{"id":1824,"date":"2026-05-23T15:22:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T15:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pluh.org\/?page_id=1824"},"modified":"2026-05-23T15:22:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T15:22:19","slug":"systemy-nehy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pluh.org\/index.php\/systemy-nehy\/","title":{"rendered":"Syst\u00e9my n\u011bhy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Systems of Tenderness)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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About the Book<\/summary>\n
Original Title<\/strong><\/td>Syst\u00e9my n\u011bhy<\/td><\/tr>
First Published<\/strong><\/td>2026<\/td><\/tr>
Publisher<\/strong><\/td>Host, Brno<\/td><\/tr>
Pages<\/strong><\/td>311<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n
Rights Sold<\/summary>\n
The Netherlands<\/strong><\/td>Das Mag – Amsterdam<\/td><\/tr>
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Systems of Tenderness<\/em> is a musically based novel constructed on the principle of canon and counterpoint, where one voice chases another without being able to catch up with it. One human life is a model for a subsequent life, one trauma forms the basis for a new trauma in a subsequent generation, as a kind of inevitable, painful notation of emotion.  The whole story rolls in on itself, in a bitter, inevitable repetition. A literary fugue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book tells the story of pianist Ada Fischer.\u00a0 We follow her career as a pianist, her complicated relationships with her father and mother, her student love at the music academy and her career switch to the field of Human Intelligence Tasks where she develops algorithms for AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ada’s entire life revolves around her relationship with her father Bohumil, who left when Ada was very young. It is a search for her him, for his love, for who he was. Ada’s life has the character of a mournful examination of the mechanism of abandonment. All her relationships with men suffer fundamentally from that tension. Her solidarity with her father manifests itself in a perpetual repetition of leaving, a perpetual abandonment. Either she must abandon and suffer, or she must abandon and hurt herself – and thus get closer to her father, to \u2018meet him in betrayal\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0Systems of Tenderness<\/em> is an intimate novel – and probably \u0160indelka’s most personal work. However it does not lack a major social theme: the role of artificial intelligence in our lives in conjunction with the pursuit of perfection, with the most important fact that the boundary between man and machine is becoming diffuse. Can one still distinguish between man and machine, and in a metaphorical sense, is man in the machine \u2013 as in the mechanical, chess-playing Turk – or the machine in man, And what to think of\u00a0 it when Ada plays perfect music like a machine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0At its core, the book revolves around the hand\u2014that limb capable of independent thought, that plays the piano as if by itself. Everything is contained within the hand: sorrow, anger, and tenderness. The hand as a metaphor for life. As is often the case, \u0160indelka is fascinated by the body, and this emerges more powerfully here than ever before\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0As one would expect the novel is solidly constructed. Throughout the story one discovers connections, analogies, repetitions of motifs and so forth, creating a nicely completed narrative.\u00a0 Once again, it is clear that \u0160indelka is breaking new literary ground – rather than writing the same book over and over again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cMarek \u0160indelka has written a novel that feels like a 60-year-old art film. It is slow-paced; it does not create flashy clusters of sharply edited plot lines, but instead focuses steadfastly on a single theme, which it develops to its fullest complexity. If the reader accepts that what is essential emerges from the whole, rather than from how the story ends or what is declared in a slogan-like manner, a masterpiece awaits. It is entirely unique in Czech prose of recent years.eview goes here\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Seznam Zpr\u00e1vy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The novel Systems of Tenderness<\/em> is a focused and intellectually stimulating book that confirms Marek \u0160indelka\u2019s ability as an author to conjure a broader cultural diagnosis from psychological details. It would come as no surprise if he were to win the Literary Critics\u2019 Award or another Magnesia Litera next year.
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-Aktu\u00e1ln\u011b.cz<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Translations<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Translation goes here<\/summary>\n

Antolog, Skopje, 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Jasminka Delova-Siljanova and Daniela Rous-Mi\u0161evska<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

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(Systems of Tenderness) Systems of Tenderness is a musically based novel constructed on the principle of canon and counterpoint, where one voice chases another without being able to catch up with it. One human life is a model for a subsequent life, one trauma forms the basis for a new trauma in a subsequent generation, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":937,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1824","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pluh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pluh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1824"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pluh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1844,"href":"https:\/\/pluh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1824\/revisions\/1844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}