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Vitezslav Nezval

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Valerie and Her Week of Wonders Kindle Edition

by Vitezslav Nezval (Author), Kamil Lhotak (Illustrator), David Short (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 115 ratings

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Written in 1935 at the height of Czech Surrealism but not published until 1945, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a bizarre erotic fantasy of a young girl's maturation into womanhood on the night of her first menstruation. Referencing Matthew Lewis's The Monk, Marquis de Sade's Justine, K. H. Macha's May, F. W. Murnau's film Nosferatu, Nezval employs the language of the pulp serial novel to construct a lyrical, menacing dream of sexual awakening involving a vampire with an insatiable appetite for chicken blood, changelings, lecherous priests, a malicious grandmother, and an androgynous merging of brother with sister.

In his Foreword Nezval states: "I wrote this novel out of a love of the mystique in those ancient tales, superstitions and romances, printed in Gothic script, which used to flit before my eyes and declined to convey to me their content." Part fairy tale, part Gothic horror, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a meditation on youth and age, sexuality and death — an exploration of the grotesque that juxtaposes high and low genres, with shifting registers of language and moods that was a trademark of the Czech avant-garde. The 1970 film version is considered one of the outstanding achievements of Czech new-wave cinema.

This Kindle edition includes a single illustration from the first edition's original six..

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Gothic sleazefest, menstrual fantasy, dime-store pulp fiction–Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a collage of a collage of a collage, a dream of a dream, an important early-century surrealist novel only now translated from its native Czech into English by the able David Short." -- New York Press

"Somewhere between the existential fables of Franz Kafka and the macabre animations of Jan Svankmajer lies VatÄ›zslav Nezval. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders reminded me of a hyperactive Hammer Horror film as directed by Luis Buñuel." -- The Absinthe Literary Review

"The book is a tour de force in that Nezval adopts the genre of the pulp novel for his own arch purposes. Have literary historians noticed that it is a precursor of some of our own aesthetic concerns, in other words a sort of pre-postmodern fantasy?" -- John Taylor, The Antioch Review

About the Author

Vitezslav Nezval (1900-1958) was perhaps the most prolific writer in Prague during the 1920s and 30s. An original member of the avant-garde group of artists Devetsil (Nine Forces), he was a founding figure of the Poetist movement. His output consists of a number of poetry collections, experimental plays and novels, memoirs, essays, and translations. His best work is from the interwar period. Along with Karel Teige, Jindrich Styrsky, and Toyen, Nezval frequently traveled to Paris, engaging with the French surrealists. Forging a friendship with Andre Breton and Paul Eluard, he was instrumental in founding The Surrealist Group of Czechoslovakia in 1934 (the first such group outside of France), serving as editor of the group's journal Surrealismus.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00585CB3Q
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Twisted Spoon Press (June 24, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 24, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2465 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 189 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #691,503 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #14,472 in Horror (Kindle Store)
- #29,498 in Horror Literature & Fiction

Customer Reviews:
4.6 115 ratings

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4.6 out of 5

115 global ratings

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Wise Mystical Tree

Can’t wait to read!

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2024

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2020

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I found this book after seeing a YouTube music video of the movie. It was an interesting read and I really enjoyed it. One of the most original pieces I have ever read.

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Amazon Customer

I absolutely love this story

Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2018

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I absolutely love this story. I have described it as Alice in Wonderland for a mature audience with some ...romance? and vampire-like characters thrown in. Just finished it and I think I'm going to read it again. It is an excellent bedtime read.

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2006

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Vitezslav Nezval was a leading surrealist writer in a time and place not hospitable to imagination. Faced with an increasingly hostile situation, he chose cooperation over martyrdom and turned his attention to more realistic subject matter. In recent years the Czechs have been re-exploring their literary past and freed from the burden of state-imposed social realism, they have rediscovered their surrealist past. This is at least the third translation of Nezval's works to appear in English, and it may be the most familiar to fans of fantasy since it provided the basis for a well-regarded film of the same name.

