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hill_'s review
4.0
I thought her characterization of American cops was absurd and misguided. Aside from that (and that's not what the book's about anyway) totally beautiful.
crystal_reading's review
This book was not helpful in keeping me awake on a long drive. I found it hard to focus. It wasn't terribly interesting and I am not sure how informative it actually was. Also, she didn't seem to have a very high opinion of the Czech people.
cheryl6of8's review
4.0
Prague is on my list of places to go. More than one of my acquaintances has said " either Prague or Budapest" and most have distinct preferences between the two. I have been to Budapest and I fell in love, which made me wonder if I would find Prague less interesting. Based on this bool, I would say that I would like the city very much and would find echoes of Budapest there. The nooks and crannies of the city covered in this book sound appealing and I hope to have a chance to explore them someday.
left_coast_justin's review
3.0
Magpies are apparently known for collecting bright, shiny tidbits and lining their nests with them. This book is about some of the bright, shiny tidbits of history that one might encounter while walking around in Prague. What this book does not do is really address the state of Prague and its citizens in the present day, an omission that seems to really irritate some reviewers here. Her most extended interaction with a living, breathing Praguer* was a corrupt cop hitting her up for a "fine".
I approve of her writing style, which is sly and assumes a degree of worldliness in the reader:
Here's another example:
The author skates along the surface of the city, describing parks, museums and dwellings. We visit an anti-war protest and ride late-night trams with drunks heading home, but even these are treated as anthropology rather than interviews.
At several points in the book, I was reminded of something I'm generally deprived of here in California, which is the (for me) exciting but lonely feeling of walking in snappishly cool weather, summer is over and fine needles of rain are lancing into your face, and in all likelihood you're walking alone because sensible people know enough to stay indoors. I suspect that Goldberg, like me, enjoys afternoons spent this way because she, like me, enjoys being alongside people without actually being among them. When I closed this book at the end, I felt a deep sense of the sort of happy loneliness that walking in foreign cities produces in me.
*An actual word. I had to look it up.
I approve of her writing style, which is sly and assumes a degree of worldliness in the reader:
Considering Prague's nascent penchant for tourist traps--in recent years the city has inaugurated a Wax Museum, a Sex Machine Museum, and a Museum of Torture Instruments--the Museum of Communism is surprisingly restrained...Though whiffs of Western bias are detected in the museum's starry-eyed assertion that Radio Free Europe--and not, say, economic collapse--was a leading cause of the dissolution of the Communist regime, the exhibits strive toward cultivating an air of scholarship rather than polemic...What the museum neglects to mention, however, is that it actually serves as an antechamber to the real Museum of Communism, which is the city of Prague itself.
Here's another example:
The Communist philosophy of architecture viewed building ornament as an opportunity for oversized agitprop; and so the exteriors of Prague's Communist-era constructions are host to kerchiefed peasant women displaying leviathan feet too mighty for shoes and wrench-wielding mechanics caught mid-pull in heroic battles with hex nuts bigger than human heads. Divorced from propaganda and regime there is something sweet about a rectangular relief depicting a man inflating a tire, or laying bricks, or cutting stone, or carrying a food-laden tray to a table. These architectural artifacts retain a seed of Communism's idealism, which after all is a philosophy that contains within its ruptured, rotting heart a beautiful if chimerical concept.
The author skates along the surface of the city, describing parks, museums and dwellings. We visit an anti-war protest and ride late-night trams with drunks heading home, but even these are treated as anthropology rather than interviews.
At several points in the book, I was reminded of something I'm generally deprived of here in California, which is the (for me) exciting but lonely feeling of walking in snappishly cool weather, summer is over and fine needles of rain are lancing into your face, and in all likelihood you're walking alone because sensible people know enough to stay indoors. I suspect that Goldberg, like me, enjoys afternoons spent this way because she, like me, enjoys being alongside people without actually being among them. When I closed this book at the end, I felt a deep sense of the sort of happy loneliness that walking in foreign cities produces in me.
*An actual word. I had to look it up.
mistyx7's review
1.0
I mean I guess the premise of the book - an American takes a walk around Prague & describes it - was always going to have /that/ vibe to it, the Western lens, a voyeur who is unable to actually contextualize Czech politics & history. The author lived there, sure, but at the time of writing, that was ten years ago. Although I more or less knew what I was getting into, the blatant anti-communism was very distracting. At one point, the author observes a protest against the Iraq war, but maintains what I suppose is the false neutrality characteristic of liberals. Nevertheless, she can't restrain herself from framing the political agitation of Czech comrades (anarchists & communists alike) as if their efforts were a joke. If you're going to bring up politics, don't be a wimp! Take a stand! Thankfully, the next, wholly unnecessary, chapter was about licking the boot of American police, making the author's politics abundantly clear! To wit:
"A first-time visitor to Prague might be led to assume the city possesses, along with its capitalist shopping and dining options, a Western European police force, but the Westernization of Prague's commercial sector does not extend to its cops. Prague's policemen are poorly paid and poorly trained and the majority are interested in using their position in whatever way they can for personal or material gain. Among Czechs, the police have a reputation for corruption racism, and incompetence..." - oh wow, how UN-American of them /s - "Most Americans, of course, have little reason to suppose the words and deeds of a uniformed police officer might not be based on a solid legal foundation. Coming from a country where corrupt cops are the stuff of national scandal, Americans are a largely trusting and compliant bunch" - well, the author certainly is - "secure in their belief that police are, in aggregate, interested in protecting the citizenry from bad guys and maintaining order. In Prague, one comes to realize that certain basic American premises like accountability are, in fact, luxuries. "
In the summer of 2020, not only has this quote not aged well, but it was, in fact, an entirely disgusting take in 2003 when this was written. I don't know if the editors/publishing house considers things like this a mandatory "let's cover our bases" thing that they make sure to do for every ex-Soviet country or if the author is really just that much of a shill, but, if you're a leftist, give this a miss! Anyway, there were some descriptions of some cool stuff, but then again, I could probably just read some Wikipedia pages & have experienced Czech monuments & architecture without all the capitalist propaganda. Still really wanna go to the Czech Republic though!
"A first-time visitor to Prague might be led to assume the city possesses, along with its capitalist shopping and dining options, a Western European police force, but the Westernization of Prague's commercial sector does not extend to its cops. Prague's policemen are poorly paid and poorly trained and the majority are interested in using their position in whatever way they can for personal or material gain. Among Czechs, the police have a reputation for corruption racism, and incompetence..." - oh wow, how UN-American of them /s - "Most Americans, of course, have little reason to suppose the words and deeds of a uniformed police officer might not be based on a solid legal foundation. Coming from a country where corrupt cops are the stuff of national scandal, Americans are a largely trusting and compliant bunch" - well, the author certainly is - "secure in their belief that police are, in aggregate, interested in protecting the citizenry from bad guys and maintaining order. In Prague, one comes to realize that certain basic American premises like accountability are, in fact, luxuries. "
In the summer of 2020, not only has this quote not aged well, but it was, in fact, an entirely disgusting take in 2003 when this was written. I don't know if the editors/publishing house considers things like this a mandatory "let's cover our bases" thing that they make sure to do for every ex-Soviet country or if the author is really just that much of a shill, but, if you're a leftist, give this a miss! Anyway, there were some descriptions of some cool stuff, but then again, I could probably just read some Wikipedia pages & have experienced Czech monuments & architecture without all the capitalist propaganda. Still really wanna go to the Czech Republic though!
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