On This Modern Highway, Lost in the Jungle - Tropics, Travel, and Colonialism in Czech Poetry

Postcolonial reflections on Indonesia's influence upon the avant-garde poetry of a non-colonial European. In 1926, the Communist avant-garde poet Konstantin Biebl (1898–1951) traveled from Czechoslovakia to the Dutch East Indies. In the writings from his journal—texts simultaneously poetic and comic—both landlocked Bohemia and the colonized tropical islands are seen in disorienting new perspectives, like "mirrors looking at themselves in each other." ? Jan Mrázek's On This Modern Highway, Lost in the Jungle takes us on a journey of our own, crisscrossing Biebl's life and work—with particular attention to his travel writing—as they mirror Mrázek's own experiences as a multinational academic: a Prague conservatory graduate, educated at Michigan and Cornell, and now a scholar of Indonesia living in Singapore. Biebl's writings are also the book's point of departure for a broader exploration of the intersections of travel and poetry, issues of colonial and social injustice, and the representation of otherness in the Czech literary and visual imagination. In its attention to how poetic travel reflects the Czech historical experience in the shadow of imperial nations, Mrázek's book elevates scholarly reflection on literary travel, modernity, and colonialism to a new level. “I love Christmas, that Muslim holiday.”(K. Biebl) In 1926, the communist avant-garde poet Konstantin Biebl (1898–1951) travelled from Czechoslovakia to the Dutch East Indies. In his texts, poetic and often comic, both landlocked Bohemia and the colonized tropical islands are seen disorientingly anew, like “mirrors looking at themselves in each other.” On This Modern Highway, Lost in the Jungle takes the reader on a journey crisscrossing the poet's life and work, with particular attention to his travel writing and his dreams and memories of travel, as they mirror the book author's own life experience as a Czech scholar of Indonesia living in island Southeast Asia. Biebl's poetry and travels are also the book's point of departure for a broader exploration of the intersections of travel and poetry, the attitudes to colonial/social injustice, and the representation of otherness in Czech literary and visual imagination, beyond Biebl's times. In its attention to how poetic travel reflects the Czech historical experience in the shadow of imperial nations, the book moves scholarly reflection on literary travel, modernity, and colonialism to a new ground. Jan Mrázek grew up in Czechoslovakia and lives on an island in the Malay Archipelago. He is Associate Professor in Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore and has published widely on Indonesia, seafaring, and Czech travel writing. Karolinum Cover 1 Table of contents 9 List of figures 10 Acknowledgments 12 Preamble 15 Part One | The mirror of time 35 Parrots and monkeys 37 The first palm 44 Where grenades fall, there green palms grow 55 First Excursion | Parrots on motorcycles: exoticisms of the Czech avant-garde in the 1920s 68 Metaphors, dreams, travel 95 Workers . . . Indians! 102 Through the train window—Don’t worry, I am not going to Paris 109 Second Excursion | His head that watches us over the century’s edge: poetic travels in the nineteenth century 117 The notebook that he lost somewhere on the ship 135 With the ship that carries tea and coffee 142 Half-black, you understand? Here you have to be careful! 166 New Icarus and the mestiza My Beautiful Arsiti 183 Again some Malay landscape 195 The jungle around us 202 Sailors of all seas unite! 207 Your longest and most adventurous journey 213 Again and again man is proving that he has no wings 217 Part Two | A hundred rose petals, on them no words 225 Silences 227 Sounds, smells, tastes 235 Typography—optic configurations 244 Photographs, cinema, and the magazine Home and the World 259 Picture postcards 290 Snapshots and reflections: poetry | travel | photography | death 297 Author’s note on translations and sources 310 Bibliography 311 Index 317