VACLAV HAVEL: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts.

VACLAV HAVEL: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts 

by John Keane Basic Books, $27.50

MOHANDAS GANDHI--WHAT A jerk! Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Thomas Merton, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Schweitzer: a rogue's gallery of egocentric charlatans. People have said as much about everyone on that list, and now comes John Keane, a professor of politics at Westminster University in England, to add Vaclav Havel to the hall of shame. You may foolishly view Havel as a playwright, spirited dissident, and democratic hero to a peace-loving nation. Vaclav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts reveals the shocking underside. Havel drinks too much, smokes too much, had too much sex, is vain, and, as president of his country, he made mistakes! Take this man away and string 'im up.

Overstatement? Vaclav Havel begins by complaining that its subject is too well thought-of by the world though he is guilty of "knavery" and though "the harsh fact is that most of the citizens of President Havel's republic think less of him than they did a year ago." Keane cautions readers that "I have never believed in heroes" and then goes on to relate that when he first met Havel, in 1984, "he didn't look much like a hero to me." This Havel was "exhausted, overweight, depressed" and had trouble operating the stick shift of his car. He also seemed more interested in getting hold of a bottle of whisky than in talking to John Keane. Oh, and he'd just been released from five years in prison, did we mention that? And yet imagine that he would prefer whisky to being interviewed! What a jerk!

Keane declares, "Gone are the days when it could be assumed that biography was about recording the facts ... my account of Havel's life is unavoidably `factional.'" Funny, I was not aware that the days of fact-based biography were gone or that resorting to "factional" techniques (whatever they may be) was "unavoidabl[e]." But at least the author gives fair warning.

After its declaration of intent to destroy its subject, Vaclav Havel holds to form. The description of Havel's birth, for example, finds ominous portents in an old family movie ("inexpertly shot," the book jabs) in which parents and relatives fuss over the baby so much as to give the impression of "a child whose early months were not only coddled but crowned." Keane seems unaware that it is standard for parents to fuss over babies in lavish fashion.

The tale continues downhill from there. Along the way Vaclav Havel offers considerable scholarly detail on the postwar history of Czech politics and culture, a subject which Keane has studied closely. But he always comes back to what a crummy guy Vaclav is. He smokes incessantly. (A common health failing in the old Eastern bloc.) He drinks to excess. (Many numbed themselves against communism with brandy, including many of the chief communists.) He once got so totally, falling-down plastered on a Prague winter's night that he tumbled into an icy canal and would have perished in drunken oblivion but for valiant bystanders. While earning crowns by publishing maudlin tributes to his wife and fellow dissident, Olga, he was openly fooling around and, just a year after her death, married a tomato young enough to be his daughter. (Havel stayed with Olga for 45 years, including through her lengthy illness.) He pretended to take the presidency of the country reluctantly, but actually desperately desired the job and maneuvered to keep it out of the hands of Alexander Dubcek, his rival for most-admired Czechoslovakian. Plus his plays are overrated and he liked to be photographed with airhead celebrities.

Keane's bill of attainder may be true so far as it goes, but it is rarely leavened with acknowledgment of Havel's accomplishments. Born in 1936, to live first under Nazi invaders and then Soviet totalitarians, Havel grew up believing in freedom as the highest ideal. Raised under social and political systems that despised free thought, he nevertheless became a genuine artist, and also helped cultivate art in others. Given the chance to live well and let others bear the sacrifice of dissent, he instead defied authority, mostly through the Charter 77 movement, enduring many trips to prison. (Keane seems to see the prison years as a career move on Havel's part; it's easy to think that once the danger is over.)

In the theater, Havel produced at least decent work. In letters, his 1979 essay "The Power of the Powerless," predicting that communism would crumble simply because people hated it, is among the shining works of political thought--it certainly displayed a better understanding of human nature than anything the communist thinkers wrote. Presiding over the Velvet Revolution, though of course far from its only important player, Havel was a force for peaceful democracy. And regardless of whether history determines the separation from Slovakia to have been the right or wrong course, Havel helped it happen without any of the bloodshed, confiscation, or recriminations that have characterized nearly all the national divisions of history.

Keane is right to contend that the world's reserve of admiration for Havel has not been adjusted for the fact that the last couple years of his presidency have been undistinguished--though with the Czech economy continuing to improve, the country's basic trajectory seems positive. Whether Havel brought it on himself with dissolute living or was simply the victim of bad genes, his health has become so poor that he no longer belongs in public affairs. This April, he publicly implored Madeleine Albright, who was born in Czechoslovakia, to return and assume its presidency. This isn't half as crazy as it sounds, and not just because European nations are accustomed to importing rulers; it shows that even in decline, Havel has his country's best interests in mind. And as for Keane's repeatedly stated complaint that Havel cannot be a great figure because many countrymen dislike him, find me the great figure who didn't have detractors and sworn enemies among his fellows; start with Winston Churchill while you're at it.

Vaclav Havel concludes with a chapter in which the author envisions his subject's state funeral, predicting sweeping displays of ostentatious insincerity. "As he lay in state in the old Castle of the Bohemian kings above the city, a queue some miles long would spring up. Mourners would wait all day, and all night, to see his body for the last time ... Around the graveside a forest of microphones, tripods, cameras, pads and pens would suddenly spring up ... Harry Truman's remark that a statesman is a dead politician would be confirmed. Loud sounds of grinding axes would also be heard." This is weird stuff. Maybe Vaclav Havel is now an aging, sickly alcoholic who should take his garlands and go home to contemplate the garden and read old letters in the days that remain to him. But one person in a generation leads such a life, and whoever does deserves a sympathetic biographer.

GREGG EASTERBROOK is a senior editor at The New Republic.