Marta Doesn’t Want Kids

Reviews

"Petra Soukupová’s books do not make for pleasant reading. This author, who has established herself as one of the most original prose writers of her generation, and who has over time come to be written about as a key representative of the literary mainstream, does not usually go easy on her characters.

She involves them in partnership or parental quarrels and crises, and the interpersonal relationships in her novels are often characterized primarily by misunderstanding and miscommunication.

This is also the case in the recently published Marta Doesn’t Want Kids, which for the most part follows the title protagonist’s pilgrimage (...) to Santiago de Compostela. This wandering thirty-year-old is dealing with her relationship with her partner, but she also keeps coming back to her decision not to have children and how those around her have reacted to this.

It is the theme of voluntary childlessness that makes the author’s latest novel stand out not only from the context of her work, but also from the context of Czech prose over the last few years.

(...) She is one of the best observers of the banalities and burdens of interpersonal relationships engaged in Czech literature (although the competition in this literary segment has been great in recent years). Perhaps we will be reminded of this again thanks to her latest novel."

Kryštof Eder, Denník N (Bilance letošního knižního roku – Taking stock of books published this year)

 

"The author has already shown in her previous books that she can be uncompromising and frank in her detailed descriptions of the movements of her characters’ minds. She is able to write about relationships within the family, between partners and siblings, in a readable, pathos-free and convincing documentary style. This Marta is no exception; it is about relationships of all kinds: with men, mother, sister, work colleagues, friends and children. Soukupová describes everyday events – quarrels with partners, the oppressive atmosphere at a family party, a scene with a petulant child in the playground, a fight for a place in the sun at work, and the like. And through them she sketches some quite vivid characters.

Her casual, almost scripted, navigable style of narration adds to the readability, while her observation of relationships adds to the authenticity. Both are then supported by plain, colloquial language.

Only fleetingly, and yet very aptly, Soukupová touches on the motif of pretence and something resembling socially agreed affectation, e.g. when it comes to the phenomenon of social networks, specifically Instagram, which she so aptly calls “the monstrous cabaret of our era”, where everyone presents their ideal lives."

Petra Smítalová Vlasta

 

"Thirty-year-old Marta doesn’t want kids. But the writing is excellent.

Marta doesn’t want kids – you can’t put it any plainer than that! The title of Petra Soukupová’s latest novel presents both the main character and her main subject. (...) So what else is there in it?

Enough and a lot more than enough. Soukupová does not step beyond her own shadow either in her composition, narrative, language, style or manner, which she has kept up since her successful first novel To the Sea / K moři (2007) – though that time she wrote everything with the utmost intensity, density, urgency and indeed topicality.

Why doesn’t 30-year-old Marta want children? Is she gripped by climate anxiety? Is she annoyed by her older partner, her somewhat overbearing parents, her siblings, her friends who are happily going forth and multiplying? Is she frustrated with her job in advertising? Would a child be a possible solution, a fulfilment, or just another ball and chain? Or is it all of these together?

There’s something wrong with Marta anyway. She’s emotionally shambolic, irritable and restless. Sometimes she explodes, argues, breaks down in tears. So she goes on the road. Straight to Santiago de Compostela. (…) She reminisces and ponders. She goes over everyone around her including herself. Including the fatigue, the blisters, the unexpected flirtation. In the end, she’s not much wiser. The only thing she was sure of at the beginning and has at the end is one big “we’ll see”.

Soukupová does not sort out her Marta in any way; she does not give instructions, final insights or the one and only truth. She doesn’t push her, she doesn’t force her. She just details the individual scenes in which Marta plays her part, and mercilessly analyses her psychology.

(…) She handles her realism with total bravura, doubtless assisted by her experience as a screenwriter. Her characters are alive, they are visible, the reader is instantly with them, and even more so – is right inside them. They give the reader the capacity to identify, to co-experience their life drama.

The reader understands Marta. She’s running away, and she doesn’t know what she’s running away from, let alone her destination. Sometimes she enjoys life, other times she’s fed up with it, other times she dangles in a vacuum, in indifference, in nothingness. Isn’t that what everyone is like?

(…)

This is where Petra Soukupová is strongest as a writer, indeed exceptional. Her characters are typical, perhaps even prototypical. They work. They hold up a mirror. Urgently, insistently. But each one of us must hold that gaze alone."

Radim Kopáč, idnes.cz

 

"In her latest novel, the successful Czech writer paints a believable picture of the female psyche and raises the question to what extent our life decisions are shaped by social conventions.

(…) The protagonist keeps returning in her mind to the past, replaying conversations and arguments with Hynek, conflicts from work or distressing situations and intrusive questions from family meetings. The question of children, her own, stepchildren, siblings’ or friends’ children, constantly hangs in the sultry air.

(…)

Each diary entry is followed by a narrative from the perspective of one of the supporting characters that Marta thought about while walking. Her parents, sister, Hynek’s children and his ex-wife, her friends and, at the beginning and end, her partner, who is more than ten years older than her, all have a say. Marta’s loved ones add their perspective to the situations they experienced with her, and above all, their ideas about how they think Marta should live. The supporting characters also share their own stories, which often revolve around parenthood. Whether it is the care and concern for young and adult offspring, the combination of family and professional life, motherhood after forty, or the martyrdom of artificial insemination, the novel brings a diverse palette of destinies that may look at least somewhat familiar to many readers. Petra Soukupová remains true to her previous work and describes family and interpersonal relationships very authentically without any embellishment at all.

