Ignis fatuus

Reviews

"This haunting horror draws on Šumava paranormal stories and the 1970s totalitarian atmosphere in the border zone. The mystique of the ancient landscape and the oppressive Communist era are combined by the author's rich language into a psychedelic nightmare; what are more frightening, however, are the ghosts in the psyches of the main characters."

Statement by the Magnesia Litera jury

 

"The author vividly builds up the atmosphere, with her knowledge of the local realia, the distinctive local inhabitants and human dispositions in general. Moreover, she manages to create believable characters with whom you can sympathize, along with their fear of the events that are going to disrupt their hitherto strictly precise view of the world. (…)

Klabouchová deftly balances on the brittle borderline between the real and the mysterious. (...)

The novel subliminally tells the story of an ancient landscape destroyed by crude human treatment. (…) Every sin of the past is to be avenged. This motif is shared with the previous book, By the North Wall / U severní zdi. In Ignis Fatuus, the past again increasingly bursts forth into the present, reminding us that our sins will not be forgotten. They’re just going to sleep quietly until someone or something comes along to do the reckoning for us. This is perhaps the strongest message of the book, which elevates this “leisure reading” to much higher realms.

(...) The book is for the most part engrossing and unforgettable."

Irena Hejdová, Deník N

 

"The story, based on local superstitions and interspersed with excerpts from official writings describing specific anomalies and paranormal phenomena, is well constructed, building up and sustaining the tension from beginning to end. (...)

And just when you feel that you are emotionally exhausted and that nothing can surprise you anymore, an unexpected plot twist radically affects your view of the previous pages. The detailed description of the Bohemian Forest landscape, the interconnection of the story and the historical realities of the borderlands and the context of the time – the story takes place under communism – creating a solid basis for a juicy, mysterious text that makes you look over your shoulder when you go for a walk in the forest at twilight. What if you encounter ball lightning, will-o’-the-wisps or some other disembodied beings?"

Minka Dočkalová, Full Moon

 

"Klabouchová bases her story on a welter of historical facts, but at the same time she takes it over and beyond the expected. And when she finally offers an explanation that enables the readers to make sense of this fairy whirl – in which reality dances with the spectral, as  soldiers once did with the corpses at the Chapel of the Holy Cross – she immediately deprives them of that certainty as well. (…)

In itself this book remains a horror story, but if it transcends this genre without actually abandoning it, this is due to its masterly work with language.

Klabouchová is strong in her descriptions of the environment and the inner states of her antiheroes. Adjectives that a more insecure novelist might use as mere background colouring take her at her word and become the primary vehicle of meaning."

Aleš Palán, Aktuálně

 

"Writing good genre literature is no easier than writing the “highbrow” kind. Instead of freewheeling, one has to come to terms with genre conventions and find one’s own way through territory that hundreds of predecessors have traversed. In Ignis fatuus, Petra Klabouchová offers the kind of original Czech literary horror story that we haven’t seen for a long time.

(...) Klabouchová provides an excellent depiction of the distinctive nature of the Bohemian Forest weather and landscape, and she has the ability to create interesting characters. (...)

The horror starts up after just the first fifth of the book when the expedition takes a completely different direction, and the reader hesitates: Is this too soon? This cannot be sustained to the end! But Klabouchová manages to thicken the plot, which may sound like one of the weaker X-Files stories when retold. The genius loci gradually merges with the demons of the family and working relationships that the scientists carry with them in the horror plot. But most importantly, the horrors of the past are not laid to rest here once and for all. They live on or are only now awakening. The rituals of the Celtic druids merge with the murder and violence of the next millennia, and everything escalates with the expulsion of the Germans and the manhunts for those attempting to leave the communist paradise to which the panicky soldiers have been led. A place of memory that is a place of terror comes alive. And with the addition of more and more dimensions, this paranormal space in the Bohemian Forest also becomes a powerful metaphor: a past filled with horrors cannot just be put in a display window.

Klabouchová judiciously inserts local legends into the narrative, which she manages to tie together into a whole that holds together while remaining dense and multi-layered. To this she adds a few unexpected twists. As a result, the horror action keeps up the suspense throughout the remaining two hundred and fifty pages. Moreover, the inventive ending does not suggest that an attempt has been made to just bring the story to an end any old how. Ignis fatuus thus turns into quite a significant part of the Bohemian Forest literary myth; perhaps even more significant than the attempts at novel elaborations of the Bohemian Forest King myth. And it is proof that even horror can be written so sophisticatedly and so well that the reader does not know whether to hurry to the dénouement or savour every page."

Petr A. Bílek, Respekt

 

"Ignis fatuus proves that even Czech horror is worth following.

(…) The novel is at its most compelling and terrifying in the passages that deal with seemingly everyday life in a region where the boundary between the different governmental systems is clearly demarcated by barbed wire, but the one between the world of the living and the dead dissolves into the ever-present mist. In the descriptions of decaying farmhouses and dead orchards, ancient wrongs hover inexorably, and even a banal sensation like the smell of cinnamon and freshly baked strudel has connotations of horror here.

(…) In her purely local horror, Klabouchová works pragmatically with globally comprehensible forms of the genre, but she also manages to benefit from the influences left in the Central European space by writers such as Jozef Karika.

(…) The ability to illuminate the Czech periphery as a place of unease, shifting identities and unprocessed traumas (...) makes Petra Klabouchová a figure that has long been missing from the all-too-fractured tradition of Czech horror."

Jarmila Křenková, Seznam Zprávy

 

"Petra Klabouchová has written an impressive horror story. Not only has she managed to build up a captivating atmosphere, but she has also created a story originally based on “old wives’ tales”, which presents a different face of Šumava to the one most of us know.

