Working Knowledge [Paperback]

Petr Kral (Author), Frank Wynne (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1901285731 | ISBN-13: 978-1901285734 | Publication Date: January 1, 2008 | Edition: 1

In this collection, Petr Kràl has the unerring ability to perceive, to catch the commonplace by surprise, and with unsettling clarity see beyond the everyday to the fabric of life beneath. Whether describing twilight, a toothpick, the ritual of shaving, or the act of going upstairs, his gaze is ingenuous, humble, amazed. Mute objects, fleeting gestures, changeless passions—Kràl  forces us to look at them anew. Each limpid, graceful essay is a brief voyage of discovery in which lowly objects and everyday actions, so often unobserved, are transfigured.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This strange and beautiful existential encyclopaedia of the everyday is a lesson in modesty inflicted upon our sense of self" Milan Kundera "An absorbing collection of short prose texts (...) probing the fabulous details of everyday life (...) Kral's succinct texts are persuasive; they haunt the mind, thereafter influencing our perceptions" France Magazine"

About the Author

Petr Kràl is a prolific poet, essayist, and film critic who was a member of the Czech surrealist movement. Milan Kundera is the author of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Ignorance, Immortality, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Frank Wynne is a prize-winning translator and the author of I Was Vermeer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Pushkin Press; 1 edition (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1901285731
• ISBN-13: 978-1901285734
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,908,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A sublime Concerto, December 18, 2009

By 

Luca Graziuso (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Working Knowledge (Paperback)

In Petr Kral's "Working Knowledge" the passions for the ordinary are rendered in a lyrical aura that glows and flows in a mysterious serenity that pervades the most accepted conventional habits of human affairs. The pulse of these prose poems seems to be taken from the sleep of memory when dreams are cradled in a state of trance and advance beyond the sensibilities of the conscious divide that separates the absolute with the mundane. There is much to lament whenever the existential condition is generalized through particular microcosmic epiphanies, but the the orchestral compulsion to glean the ordinary and srain the pathos of being human from such quotidian happenings is a characteristic that makes of every glance, every gaze an ogling into the the mesmerizing champber of solitude from which we seek to embrace and assimilate the strnage ordeal of being alive. There is poetry in every chance encounter and Petr Kral, the Czech surrealist is only guilty of this nomenclature by association with a brand of artistic tendency that finds beauty in the wisdom of displacement. If we think of Andre Breton here we are misguided. rather this is a prose of a magical realism that unlike the Latin Ameirican guise surmises hidden gems in the most muddled situation, and lifts the fog whenever we feel compelled to become accostumed to the normalcy of the now, wherein the sublime is strained within slivers of time that rythmically stupify but when seen through the eyes of Kral becomes congeries of stupendous hypersensitivity. Translated from the French "Notions de Base" by Frank wynne we are introduced to a writer that will intensify your life experiences and excite your desire to stop assuming anything is mean and commonplace.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars forced meaning, July 6, 2009

By 

J. Dixon "cletus" (oz) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Working Knowledge (Paperback)

firstly,i inherently rebel against the false identity of "we"in which this book is written.abstract thought cannot take on objective meaning,even the profoundest truths of psychotherapy are mere models.the individuals experience cannot be reduced to generalities that encompass a certain figure of "we".we can only hope to speak for ourselves and in so doing find correspondance in others.my experience may reflect yours but i stand short of assuming i know you.only a philosopher could make this mistake,even physicists are questioning this arrogance.
secondly he has over analysed and in so doing killed beauty."you pretend to know "said celine to miller"and this what kills the world"he has become a collector of encyclopedic inanity.his truths dont spring spontaneously to mind but are laboured and murdered in their detail.
i expected an opening into an inner life rich beyond mundane place and circumstance,but instead found a litany of forced associations about outward things it wouldnt of hurt us to reamain ignorant of.i believe
meaning should spring incidently as part of legitimate storyline.its just a question of focus.