Word: wolfe
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Kohout adopts a harsh, cynical style, over-whelming us with facts about medieval torture and penological fictions. In the first pages of the novel, Wolf's description of the role of the executioner, as the last judge rather than as a murderer, intrigues with its exuberance and simplicity, and tempts with its logic...
...force of Wolf's argument makes humanity's apparent ease at distinguishing between murder and execution, torture and punitive action, no longer troubling. We recognize man's abhorrence of murder and violence, and, at the same time, applaud his acceptance of the legitimacy of those acts when performed by the Government. We are seduced by the obvious distinctions...
When Kohout describes Wolf and Simsa's pasts, the commonness, the very ordinary aspects of these people, is striking. They weren't born with a natural talent for killing; they didn't commit sadistic acts on their siblings. They are now executioners because they were good at following orders, at working within and for the system. They could just as well be gardeners...
Kohout ironically places Wolf within an anti-Nazi resistance group while a high school teacher in a small Czech town. Called into the office of the local Commandandt, Wolf is easily intimidated and betrays the other members of the group, including his own brother. From them on, everything is easy for the executioner: he must hold no allegiance but to the state, have no love but for the state, take no orders but from the state. The government in power doesn't matter. The executioner owes his life and soul, not to politics, but to the essence of the state...
...with anecdotes and facts about methods of inflicting pain, and by tempting us with the logic of killing, Kohout has made us his characters' accomplices. We find ourselves in the same position as Lizinka's father, who, originally opposed to her planned course of study, at the end accepts Wolf as a future son-in-law. By our interest in Kohout's society and our inactivity in our own, we remove ourselves from our humanity...