Customer Reviews

View from Stalin's Head

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In his "Acknowledgments" to this his first collection of short stories, Aaron Hamburger thanks Christopher Isherwood for his inspiration. Just as Isherwood brought to life the Berlin of the 1930's in BERLIN STORIES, so does this writer make Prague in the 1990's a very real place. His characters are Czechs, American tourists and expatriates, Jew and Gentile, gay and straight. They teach English, They take side trips to Israel, they study in a desire to convert to Judaism, they make a living drawing pornographic illustrations. When in Prague, they visit churches and synagogues, concentration camps and sex clubs. These characters have blood flowing in their veins; they possess both breath and body odor. In "This Ground You Are Standing On," a Jewish woman, along with her husband, returning to Prague, the city her parents fled in 1939, rents a room from an elderly blonde woman she initially mistakes as Jewish who may have aided the Nazis but is not altogether unsympathetic, under this author's pen, however.

Mr. Hamburger's language is both precise and poetic. One character's thin wire-framed glasses had narrow lenses, "as if all she needed to see of the world could fit within those two rectangles." American tourists wear warm-up suits. Some of them are obtuse: "Trying to explain the hazards of privatization to bozos like Jake was like trying to drive a car stuck in neutral." A go-go dancer speaks bad English, "which was all right. . . because his body was a poem."

In addition to creating ten fascinating stories where something actually happens, Mr. Hamburger, whether he means to or not, has written a fine travel book. Reading this collection made me want to visit Prague. I also look forward to reading his novel we are told in "About The Author" is now in progress.

Hamburger has created something of beauty here. There are no tricks, just the straightforward (and rarely accomplished) building of characters--distinct, human, often strange, yet always believable, characters. Hamburger has a gentle, Chekhovian approach to storytelling, and his saddest moments are tinged with humor. Reading this collection was a pleasure.

A collection of stories set in post-Communist Prague, I thought I'd love the grittiness that must resonate in Hamburger's text. But I quickly grew tired of his lonely characters, each with their sad obsession with sex. Instead of careful observations on love's role in one's identity, his characters' relationships are lust-centered and stray from any further understanding of their personal development.

Perhaps it was good erotica if I hadn't been so bored. But that statement in and of itself could lead to a typical Hamburger story. Only his takes longer to tell.

The ten stories in Hamburger's lovely debut collection focus primarily on Americans in Prague--a new lost generation on a quest for something they can't quite name in a world that makes even less sense to them than their own. Throughout, Prague is depicted as a city scarred by its recent communist past, as the collection's ominous title suggests. The title story, in fact, is perhaps the most disturbing, in which an elderly victim of the Soviet regime hires a young man to humiliate him in an S/M game that echoes his dangerous past. Elegantly structured and well-written, these are primarily character-driven stories, moving portraits of young people floundering through life. Hamburger effectively captures the uniqueness of each character--from an overweight American girl who imagines love out of desperation to a hardened lesbian who runs an unconventional synagogue--all their dreams and foibles alike resonating with real life. The book's unrelenting darkness gives rise to a question that I, having never been to Prague, can't answer: is there something about Prague itself that makes it a natural backdrop for these sad tales, or is it an unfortunate coincidence, a projection of hopelessness onto a city that has other sides unexplored in this book? I'm cautiously inspired to find out for myself.

Reviewed by Colleen Hollister for Small Spiral Notebook

Mysterious and fascinating, Prague is the kind of place that would echo in the mind of anyone who traveled there, leaving them unable to fully forget. There is so much history, so much richness of culture, and so many different varieties of sadness. It is not surprising, then, that so many of the writers who make Prague their subject tinge their works with despair and darkness; it seems almost natural, tradition. Aaron Hamburger's book of short stories, The View from Stalin's Head, is no exception. Hamburger, however, goes a step further, combining bleakness and shadow with an eye for the unique and absurd, creating what is ultimately a sensitive and funny portrait of the city and its inhabitants.

Clearly drawn to Prague as place and subject, Hamburger infuses his stories with the feel of Prague itself, specifically in the post-Cold War 1990s. His details are finely drawn and evocative: the shades of black, white and concrete; the smell of smoke, beer and frying food; the pollution that is so omnipresent that it affects mood and personality, such as that of the main character in "A Man of the Country." The stories are thus firmly grounded in setting, the city fully captured.

Besides Prague, Hamburger's subjects are clear: the outsider, the foreigner, the alienated and lonely. His characters are tourists, expatriate teachers, a theology student throwing all his heart into his conversion to Judaism, and one teenage boy whose mother dresses him in frilly clothes. This is one flaw that makes the book verge on repetitive: many of his characters fit neatly under the heading of sexually confused Jewish expatriate, variations on a single type. If Hamburger were truly trying to capture the full essence of a city from all corners of life, there are many missing elements. The reader may come away wondering if that is all there is. Having chosen such a theme, however, Hamburger does it well, exploring the situations and emotions involved with a sensitivity that never becomes saccharine or morose. His characters speak honestly, like "A Man of the Country"'s young teacher, who is "horribly lonely now, not just for love, but for people to tell everything that's bubbling inside me in full-blown, gorgeously complicated language, with the generosity of a big portion." This man's deep loneliness is offset by his ridiculous, but poignant, relationship with a young Czech "giant" who loves the color yellow and wishes to take a picture of the other man's nose.

