Customer Reviews

Vaclav Havel: Civic Responsibility in the Postmodern Age (20th Century Political Thinkers)

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Ever since Vaclav Havel appeared on the scene I have been intrigued by his persona, especially when it came to his popularity with the West compared to the relative insignificance of our post-communist leaders (i.e. of Hungary). This book finally provided the answer, although as it turns out it is not an easy one. Havel is as complex as Central-Europe itself or even more so; and his inscrutability or ambiguous character made a definitely Svejkian impression on me. Pontuso makes a very good job to explain the complexities of this Central-European character, including his traits as philosopher, politician and playwright. I particularly enjoyed his crash-course on Martin Heidegger (whose philosophy greatly influenced Havel) whose philosophical views eluded me until now. Pontuso's clear writing on the subject finally clarified for me the major issues that bugged Mr. Heidegger during most his career. Havel's charisma is palpable throughout the book, although I had the impression that Havel had a sheltered upbringing and despite his inprisonment he did not lose his idealism. The latter is not an unequivocal virtue in Central-Europe where we have been subjected to a huge overdose of it already during the last century. All the more significant that Mr. Havel managed to keep both that and his integrity and remained a popular leader during his tenure as president.

I am not sure what Mr. Ball is talking about when he talks about neocons and Pontuso's book: there is not a trace of neoconservatism in this book in my opinion. I hope he didn't mean the mentioning of Plato or Aristotle. It would be a sorry state of affairs in the modern-day US if any reference to ancient philosophers should evoke Strauss, neocons, or the latters' twisted minds.

In any case, this is a very decent and pleasant book (in fact I've read the most of it on one Sunday afternoon) and gave a satisfactory answer to my curiosity about Havel's character. Pontuso is apparently fond of his subject, but then again, so was Einstein of his relativistic theory.

What happens when you strip away all that was counter-cultural and leftish about Vaclav Havel's political and dramatic writings? As this book demonstrates, you get a version of Havel that neo-cons have been peddling since President Bush the 1st and Francis Fukuyama: a Vaclav Havel who appears to be a quirky surrogate for American conservative thought. True, Havel drifted into this mold during his presidency years of the 1990s. But the "dissident" Havel of the 70s and 80s was no Leo Strauss. And the attempt to squeeze him into this framework, as this book does, is pretty unsatisfying. The Anglophone world still needs an introductory book on Havel - such as Pontuso's attempts to be - that strives for real, academic distance on the subject.