The novel itself is a fusion of surrealist dreamtime with the conventions of gothic fiction. Thus Valerie finds herself surrounded by evil relatives, handsome young fellows in distress and a master-criminal/vampire who lives off the blood of chickens--and may be Valerie's father.

"Valerie and Her Week of Wonders" is a good introduction to surrealist fiction, not as demanding as the works produced by Breton, Crevel and other more hardcore members of the movement.

13 people found this helpful

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chiyo nukaga

A must see

Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2019

Best movie ever

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2014

So good

Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2005

Vitezslav Nezval (1900-1958) is acclaimed in his native land as one of the greatest Czech poets. He is a vastly important figure in 20th Century Czech culture given his role in founding the Czech Surrealist Group, which continues to this day. Nezval's literary abilities, evident throughout his voluminous output of the '20s and '30s, are even sufficient for Czechs to forgive him his services to the Czechoslovak Communist regime in the '50s. Unfortunately, much of Nezval's poetry, because of its punning and playful use of Czech, is very difficult to translate, especially into English, and thus his work is almost completely unknown in the English-speaking world.

However, 'Valerie and Her Week of Wonders', a novel Nezval wrote in 1935, is not so impervious to the efforts of translators, and I am very grateful to the indispensable Prague-based English-language publisher Twisted Spoon Press for issuing a first, long overdue English translation of this extraordinary novel. I first read this novel in Czech a couple of years ago, and while I can't pretend that nothing has been lost of the lyrical qualities of Nezval's writing, 'Valerie' is more concerned with narrative than with the poetic possibilities of language, so the essence of the novel has been preserved in translation.

I'm delighted that it's been translated because it makes a great introduction not only to Nezval's work, but also to the Surrealist novel, of which it is an uncommonly accessible example. The protagonist of the story is a girl on the threshold of puberty, and the plot concerns her often frightening adventures at the hands of a treacherous grandmother, a lecherous priest and an aged vampire who may be Valerie's father. Whether or not the outrageous, convoluted plot is taken seriously, whether these events are seen as 'real' or as an expression of Valerie's burgeoning sexuality, depends on the reader's personal interpretation. Nezval concocted the story from elements of the Gothic novel (especially Lewis' 'The Monk'), de Sade, Murnau's 'Nosferatu' and 'Alice in Wonderland', but its sexual preoccupations and oneiric ambience make its author's Surrealist leanings fairly explicit. If the book seems somewhat novelettish or even 'trashy' in its implausibilities and lurid details, then this is intentional, as Surrealism was deeply preoccupied by popular, unrespectable literary genres for their ability to evoke the form and content of dreams. And if you have read and enjoyed this book, check out also Jaromil Jires' equally compelling, better-known film version from 1970 - though buy the UK Redemption version rather than the US Facets one.

18 people found this helpful

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wiredweird

Whirling images

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2008

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This surrealist story brings Dalí's paintings to mind: absurd and impossible, but so precisely drawn that it captivates the viewer. Instead of linear storytelling with clear premises and resolution, this seems to approach its major characters repeatedly, from different angles, as if trying to find some point of view that Valerie can understand. Instead, the hallucinatory visions circle around the central characters until they evaporate, in the end, like morning fog.

Reading this book might be easiest if you have strong visual imagination. Imagery includes bizarre revival tent exhortations, supernatural transformations, dank crypts, and more. Somehow, these scenes beg to be brought to life.

This isn't for everyone. It leads the reader through a very personal vision, populated by mythic beings of uncertain meaning. If that, plus a vivid pictorial sense can pull you in, then you'll find a remarkable experience between these covers.

-- wiredweird

7 people found this helpful

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Gabriel Martineau

Excelente

Reviewed in Brazil on January 25, 2024

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Acabamento muito bom, apenas mudaria as folhas brancas por folhas amarelas e a colagem das folhas por costura, fora isso é um livro aparentemente resistente e bem sólido,

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Kindle Customer

Curiouser and curiouser

Reviewed in Canada on February 13, 2021

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Love, love, love this story. I fell in love with the movie years ago, and I almost can't believe I love the book even more. Alice in Wonderland through the lens of puberty and coming of age.