Rankov’s approach to writing has something in common with invention. Just the theme itself is always unusual, even though at first it is by all appearances quite ordinary. The author, however, develops it in such a way that it becomes bizarre, unreal or surreal, so that unbelievable things happen in his stories. The book S odstupom času/Over the Distance of Time gives the impression of being a compendium of perfectly thought-out brain-teasers, to which the most diverse solutions and explanations are offered.
Jozef Bžoch
Rankov’s prose works are proof that in spite of the crisis in the short story good narration still exists: at the same time it proves that it can also be extremely attractive, it can address the contemporary reader, contain a philosophical enigma and even – which is unusual in our provincial conditions – belong to the wider world. Those last two things in particular – elements of mystery and worldliness – are what I as a reader of recent original literature have always longed to find.
Adam Bžoch
The search for a theme seems to have become the motivating force behind Rankov’s work as a writer – he narrates short, witty and uncomplicated stories which happily renounce their roots in ordinary domestic settings and set off into the world to find their point. With a slight shift away from the usual pattern of associations continually verified by practice these stories show a world that is wider and more amusing than the one we are used to living in from day to day. It seems to me that Rankov’s texts are most forceful in the places where the author requires nothing more of himself than to be a narrator “of what happened”. The reader is witnessing an attempt to revive the short story and the art of narration.
Peter Darovec
If we consider the author’s incipit in the book by Pavol Rankov Stalo sa prvého septembra (alebo inokedy)/It Happened on 1st September (or Some other Time), which appeared in the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, “Everything is invented. There was never anything, no one ever existed. Not even the first of September” the author is clearly denying the obvious truth. He has taken advantage of the exclusive right of his talent to connect things that no one has yet dared to bring together and he has connected them in the way his generational conscience and artistic feeling has (perhaps) dictated. And the result, in comparison with what generations and conscience and feeling before him have only timidly hinted at, is very striking: no one will believe that what happened in his book really happened. With Rankov, however, it is the most revolutionary understanding of Slovak history, or better said, the history of Slovakia, which is embodied in the history of the characters and their lives; they are not predestined by their ethnicity, but in the twists and turns of the book their origins play a crucial role. They throw themselves into historical cataclysms with subjectivist passion and with no realisation of the consequences. The author had to deal with many contradicting historical circumstances, which are to this day the subject of political disputes. Each of the characters has to pass through this purgatory and draw from it his own truth. It could be said that the author has dealt with it factually. His heroes are absolutely impregnated with historical events which determine the course of their lives, but their actions are actually dictated by the most universal of all strategies – love. However the factual approach conditioned in just this way protects the author from simplifying or ideologising themes to which, through his characters, he must assume a standpoint - whether he wishes to or not. Pavol Rankov has nonchalantly thrown down a gauntlet, perhaps the most meaningful challenge to the Slovak novel, which has overstepped the limits of what is allowed.
Alexander Halvoník
