Saturnin

Upon its initial publication in Czech in 1942, Saturnin was a bestseller. This is entirely appropriate, for while Saturnin draws on a tradition of Czech comedy and authors such as J. Hašek, K. Čapek, and K. Poláček, it was also clearly influenced by the English masters Jerome K. Jerome and P. G. Wodehouse. Saturnin is the story of a young man in love and his faithful servant Saturnin, who upsets the peaceful rhythm of his master’s domestic arrangements and turns his life inside out. He lures him into an exotic world where he is forced to live dangerously, and he shows him how to cope with any situation. Saturnin lays bare the weaknesses of others and compels them to disclose their “true” nature—he is a subversive servant. Written at a time when Czechoslovakia was deep in the grip of the Nazi occupation, Saturnin showed how one form of resistance was to put the world created by invasion out of your mind and create