The Time of Wasps

Reviews

"The Time of Wasps is like a calm river with sharp stones beneath its surface. Mornštajnová has written one of her best books.

Alena Mornštajnová is a master storyteller. (...) This time she has come up with a new book, The Time of Wasps, which at first glance does not look dramatic – but that just makes it all the more surprising, as the gentle beginning imperceptibly turns into a deeply moving drama.

(...) Two lonely people, two inner worlds, two storylines that gradually converge until – as only Mornštajnová knows how – in due course they intersect. And it is then that the reader realizes that this quiet book is like a river: calm, even poetic on the surface, but full of sharp stones beneath the surface that can unexpectedly hurt.

This time the author spares us the plot twists – at least in the first half. She tells the story calmly, in plain language, without dramatic gestures. And that's why the story draws you in – because of how carefully she dispenses information and how unobtrusively she makes us like the characters. And then – once we are fully drawn in – she reveals what they all carry in tow: childhoods marked by pain, loneliness and betrayal.

(…) The Time of Wasps casts its spell in its contrasts. The style is gentle, the language caressing, the narrative almost tender – yet it speaks of things that hurt. Mornštajnová trusts the reader. She does not rely on sensationalism, but on the power of the story. She trusts us to care about why people turn in on themselves – and whether that can be changed.

(…) The Time of Wasps is a book about solitude – about why we sometimes choose it, even when we don't actually want it. It's not a story that will sweep you off your feet with its action. It's a book that slows you down, embraces you, and makes you think. And perhaps it will ultimately convince you that being with someone – despite all the risks – is better than being alone.

This may be the most peaceful book in Mornštajnová's oeuvre. But it is also one of the most mature."

Tomáš Fojtík, Forum

"Mornštajnová brilliantly reveals small-town callousness.

It sounds like a double whiplash: The Time of Wasps. Alena Mornštajnová’s latest novel has a pretty sharp, punchy title. It resonates perfectly with everything that gradually emerges as important in this three-hundred-page text. (…)

In this novel, Mornštajnová opens up a huge subject, which is both topical and eternal. She depicts the small town as a pathological place where people can look through each others’ windows, into each others’ business and under each others’ blankets, and where many fall victim to the aggression of others and their callous projections of their own misfortunes. Exactly in line with the following comment, which comes at the end of the novel:  “She was convinced that the whole world was hurting her, so she had a right to hurt others too.” We see this all around us every day: in global politics – and in our neighbours over the fence.

Mornštajnová has written a book in which we again see numerous motifs and techniques from her previous prose works, from Hana and Listopád / November Fall to Les v domě / The Forest Within, e.g. the extended family as the epicentre of pain and hatred, but also of quiet understanding and anticipated love, and outside world reflecting the passage of history as the surface on which all these private matters are projected, where they grow stronger or weaker, and where they are interpreted or misinterpreted by others.

This book has a simple, perhaps even banal message: to accept yourself, your history, to reflect on your place in the world – and to try to live in understanding and harmony with the world, with others. Everything else will come of its own accord. But before one passes through this phase of maturation and individuation, an ocean of time will pass – and many a swarm of pesky wasps will doubtless fly by... "

Radim Kopáč, Deník

"Alena Mornštajnová means family dramas that weave across generations. Alena Mornštajnová is always a literary event: magazine covers, themed bookshop windows, people with books on buses, in doctors’ waiting rooms, in children’s playgrounds. Alena Mornštajnová always means a powerful story that looks into the essence of man, sad, sensitive, vivid and real. So believable that it seems like it could be happening right now behind the wall of a block of flats or in the little house across the street. That's what The Time of Wasps is like. A story about the past and  flower power."

Jan Štifter, Barbar!