the Czech nation. But I suppose that the
merged character of Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and Molly Bloom could stand
for Joyce’s ideal picture of an Irish person. As for Flann O’Brien, you can
take your pick between a bewigged Myles na gCopaleen dancing a jig in front of
an audience, and the one-legged cyclist of The
Third Policeman, but then the latter is more likely an image of humanity in
general, rather than of the Irish specifically.
What significance would you assign to recently deceased
Seamus Heaney, now and historically?
Seamus Heaney was truly one of the greatest
contemporary poets in the world. He was also a uniquely generous man,
warm-hearted and unassuming, regardless of his fame. When he visited our
department in 2002, he gave a fantastic seminar to our students, on top of a
large public reading, and gave a lot of his time to anyone who approached him.
His death came as a great shock to me; we have lost a wonderful human being.
Who is the overlooked genius of today, worldwide,
in poetry, fiction and drama?
I wish I knew. As I said, I have a lot of time
for Queneau, and for Flann O’Brien, but not only are they not exactly
overlooked, but they are also dead. As for playwrights, Enda Walsh or Tim
Crouch, who are both quite established now. The same goes for the poet Sinéad
Morrissey, whose latest collection, Parallax,
is amazing. I haven’t related to a new book of poetry so instinctively and
immediately in years. I clearly need more time to read, so that I could give
you a better answer…
If you were to attempt the impossible and
summarise Ulysses in one sentence.
What would it be?
Fun.
What is the book you’d like to open right now?
Anything by Fred Vargas with Jean-Baptiste
Adamsberg in it. Radvan Markus’s translation of Pádraic Ó Conaire’s stories.
Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero. Words Alone by Roy Foster. The collected
plays of Tom Stoppard (and choose one to translate right away). I could go on
forever.
If you were to recommend an Irish play to
anyone, which one would it be?
Thompson in Tir-na-nOg by Gerald MacNamara. The Old Lady
Says “No!” by Denis Johnston. Improbable
Frequency by Arthur Riordan and Bell Helicopter.
Are you planning on learning Gaelic? If for a
moment you had a native-speaker’s knowledge of the language, what literary
piece would you read?
I have been planning to do that for an
embarrassing twenty years now. And I did start, twice. The current situation is
that I still can’t decide whether to learn Irish or French first. Watch this
space, as they say, but realistically speaking, you may be watching it for a
long time, which is sad. As for what I’d like to read the most in Irish,
Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s novel Cré na Cille,
and then the entire corpus of the Old Irish “sagas” and the voyage tales. For
which you almost need to start learning the language again from scratch of
course.
ON UNIVERSITY AND FUTURE PLANS:
What are your current writing projects?
I am struggling to write a book on the grotesque
in contemporary drama. I had an incredible month as a research fellow in Galway
last year, where I began, but now it has become fairly clear that unless I
manage to have myself parachuted somewhere on the British Isles for a few weeks
again, I’ll never get it done – the way most of us in humanities in the Czech
Republic have to have several jobs in order to pay the bills is not exactly
conducive to extensive writing.
Do you consider the gradual disappearance of the
book format a tragedy?
Printed paper is only a medium, so the fact that
many people read e-books these days makes no difference. What I would consider
a tragedy is if people stopped reading altogether, and they do read less than
twenty years ago; having said that, people are surely entitled to do absolutely
what they like and fair play to them. It’s only that I believe that a
sufficient reading experience with literature makes one less susceptible to
manipulation by politicians, “experts”, and generally the so-called decision-makers
who are trying to run our lives. As for the book as an object, I reckon that
there are still enough of us who prefer the smell of a book to that of a
battery-operated gadget; I guess the printers are safe.
How do you see Literature courses in 20 years?
It will be quite exciting to wait and see, don’t
you think? “Come for me on Monday, if I am still alive”, to quote Mr Rooney.
Is the Centre for Irish Studies organizing some
events anytime soon?
After the September international graduate
students’ conference, we will still have two guest lecturers this year; one by
Professor Matthew Campbell of the University of York, who is one of the
subtlest critics writing on Irish poetry these days (already happened, ed. note), and one by Dr Méabh Ní Fhuartháin of
National University of Ireland, Galway, whose background is in performance
studies and Irish dancing. There may be a book launch or two, one involving
people and bicycles, but the details of those are still to be specified, as
they say. In 2014, we are planning to hold a memorial event for Seamus Heaney,
and in September, we are going to be hosting the Irish Theatrical Diaspora
conference, which will be focused on Irish drama and a very broadly defined
Central Europe. We are pleased to invite the readers of your magazine to all of
these!
- - Prepared by Jaromír Lelek and Anna Hupcejová
