Exclamation Points
on Václav Havel’s typogram “VÁLKA” (War), aka “Peace”
The story begins innocently on the first line with the word “mír” (peace) typed at both the upper left and right margins. Each carriage return brings the opposing demands for “mír!” closer “MÍR!!” and closer “MÍR!!!” They collide in a chaos that falls disintegrating down the page until nothing remains but a hail of deadly exclamation points pounded into the white paper sky through which they fall, whistling down.
Exclamatory fields of fire bloomed across Vietnam that year. Czechoslovakia was soon to discover its own vulnerability in the clanking shock of Soviet tanks on the streets, crushing the breath of freedom remembered as the Prague Spring. From Eastern Europe and obscure jungle hamlets, murderous surprise moved on to other jungles, obscure deserts and Western cities. Detonations echo in the daily news. So too the horror of texts written in body parts, mouthed in moans and wailing too guttural for words.
Surprise comes in many flavors, of course, including delight. But regardless of context or emotional tone it is by definition disruptive. This is as true on the printed page as in life! Contemporary authors, if they’re civilized, shy away from the rawness of the exclamation point. They leave it to the consumerist carpet bombers: “Step right up. See me. Hear me. Try this; feel something.”
Mostly we would rather not, except at a safe voyeuristic distance. Destabilization risks uncontrolled transformation. The pitch of the sales associate is itself canned, designed to excite only potential customers—managers reserving their excitement for deviations from the script. Algorithms standardize decision processes and are revised to minimize unruly data. There is no time for it. Officers of the culture herd defendants along with anesthetic assurances that each step in the procedure is only a formality.
Meanwhile between terror and trance, too often obscured by the rustling of decision trees or whiz-bang flashes of manufactured dazzlement, life punctuates itself as it always has—like it or not—exclamations included. This child is born. This job is lost. The car driven by this man blows a tire in a pothole. This girl bakes cookies for a soldier she will never meet who fights a war she doesn’t understand.
Expectations clash, even visions of peace. Familiar territory turns suddenly strange and potent. Havel pounds his exclamation points, smashes the smugness of the page, cratering the fabric. Pinpoints of light break through.
___
Václav Havel’s “Peace” (Evergreen Review, 1967) or “The War” (n.d.)
from Antikódy: “VÁLKA”
Michael Hopping lives in Asheville, North Carolina. His work has appeared in Spoiled Ink, The Great Smokies Review, fresh, and is forthcoming in Chrysalis Reader. A novel, Meet Me In Paradise, was published in 2007 and MacTiernan’s Bottle, a collection of short stories, will appear later this year.