The authenticity of the novel is largely based on the author’s distinctive style, in which the protagonists’ stream of consciousness speaks to the reader as if in an intimate dialogue. Marta’s straightforward colloquial soliloquy is distinguished from the narratives of her loved ones not only by a different type of writing, but above all by a manner of expression reflecting the age and character of the character in question. This is particularly evident in the parts narrated from the perspective of nine-year-old Bertík and teenage Viki, in which Soukupová clearly comes out as an experienced author of children’s books. She also successfully portrays arguments between partners, awkward conversations at family dinners and the conventions of online communication, which nowadays make a significant mark on interpersonal relationships.

(…)

The author also aptly describes in her protagonist the kind of split mind we have during travel, in which many of us automatically wonder whether what we are experiencing will be Instagrammable enough. The novel thus provides a timely statement not only on the issue of motherhood, but also on our image of ourselves (not only) on social networks and how we sometimes refine these images of our lives in reality to meet the expectations of those around us and society."

Karolína Bukovská, iliteratura.cz

 

"The author is a skilled storyteller. Her style remains precise and certain without false embellishment. She manages to magnetize the attention of her readers by emphasizing the realism of her portrayal of a young woman’s mental processes. (…) [The novel] is again “Soukupová-style harsh”, in the aforementioned sense of the bleak absence of understanding between the closest people, and also precise and believable in its portrayal of the characters."

Jiří Krejčí, Host

 

"It is often said that Soukupová always writes the same way and what could she bring up that is new? It is true that she mostly deals with relationships, which is a topic that we all deal with, after all. However, she comes up with a different “sub-theme” each time. She does not overwhelm her characters with a cruel fate, but plays out a drama based on everyday situations that commonly occur in families, such as the death of a loved one, a break-up, a conflict between a mother and daughter, and the like. (…)

More than any biological clock, there is a social time bomb ticking away here.

Soukupová once again brilliantly portrays the protagonists’ characters against the backdrop of micro-situations from everyday life. (…)

She also addresses various stereotypes, for example regarding “appropriate” colours for children. (…).

(…) Soukupová openly refers to topics that resonate throughout society, but she does not dissect them, she does not target them – they are simply part of everyday life. Marta alludes to them, and this is Marta’s story. Consensual sex (from a Star Trek episode), the good girl syndrome: “But you feel it’s stupid to cause him problems, you’re already sitting on the bed, but that’s exactly why all this is happening, because girls feel it’s stupid to cause problems” (...), menstruation (yes, friends, Marta is menstruating and has to deal with everything that goes with it on her journey: hygiene, privacy, toilets and waste) and other big topics embedded in everyday microscenes, as only Soukupová knows how. (...)

I find it extremely important that a writer with such a reach as Petra Soukupová brings these still somewhat taboo topics to light in an unforced way, and what’s more: she gives them a human face."

Karin Jamnitzká, Tvar

 

"The book is permeated with the trends and dilemmas of late modernity, such as eco-grief at the climate crisis, global warming and the possibility of nuclear winter, the LGBTQ movement, feminism and women’s rights, vegetarianism, recycling, a healthy lifestyle, IVF fertilization, and the like. The only thing that might be missing is multiculturalism. (…)

On her pilgrimage, Marta naturally inspects and examines her life values, internal conflicts, and relationships with herself and her loved ones. In doing so, Soukupová once again demonstrates her ability to sensitively and authentically portray her protagonist without idealizing her or casting her in the role of a victim, working with the subtlety of a psychological depiction of the broad range of emotions that accompany Marta’s decisions.

(…)

The various perceptions thus interestingly create a jigsaw puzzle of opinions, ideas and views on what we experience, and at the same time lead to reflection on the reality of how far we truly empathetically perceive “the others” and what is “good for them”. The manoeuvering between truth, self-deception and duplicity when communicating with others reveals the complexity (even the impossibility) of mutual understanding.

The author brings an interesting perspective on duality, in which, on the one hand, the protagonists of the novel live relatively comfortable lives in prosperity, but at the same time they are internally unhappy and dissatisfied, and feel anxiety and depression, of which they are cured by psychologists, medication and breathing exercises (not necessarily in that order)."

Martina Martinez Arboleda, Tvar

 

"With each additional kilometre, the lone walker becomes more deeply and consciously aware of how difficult it is, under the constant influence of those around us, to find out what we really want in life and what we do for ourselves and what we do just to please others. The range of emotions and reflections into which she and the readers are thrown is admirably multifaceted and true to reality.

(…)

The open ending, as well as the interlude chapters with monologues by secondary characters, make the book an excellent, multi-layered novel."

Kristýna Skalníková, Právo

 

"Soukupová again uses the tried and tested method of alternating narrators and showing how the other characters, including the children, see the situation. The judgments lose their sharpness and are replaced by empathy."

Kateřina Čopjaková, Seznam zprávy