The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/Rekindled fires
REKINDLED FIRES[1]
By Joseph Anthony
A book dealing with the life of Bohemians in America is a rare event. There are few of them in the Bohemian language and none at all in English, and one picks up with a great deal of interest a novel which its publishers say deals with a Bohemian-American community. Mr. Anthony’s book is summarized by the publishers as follows:
“This is the story of how Stanislav Zabransky became Stanley Zabriskie; of his family who came from Bohemia, and of the colorful life of the Bohemian-American community on the edge of the Jersey meadows where the Zabranskys lived. Michael Zabransky, father of the family, is the social and political dictator of his community and a czar in his own home. His other children disappoint him, and Stanislav becomes his hope, the apple of his eye. In the relation that grows up between them, idealism is rekindled in the son, and Stanley, product of Old World and New is born in the flame. There are humor, broad humanity and romance in the telling of this novel of youth and Americanization and of Old World ideals rekindled on new hearths.”
We do not know anything of the author, except that his picture shows him to be very young. If he is not himself the son of a Bohemian immigrant, it is hard to explain where he got his wonderful insight into the life of the Czech cigar makers in the New Jersey town. To one who has lived among these people, his figures and the atmosphere appear to be truthful and accurate. He has emphasized the two outstanding characteristics in the life of the Bohemian immigrants in the United States: the hostility to the Germans which they brought with them from the old country, and their rebellion against the Catholic Church, a rebellion that so often takes the form of hostility to religion as such. When the story goes on to describe the young hero’s college career, it loses in interest. But it is excellently written throughout and the portraits of the hero and especially of old Zabransky are very convincing.
The book has a great interest for people of Czechoslovak descent and we recommend it to them very warmly.
- ↑ Henry Holt & Co.