Better to go mad in the wilderness
E-book, Czech
Better to go mad in the wilderness
Award-winning film
The film based on the book Rather Go Mad in the Wilderness won the Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Eight interviews in the book Rather go crazy in the wilderness bring meetings with Šumava loners.
Some have built a hut in the forest, others live in marquees or mountain retreats. One sleeps right under the trees. Some can be reached by car, others have to be reached on foot. Šumava hermits, loners whose views and lives are unlike anything you know. This book is about encounters with them.
Eight interviews with people who have lived for a long time outside civilization provide a glimpse into a mysterious world whose existence we know nothing about. Here we meet wild animals, harsh winters, even ghosts. Some loners are explicitly rational (especially the two women interviewed), others tell their lives a bit like a myth. It too has its testimonial value, just different from a list of verified facts. The way modern hermits inhabit the landscape may soon become a myth. If he hasn't already become one.
The purpose of Rather go mad in the wilderness is not a cataloguing of weirdos or an alternative guide to the largest Czech mountain range. It is a dive into the mysterious corners of the landscape and the human soul. Into a long loneliness and separation, into a parallel world that nevertheless poses very disturbing questions to ours. The interviews with the Šumava loners were conducted by writer and publicist Aleš Palán (Magnesia Litera, Czech Literary Fund Award), the photographs were contributed by photographer Jan Šibík (Czech Press Photo, Golden Prisma Award).
Ales Palán
Czech journalist, publicist and writer. He did not complete his studies at the Faculty of Education in Brno, and then spent several years wandering around Czechoslovakia. He is one of the signatories of Charter 77. In the second half of the 1980s (and at the beginning of the 1990s) he worked as a night watchman, figurehead and digger. Since 1993 he has been working as a journalist (Jihlavské listy, Duklak, People's Newspaper, Czech Television, TV Nova, Catholic Weekly, Hospodarske noviny, Guest, ...) He taught a course in creative writing at the Josef Škvorecký Literary Academy. In his books he deals mainly with literature, fine arts, faith and sports.
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