Books like Cremator

A young friend of mine encouraged me to finally read this novel. Her school had invited her class to a theater production of the book at the prestigious Stavovské Divadlo (National Scene) in Prague. She was impressed with the performance, but expressed the following assessment of the play itself: “It was psychopathic and it gave me nightmares.” Like many people outside of the Czech and Slovak Republics, I was familiar with Ladislav Fuks’ short novel through its film adaptation by Juraj Herz. The book (and the film) is considered a modern classic, and it was amongst the first East European films to see distribution on DVD back in the early naughts (in USA through Facets, and in UK on the Second Run imprint). While the film (also scripted by Fuks) follows the book fairly closely in terms of plot, the character of Mr. Kopfrkingl (the cremator of the title) is developed very differently in the book.Opening in the late thirties, Kopfrkingl is initially portrayed as a fairly typical burgher of Prague. He is married to a raven-haired beauty, whom he adores above all else on earth. He has two teenaged children, a good position at the crematorium, and a nice apartment close to the center of the city. He is a normal person on the simple side, who does not ask the big questions. He wants what the vast spectrum of humanity wants – to belong and feel loved, to be accepted and even respected, to have security, and to prosper and provide for his family. He is naïve, even willfully naïve; using his simplicity as a shield against any threat to his sense of safety and equilibrium. Hence, he experiences the Jewish people he interacts with through work and as neighbors as kind and friendly, and although he does have “a drop of German blood” in his veins, it is not something he gives much thought, because he naturally sees himself as Czech before anything else. He is not oblivious to the changes that are taking place in the world around him, but, he feigns ignorance, and he picks up on bits and pieces of news and conversation that he makes his own vernacular, brushing off any sense of threat with repeated clichés, such as “…we live in a civilized world…” and “…people do not tolerate violence…”However, in the background of the story, the world is changing rapidly. The German Nation is making claims on the Sudetenland, and gradually Kopfrkingl is literally made to understand that he is not an island. Moreover, it is made clear to him that a man with “a drop of German blood” in his veins, and with expertise and ability can advance in society, provided that he is adaptable in his world view. Given Kopfrkingl’s character it is not difficult to imagine that he will find ways to bend his sense of reality ever so slightly to conform to these changes around him, and how slowly, as the world becomes more and more insane, we end up with a man that is a monster. Here is not an evil man, not even an overly opportunistic man, simply a man, who does his best to fit in and adapt. The tone of Fuks’ book is very darkly humorous, and his portrayal of Kopfrkingl is grotesque to the point where he almost sabotages the intent of his novel. Few books have probably come closer to answering the question of how people managed to perform unspeakable acts during the last world war, or during any other time in history. However, the character of Kopfrkingl is perhaps just a touch too pathetic and intrinsically weak to make most readers able to identify with him, and accept that the slow change from a good, decent person to a demonic arbiter of all that is base and evil is not unique to this man, his time or his place.