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277 pages, Hardcover
First published March 7, 2017
Existence runs on energy, a fluid movement forward, yet we never stop seeking the point of origin, the Big Bang that set us upon our inevitable course.
Wasn’t all life a form of phantom being, given its involuntary origin in the womb? No one could guarantee a happy life, a safe life, a life free of violations, external or eternal. Yet we exited birth canals at unsustainable speeds, eager to live, floating away to Mars at the mercy of Spartan technology or living simpler lives on Earth at the mercy of chance. We lived regardless of who observed us, who recorded us, who cared where we went.
“You know that the world is always trying to take us. This country, that country. We can’t fight the whole world, the ten million of us, so we pick the people we think should be punished, and we make them suffer the best we can. In one book, your father is a hero. In another book, he is a monster. The men who don’t have books written about them have it easier.”
"Love could turn us all into war criminals."
It was exhilarating, all of it—was existence alone not revolution? Our efforts to establish routines in the nature that forbade them, to understand depths we could never reach, to declare truths even as we collectively snicker at the word’s virginal piousness. What a mess of contradictions the gods created when they graced us with self-awareness.
How unlikely. Yet here we are.
The greatness of a nation is in its symbols, its gestures, in doing things that are unprecedented. It’s why the Americans are falling behind—they built a nation on the idea of doing new things, and now they’d rather sit and pray that the world won’t make them adapt too much.
With JanHus1 lie our hopes of new sovereignty and prosperity, for we are now among the explorers of the universe. We look away from our past, in which we were claimed by others, in which our language was nearly eradicated, in which Europe covered its eyes and ears as its very heart was stolen and brutalized. It is not only our science and technology traveling through this vacuum; it is our humanity, in the form of Jakub Procházka, the first spaceman of Bohemia, who will carry the soul of the republic to the stars. Today, we finally and absolutely claim ourselves for our own.
Wasn’t all life a form of phantom being, given its involuntary origin in the womb? No one could guarantee a happy life, a safe life, a life free of violations, external or eternal. Yet we exited birth canals at unsustainable speeds, eager to live, floating away to Mars at the mercy of Spartan technology or living simpler lives on Earth at the mercy of chance. We lived regardless of who observed us, who recorded us, who cared where we went.
With JanHus1 lie our hopes of new sovereignty and prosperity, for we are now among the explorers of the universe. We look away from our past, in which we were claimed by others, in which our languages was nearly eradicated, in which Europe covered its eyes and ears as its very heart was stolen and brutalized. It is not only our science and technology travelling through this vacuum; it is humanity in the form of Jakub Prochazka, the first spaceman of Bohemia, who will carry the soul of the republic to the stars. Today, we finally and absolutely claim ourselves as our own
We pushed against the Austro-Hungarians when they tried to burn our books and ban our language. We were an industrial superpower before Hitler took us for serfs. We survived Hitler only to welcome the economic and intellectual devastation by the Soviets. And here we are, breathing, sovereign, rich. What next, Jakub? What is the vision for us, what will define us in the future
His death, whether it was his or someone else’s, had unleashed the revolution Bohemia needed to free itself. No amount of fighting he could have done as a living man would have achieved the impact of his own death at the stake. He had served his part in history. Now, Hus could truly live
You made me think I was a curse .. Like my whole existence was some kind of spiritual stain. The last remnant of Cain’s sperm … I’ve wished you dead ……. When I couldn't bring myself to speak to Lenka, I thought that finding you would be another mission, the last possible way of living. But I look at you and know that retribution is not life
I’ve built a life around a couple of hours in a room with an unkind stranger … it took me to long to realise it. Your father did what he did to me, but the decision to live as I have – it was still mine. For me the catalyst was this room. For your father, the catalyst was the day he decided the world was full of his enemies. For you, the catalyst doesn’t need to be anger or fear or some feeling of loss. The significance of your life doesn’t rest with Lenka, or your father, or me …. You’re so much better than [us] … You won’t let this cripple you. It doesn’t have to end for you like it ended for us.