"Dime Store Mystery" - Lou Reed
Very saddened to hear of the passing of Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president, playwright, essayist, dissident, and human rights activist. Havel's improbable trajectory from frequently imprisoned and banned artist to president first of Czechoslovakia, and then the Czech Republic was one of the great stories of my lifetime. (Probably neck and neck with that of Nelson Mandela on the political improbability meter.)
Havel became a hero of mine (and I don't really have a lot of heroes) in 1988 when I read his book Letters to Olga, a series of letters that he wrote to his wife while imprisoned by Czech authorities from 1979-1982. The letters are tremendous works of humanity, exquisite dissections of a totalitarian society in which no one, including its leaders, actually believes in its foundational myths. I would still recommend reading this work, as well as later compilations Open Letters and Disturbing the Peace. There is a fascinating combination of profundity and humility in these works, a man speaking plain and audacious truths to his oppressors, while at the same time remaining conscious of his own limitations.
Following the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Havel was transformed from dissident to president in a stunning turn of events. (I think it is a little difficult to describe now just how unlikely this would have seemed to anyone first encountering Havel's works both as a political essayist and playwright.) Despite ascending to political power, Havel remained an artist at heart, one who enjoyed the spirit of rebelliousness always. Among his earliest acts as the Czech president were meetings with Lou Reed and Frank Zappa -- really not the sort of thing one expects from the average chief of state.
Havel demonstrated what it means to be a real dissident and man of political courage -- hint, it doesn't mean exchanging one set of cocktail party friends for another -- someone who was willing to face artistic banishment and the constant threat of forced exile or imprisonment. One thing that struck me in reading his works was the fact that he always had a little kit packed containing necessities in the event that any given day might prove to the day that the authorities imprisoned him, something that happened multiple times throughout his life. Throughout it all, however, Havel maintained his humanity, his abhorrence of political violence, and a certain kind of equanimity that is hard to fathom.
His was an extraordinary life.
