The Ultimate Intimacy - Hardcover

Klima, Ivan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802116256 ISBN 13: 9780802116253

Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing, 1998

Synopsis

To what should we devote our lives? Which is stronger, a faith without doubts or a faith that wrestles with doubts? With the brilliance and humanity that have made him a major figure in world literature, Ivan Klima in The Ultimate Intimacy explores the universal themes of love, adultery, and God.Pastor Daniel Vedra has a wife and three children. He ministers to prisoners and is a sought-after commentator on the problems facing the rapidly changing society of the Czech Republic. But privately he struggles with the knowledge that he has never recaptured the depth of intimacy he had with his first wife, who died suddenly and young. With the arrival of a beautiful married stranger who reminds him of his lost Jitka, Daniel finds his heart reawakening. But their affair will lead him to betray everything he has lived for: his family, his vocation, and his future. In a Czech Republic in the throes of complete social and economic upheaval, the order that had underpinned Daniel's life falls apart, his intimacy with God splintered by what he has found with another man's wife.

About this title

Review

It's easy to tease out the serious themes in Ivan Klima's novel of ideas--religious belief vs earthly love; freedom vs responsibility; scepticism vs belief; and the burdens of the communist past vs those of the capitalist present. But The Ultimate Intimacy is far more than a metaphysical point/counterpoint. Klima's exploration of one crucial year in the life of a good minister, who discovers that truth and passion can be all too distant, is no simple construction. Born in 1944 and having grown up in Czechoslovakia in a time "when hate was publicly proclaimed as something necessary", and now living in an era in which "having a good memory tends to be a disadvantage", Daniel Vedra is determined to live according to the biblical certainties he proclaims. Alas, at a particularly low point following his mother's death he is distracted by a mysterious (and beautiful) churchgoer, and the two are soon entangled. In lesser hands the situation might be incredible or, at best, credible but hackneyed. In Klima's complex narration, however, Daniel's crisis becomes a powerful drama of faith and, perhaps, salvation.

Synopsis

When a beautiful married woman walks into Pastor Daniel Vedra's life and conjures up memories of his first wife, Jitka, he struggles with the chaos the affair creates for his wife, his children, his vocation, and his future.

Edition details

• Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0802116256
• ISBN 13: 9780802116253
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 387