Durych's novel “The God's Rainbow” in its film treatment Cover Image

Durychova novela „Boží duha“ vo filmovom spracovaní
Durych's novel “The God's Rainbow” in its film treatment

Author(s): Ján Gallik, Zuzana Vargová
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Cultural history, Studies of Literature, Comparative Study of Literature, Czech Literature, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
Published by: Ústav svetovej literatúry, Slovenská akadémia vied
Keywords: "Adaptation"; "Czech-German border"; "Baroque phenomenon"; "Christian existentialism"; "Jaroslav Durych";

Summary/Abstract: The displacement of Germans from Czechoslovakia after the end of World War II is a tragicevent that greatly affected many people’ s lives. The treatment of this subject in Czech literaturetook various forms, ranging from the schematically modelled literature of socialist realism,which mainly perceived the displacement of Germans as an act of righteous retaliationfor the horrors of war caused by German fascists, to existentially tuned works that perceivedthis event on the basis of the deeper causes of misunderstanding and hostility of both nations.As the philosopher Jan Patočka states in the epilogue (1991) to Jaroslav Durych’ s novel God’ sRainbow, the author who created a great song of regret which conditioned and prepared hopefor the spiritual reconciliation of the Czech and German nation was finally found. The meritof the comparison of Durych’ s novel and its television adaptation from 2007 (by director andscreenwriter Jiří Svoboda) is mainly the question whether the adaptation puts only the tragicnature of the theme of the displacement of Germans from the Czech border at the forefront orif it tries to display also the difficult platform of the Baroque phenomenon (e. g. focusing onspace or characters). In Durych’ s work, including God’ s Rainbow, specifically in the language,composition, stylistic construction, motifs, symbols or function of detail, there is an evidenceof enhancing the Baroque perception of reality.

  • Issue Year: 11/2019
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 28-41
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Slovak