On page 68, Tereza heads to Switzerland with some of her photos of the invasion. She offers them to a magazine, but the editor does not accept them. He reasons that they are outdated and that the Swiss care no longer. Then a woman comes into the office and presents a nudist beach article. The editor fears that Tereza would be shocked by the images and says, "Of course they're completely different from your pictures." Tereza replies, "Not at all. They're the same." Here Tereza equates her pictures of the Russian invasion with nudity. While the Soviet government lied that the occupation was "fraternal help" to a fellow socialist state in the grip of counter-revolutionaries, her photographs exposed the truth beneath the surface. Then the woman tries to comfort Tereza: "There's nothing wrong with the naked body. It's normal. And everything normal is beautiful!" However, it can be inferred that Tereza is disturbed by the woman's words because she has a flashback to "the image of her mother marching through the flat naked." The reason why Tereza hates the body is precisely because of its uniformity/normality and her oft-naked mother, and this woman is suggesting that being normal is beautiful. Tereza cannot stand the idea.
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1 comment:
That's a really interesting interpretation, Jun. I agree with you. And since you mentioned Sabina...
I know we've discussed the differences between Sabina and Tereza (light vs. heavy especially), but we've also touched upon how they are intricately linked and both put much emphasis on the soul. I think this really shows through in their respective forms of artistic expression. In Sabina's paintings, the darkness/heaviness/unintelligible truth shows through the kitsch. The same could be said for Tereza's photographs—at first glance, they seem to just depict scantily clad women kissing men in the foreground, what seems to be a relatively light topic. But upon examining the photographs further, one would notice the tanks and the soldiers, and would recognize the fact that these women aren't kissing men and dressing up for their own pleasure and entertainment, but rather to make a political statement.
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