Hamburger is true to the complexity of his characters' lives and emotions, capturing them fully and deeply, without forcing them to wallow in despair. His appreciation for the strange and comical is what shines through. The description of romance in "Jerusalem," is funny, stuttering and complicated, as it would truly be, not perfect and shining; the descriptions of Stalin's head and its new residence at the bottom of the river, in the title story, are absurd and clever, the mark of a good storyteller.

In reading these stories, Hamburger's talent for both writing and observation is obvious. He sees detail, character, emotion, and captures them well. The reader wishes, however, that he would take this talent further. He could do more, write a greater range of characters, veer a bit more from the stodgy smoke-filled darkness, expand on the small bits of absurdity he does include. He is, though, remarkably successful with what he has done, with the portrait of Prague he has lovingly and believably created, and with this debut collection promises a strong career ahead.

These ten stories, about the lives that intersect in booming '90s Prague, are smart, poignant, and deliciously funny. Aaron Hamburger introduces us to a variety of characters - hopeful Rachel, lonely Donald, understanding Jirka -who are straight and gay, European and American, Jewish and Jew-curious. Each one is indelible. This collection is such a delight, and I find myself rereading the stories and always finding something new in them. I hugely recommend this book.

It pays to read other writer's stuff.

Hallelujah it does.

Case in point...when you're done reading this review, have a look at another work entitled "TRAVELERS' TALES PRAGUE," by David Farley (and co.) which features inside its pages yet another one of Aaron Hamburger's stories. Truth be told, and puffery aside, that's how I found about Aaron Hamburger in the first instance, and I'm so glad I did.

Without deliving too deeply into the various characterizations and plots of STALIN here, let me just say that each and every one of these delectable tales makes you sit back (or lie back and crouch back) and think about their endings. Were I to plot these stories on a graph, Hamburger pulls a deft job of terminating his storylines on a handful of subtly broken lines. YOU to decide how they end, he entreats. It's up to you to project into the future, to assemble my pieces in your mind. Roar!

Like I'd recently heard Jim Jarmusch say on a DVD commentary...considering the amount of clutter we all have to face as part of our day to day in this way-too-serious and modern age, it's a downright significant accomplishment if you can produce a piece of art that actually has the kind of staying power that irks you long after the curtains have descended. Hamburger's stories are exactly like that, folks. I tell you this on my Czech patriot's word.

Perhaps I'm a little biased, m'kay? I live here in Prague, and I know precisely what he's pointing to. However, novelty still abounds within STALIN's pages for fellow Prague expats.

How?

Well, for one, each expatriate experience is different. Depending on when an expat arrives in this amazing city of constant flux, is what will directly determine the things they experience. The second bit that endeared me to this skillful anthology was the wry, and gay (double-entendre), humour engendered in its pages. I remember reaching Shireen's punchy reply to Simon in the bedroom with a quip about "Nice tits!" and I couldn't stop rolling on the floor in stitches. I think I woke up my dour neighbours. That's what I call quality writing, folks. Impactful until the drunken British Island Monkeys come home...

Story collections have this mystifying baggage in the marketplace. Buyers are quickly fatigued, or so the line says, by their constant change in situations and characters. Invariably, the business issues are such that such collections are first to head for the bargain bin(s) during rush times, like around now.

Me? I think the whole thing's a load of hogwash.

Take every collection on its own merits. Take every story for its own message. Hamburger doesn't waste a single word here. He means every solitary thing he says, and you can see it all for yourself, in grey and creme. His stories are like an Aaron Copeland musical rendition of WEST SIDE STORY, and these kiddos play for keeps, no doubt. Not only is that value, but v-a-l-u-a-b-l-e.

One often reads book upon book and then suddenly realizes at some stage in the game that if you didn't pick up another one for a long while, that'd be just fine. If, after reading THE VIEW FROM STALIN'S HEAD, you didn't glance at yet another piece of half-baked prose, smile at another catchy turn of phrase--alone in a literary swamp of putrefying pulpy horse puckey--you'd be a mighty happy individual. In many ways, this is how I'd felt once I'd turned the book's final recycled consumer-fibre page.

Hamburger's writing hits you somewhere, booyakah! The late Jackie Gleason would have said "...right in the kisser," but I reckon for me it was somewhere else, much more profound, much more, er, well you know...

You're witnessing a massive career in the making, folks.

Start early.

Start now.

Hand on the heart,
ADM from Prague

This collection of stories caught me by surprise. I loved
the rich characters, and the complexity of the themes. And the
people stuck in my head long after reading it. Also I laughed
out loud several times. Even though I'm not familiar at all
with Prague, the book spoke to me on many different levels.
A definite recommend.

The characters lack depth. Should have had less stories and focused on developing characters more (like Berlin Stories).