Summer Meditations

Peter Roberts is a former Canadian Ambassador to the Soviet Union and
author of George Costakis: A Russian Life in Art.

“Good taste is more useful here than a post-graduate degree in
political science.” So wrote the president of (then) Czechoslovakia,
before that unhappy country fell apart. In this slender, plainly written
book, President Vбclav Havel makes a convincing case for decency and
civility in politics. He should know; he lived for 40 years under a
regime that deliberately set about to destroy those qualities and that
actively persecuted people (like Havel) who believed in them.

Havel’s book has special significance for Canadians. It was written
in 1992, before Slovakia withdrew from the Czechoslovak federation.
Havel analyzes with clarity and passion the situation in his then-united
country, He believed separation would damage both republics, and he had
ideas about how to prevent it. Obviously, they did not work. Every
Canadian should read at least this chapter (the book has yet to be
translated into French).

Paul Wilson’s English translation is workmanlike; one feels that it
accurately reflects the tone of Havel’s original. Wilson’s notes are
excellent, although they are not, as he claims, “keyed to the text.”
A minor quibble about a book pertinent to our time and our country.