Europeana - Patrik Ourednik

\nTracing the Great War through the Millennium Bug, 1999 through 1900, Dadaism through \nScientology through Sierra Leonean bicycle riding and back, award-winning Czech author Patrik \nOurednik explores the horror and absurdity of the twentieth century in an explosive \ndeconstruction of historical memory. \nEuropeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century opens on the beaches of Normandy in \n1944, comparing the heights of different forces' soldiers and considering how tall, long, or good \nat fertilizing fields the men's bodies will be. Probing the depths of humanity and inhumanity, \nthis is an account of history as it has never been told: engaging, even frightening. At once \nrecreating and uncreating the twentieth century, Ourednik explores the connections across the \ndecades between the disparate figures, events, and politics we thought we knew.\n \nPatrik Ourednik's Europeana merits the author's reputation as a giant of post-1989 Czech \nliterature. Now translated into 33 languages, the book is a masterwork of cubism, a \npolymorphic monologue of statistics and movements and fine print and discoveries that evokes \nthe deadpan absurdity of Kafka and the gallows humor of Hasek. Ourednik has created a \nmesmerizing, maddening account of the past, and his interrogation of truth and objectivity \nresonates now more than ever.\n