Review: "Goulash" by Brian Kimberling

Goulash seems like a needlessly goofy title for a book but after finishing the charming and thoughtful second novel from American author Brian Kimberling, it is a pretty appropriate title. Doing for the city of Prague what he did for bird watching in his debit novel Snapper, Kimberling undertakes the unenviable task of distilling complex human emotions through painstaking specifics, charting one young ex-pat’s journey through a foreign land very much unlike his own and reaching enlightenment, or something like that. The book’s plot of gloriously loose and broken up into digestible chapters so it can be gorged in one sitting (not hard with its brisk 205 page length) or savored one chapter at a time with its themes being crystalline. Like its protagonist, an extended tourist trying to be anything but, it is not a book that is in a hurry and its playful tone makes some of the more serious aspects of its narrative feel as hearty as the beer that flows freely from the Golden Lion bar. The narrator at the center of the book is Elliot Black, a student from my home state of Indiana who has traveled to Prague to teach English. He is 23 and fresh faced, but the city itself is in a state of flux. It is the 90’s and he Czech Republic is moving (more like stumbling) from underneath the weight of communism into the three-ring circus of early capitalism. On his first night there, he gets his shoes stolen and finds them weeks later installed in an art exhibit. Thanks to a hilariously rude gallery employee, he becomes friends with the artist Mr. Cimarron, one of the book’s brightest spots among a serious of effervescent characters. Of these, at the center of Elliot’s world is Amanda, a British transplant in the same boat as Elliot. Their romance is predictable, with familiar beats, but there conversations about their uncertainty, art and rather intense subjects that come up after a neighbor of their falls to his death from his apartment balcony are like music to the ears much like Richard Linklater’s Celeste and Jessie. The loose plot allows for many interesting asides, such as Ivan, one of Elliot’s students, whose life might be different if he were not so prone to violence, Milan, another one of his students burden with the thought that he might have killed his brother as well as many historical asides, like the ghosts of totalitarianism within many of the buildings surrounding the ancient city (many of which get used in big Hollywood movies) and a giant statue of Joseph Stalin, crumbling in an abandon part of the city which has become a stomping ground for the creeping Western influence in the country. Towards the end is where this book’s spell felt strongest, with a hilarious visit from Elliot’s mother and an epilogue set years later, where the histories of both Elliot and Amanda are laid out, or at least they are in Elliot’s mind. This is charming, big hearted novel, just like Kimberling’s last book. 

Rating: 5/5