Sunday’s announcement of the “Magnesia Litera 2022” literary awards brought a big surprise. Pavel Klusák, a music publicist, won two awards, for journalism, and finally the main one, ie “Books of the Year”, for the publication “Karel Gott: The Czechoslovak Story”. One can only speculate that the jury indirectly revealed what it thinks of one of the biggest book bestsellers of last year, Karel Gott’s voluminous self-portrait “My Journey to Happiness”.
After all, she justified Klusák’s nomination as follows: “The biography of a music publicist excels in the thorough placement of the life of a famous singer in the political and cultural context of the time. The trot shows how Gott became more and more the creator and victim of his own image, a prisoner of success and even narcotic dependence on the recognition of the audience. “
A three-kilo hit
When Gott’s long-awaited memoirs came out last year, they were expected to become a hit. This is despite the fact that those readers who were willing to buy large memories, weighing three kilos, had to pay more than a thousand crowns for them. And while Gott’s fans didn’t hide their enthusiasm and praised him “Very beautiful, great, and that she is worthy of our genius,” in the case of critics, this was usually not the case. Pavel Klusák was not lazy and thanks to the careful collection of documents he proved that the popular singer often kept silent in his memoirs and kept quiet about what did not suit him.
He managed to dispel the biggest myths that the multiple “Golden Nightingale” spread about himself for years. For example, the author found that the oft-cited “fairy tale” about how Gotta was discovered by Suchý and Šlitr in one of Prague’s cafes is not true. His extraordinary voice was noticed by the music manager and talent scout Karel Mareš, and it was he who arranged the engagement of the beginning singer in Semafor, even though Jiří Suchý was initially against it, because Gott did not fit him.
Las Vegas star?
Gott created one of the greatest legends about his allegedly successful American engagement in Las Vegas, which gave the impression that he was successful worldwide. In reality, however, the “Golden Voice from Prague” performed in a variety show of the casino of one of the local hotels, which did not impress the audience too much: “The midnight performance was tiring and had poor attendance. The half-hour, reserved for Gott, interested the guests less than the Jánošík dances of Slovak and Czech folk dancers, “ wrote Klusák after Gott’s memoirs were published, in his review for Aktuálně.cz magazine. In this context, he also recalled the interview of Gott’s former collaborator, double bassist Antonín Gondolán, in the magazine “Reflex”. In it, he admitted that he did not like listening to the legend of how he and Gott fought Las Vegas.
It’s a signal
However, according to Klusák, the fact that Gott tried to get out of his various moral transgressions (such as the signature of the Anticharta) by diverting attention to someone else is much more serious. “Apparently there wasn’t a second singer with such a focus, who would solve so many music and social crossroads to his advantage. Gott has sometimes almost sometimes mastered the selection of certain moments of his life and built the story out of them. ” Pavel Klusák said in an interview for “Events in Culture” on ČT24. And when he received the “Magnesia Litera” award on Sunday evening, he declared, among other things: “I would try to return this award as a signal and support for the belief that everything in our country has not yet been discussed about standardization.”
Sources: author, Czech Television, Aktuálně.cz