(…)

This is a very well thought-out story, which is especially evident in the final pages of the book. In addition to the chapter ’The end...’, there is also ’The beginning...’ and ’The end?’.

Here it turns out that the author’s aim was not only to create a captivating and oppressive atmosphere – which she succeeded in doing more than just very well most of the time – but also to draw attention to the ruthless practices of the previous regime, and above all to show that the Šumava genius loci has another dimension than the one tens of thousands of people make their way there for every year. The region was marked both by post-war population transfers and by the establishment of the Dobrá Voda military training area in 1952, but there are also much older legends associated with it. None of this should be forgotten when walking through the local countryside..."

Daniel Mukner, ČT Art

 

" [The author] lays on the dense atmosphere and breathtaking scenes. She paints before our eyes the most mysterious corners of inscrutable nature, places that should no longer exist at the time of the expedition, omens and murders; her protagonists crawl through blood and despair. Through it all, her story is believable, which is actually the most frightening part of it all.

She is not afraid to let several mysteries do the talking all at once and finds a connection between them that almost gives the landscape around the Křemelná River and Velhartice a will of its own (no wonder Karel Jaromír Erben was inspired by the local graveyard in his ballad The Wedding Shirt).

(…)

Although the author cannot avoid comparisons with the works of Jozef Karika and The Blair Witch Project, I don’t lean in that direction myself. In Ignis fatuus I see much more inspiration from Šumava itself as a beautiful and mysterious landscape and as an accumulator and catalyst of the worst human fates and characters.

Perhaps it is also because of this stifling atmosphere that the book can be read in one go, with the metatexts acting as short breathing spaces. The whole book, including the visuals, has been very successful for Host Publishers, and I am glad we can welcome another fighter for the rights of Czech horror among us."

Kristina, Děti noci

 

"The author Petra Klabouchová has succeeded in creating a masterful mystery thriller, at times even a horror story, which skillfully draws the reader into the plot and never lets go. The writer cleverly plays cat and mouse with the reader, who doesn’t know what’s going on till the last moment, but everything is thought out to the last detail, every idea has its perfectly accomplished dénouement. I was wonderfully scared, genuinely rooting for the chief protagonists, and will have trouble going into the woods at night for a long time...

(…)

There are many supernatural characters here, but the worst hell is ultimately of people’s own making. The reader has to think about the subtle differences between good and evil, human destinies and one’s own mission in life. The distinctions blur between human logic, hearts, consciences and the higher forces of nature. The book is a real blast, it didn’t let me sleep until I’d read it to the end... The author “guided” me, like those proverbial blue lights in the marshes, goading a poor man to his doom. And then who is this Ignis Fatuus, anyway?"

Petr Magnusek, Kultura 21

 

"The main plot of Ignis Fatuus is based on a local legend that says a similar group of experts got lost in the River Křemelná marshes (during the 1970s). The author skilfully combines the local legend with Celtic, Slavic and pagan realities and rituals, which also belong very much to the region.

He completes this horror cocktail with the post-war expulsion of the Germans and the rampage of the Czechoslovak army, which often senselessly razed their homes, churches, shrines and graveyards, thus enabling evil forces to come to the surface...

The narrative will provide readers with a varied mix of perceptions that unfold within the desolate landscape, in the oppressive atmosphere of a timelessness of sorts. It is populated by (un)living and (un)real characters variously connected to the locality. The writer lets them wander with the scientists through places that have been completely empty for decades due to the decisions of the powers that be.

Against this misty backdrop, she manages to build a compelling story full of suspense, which does not lack the explicit violence to be found in this genre. In addition to people, mists and jack-o’-lanterns, the plot also features two-souled people (people with two souls in one body), the disembodied and ghosts.

The author works skilfully with language to convey the gloomy atmosphere. Among other things, she artfully alternates short passages with long ones, which expertly builds up the plot. She also inserts a semblance of reality, with ‘reports’ that officially chart the strange expedition from beginning to end.

The emotions that engulfed me as I read Ignis Fatuus were in many ways reminiscent of the hit film The Blair Witch Project (1999). Wandering misfits in an unknown landscape, pursued by terrifying forces, never let my brain breathe a sigh of relief. The fear came in waves and was omnipresent.

(...) It is also certain that after finally slamming the book shut the more curious among you will want to go off to Šumava. Klabouchová’s description of the beautiful countryside there is second to none. But watch out for the jack-o’-lanterns!"

Lenka Hloušková, novinky.cz

 

"Ignis fatuus is a psychological horror story in the style of books by Slovak writer Jozef Karika. A terrifying nightmare without the relief of awakening, which from the first lines breathes a sticky chilling bleak atmosphere that creeps behind the nails so much that even on hot summer days you have to put the book down from time to time and warm up your numb fingers.

Petra Klabouchová has already demonstrated in her detective story Sources of the Moldau / Prameny Vltavy a flair for reproducing that unsettling feeling of constant threat and for the gradual build-up of the story. In Ignis fatuus, the carefully crafted setting is the be-all and end-all. It’s useful to notice even seemingly small details as you read – they’re going to come in handy a few chapters down the line. (...) Although Ignis fatuus is written in a brisk, colourful and rich language that does not make it easy to put the book down, it is not a pleasant read. Occasional flashes of sarcastic humour offset the book’s generally depressing tone. It is not as drastic a reading experience as the novel By the North Wall / U severní zdi, but some scenes may make those of a more sensitive disposition teary-eyed. Moreover, everything is inspired by real-life events, which all goes to highlight the vividness and authenticity of the novel."

Jindřich Göth, iDNES