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The One Book of Jakub Deml, Bedřich Fučík and Vladimír Binar
Iwashita, Daniela
This contribution reviews, and reflects on, the idea of a single, unified book and other metaphors of holistic work (the work as a tree, the Tasov landscape, the Oslava river) which constantly recur in Deml’s writings: what can they mean for the reader and the editors of his work today? The contributor focuses on a solution worked out and justified by Bedřich Fučík and Vladimír Binar in the samizdat edition of The Work of Jakub Deml (13 volumes, VBF Manuscripts, Prague 1978–1983) and in the accompanying Report on the Compilation of the Work of Jakub Deml (VBF Manuscripts, Prague 1981). The contributor reviews the well-known shortcomings of The Work, especially its reduction of a number of texts, but notes with approval its organizing principles which correspond to Deml’s own approach to writing and publication: such as the pursuit of cyclical chronology; the recognition of the central, recurrent books; the organization of individual volumes along generic lines; the readerly and artistic character of the books. The contribution goes on to identify the editorial measures and procedures established by The Work editors which are equally valid for us today: such as the need for detailed mapping of Deml’s editorial and publishing practices; the need to respect and privilege the author’s will; the need for compilation and publication of all bibliography (including contributions to journals and magazines); the need for the widest possible research into extant manuscripts and correspondence (today this applies above all to the ordering and detailed description of a part of Deml’s writings deposited in the Literary Archive of The Museum of Czech Literature in Prague, which comprises thousands of mixed-up pages from manuscripts of various books, including Forgotten Light); further, the need for mapping Deml’s publishing notices and leaflets; the publication of a detailed schedule of all his writings, and, last but not least, the willingness to accept external review and criticism. In conclusion the contributor proposes a solution for the future: the publication of a hybrid edition which would consist of an electronic critical edition (including an archive of all extant versions together with instruments for their comparison) in parallel with a readerly publication of Deml’s work in book format which would be based on texts in the critical edition and organized roughly in accordance with the principles and overall conception of Fučík’s and Binar’s samizdat Work, even if significantly extended.
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