Michael Zantovsky, Havel: A Life

Excerpt

Perhaps the best compliment I can pay Michael Zantovsky’s biography of Václav Havel is to remark that if had read his book first I would have changed mine. It is not that Zantovsky uncovers a new, unexplored interpretation of Havel’s life and work – the playwright was too fine an essayist to be misunderstood. But, Zantovsky – a long-time friend and press secretary of the dissident-turned-president – knows the specifics of Havel’s life; and the devil is in the details. Zantovsky’s elegantly written memoir presents the full complexities of Havel’s personality. Havel was a private man who spent most of his adult years in the spotlight. He was shy, but craved companionship; he opposed regimentation, but loved order; he was perpetually polite, but just as stubborn; he was deadly serious in opposition to tyranny, but attacked it with ironic humor; he warned against the temptations of political life, but held public office for more than a decade; he preached responsibility, but was incapable of marital fidelity. …