The Twelve Little Cakes

by Dominika Dery

Overview

The Twelve Little Cakes is equal parts testimony to the struggles of a bygone era and a love letter to a joy-filled childhood that no external forces could dim.

In a village on the outskirts of Prague, full of gossipy neighbors, state informants, friendly old "grandmothers," and small-town prejudices, Dominika Dery grows up a self-possessed child, whose openness and curiosity often lead her, and her family, into trouble. Yet the love, pride, and quirky ingenuity that bind them together will guarantee their survival-and ultimately their happiness-through the best and worst of times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440628313
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/04/2005
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	509 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dominika Dery, also known as Dominika Furmanová, is a Czech journalist and writer, having published works of poetry, drama, and a memoir.

Hometown:

Sydney, NSW, Australia and Cernosice, Prague, Czech Republic

Date of Birth:

March 7, 1975

Place of Birth:

Prague, Czech Republic

Education:

State Conservatory of Prague, Czech Republic, and Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq, Paris, France

Reading Group Guide

1. The Twelve Little Cakes begins the year before Dominika is born, when she appears to her mother, Jana, in dreams. Later, when Jana is trying to conceive, a wise factory worker tells her to leave matters in the hands of "the little god," a powerful character in Czech fairy tales. Is the credence given to dreams, superstition, and folklore particular to Dominika's family or simply typical of Czech traditions? Discuss the references to superstitions and fairy tales throughout the book.

2. In chapter 4, Jana tells Dominika the story of the Czech hero Jan Hus, a figure invoked in times of struggle. What traits turned Jan Hus into such a potent symbol for the Czech people? Do his courage and sacrifice find resonance in anyone in Dominika's story?

3. Dominika's first experience with loss occurs when her neighbors, whom she refers to as her three grandmothers, "go away." Yet only with the death of Barry, the family's St. Bernard, does Dominika begin to grasp the lasting implications of death and how lives are changed by it. Compare your own early memories of loss with Dominika's. Describe how these early losses influenced your outlook and hers. Compare Dominika's loss of her three "grandmothers" with the absence of her maternal grandparents.

4. Jana's parents, members of the Communist Party elite, disown their daughter when she marries Jarda, a member of the working class. Discuss other examples of hypocrisy found among Communist officials in The Twelve Little Cakes. Do you think Dominika was right to force a confrontation between her mother and her grandparents? Might there have been a reconciliation under other circumstances, with less impulsiveness and more careful consideration, or were Jana and her parents too far apart ideologically? Is forgiveness truly a possibility when one is living under a tyrannical regime?

5. While auditioning for the preparatory school of the National Theatre Ballet Company, Dominika reflects, "Even though we were only six or seven years old, everyone in the group knew that the school accepted only one student in ten, and each of us desperately wanted to be chosen." Discuss the political culture that gave rise to this desperation and the pressure for young children to compete and achieve. Is Dominka's motivation that of her peers? What accounts for her particular brand of determination?

6. A poster bearing the slogan "Religion Is the Opiate of the Masses!" hangs in Dominika's classroom, and the headmistress, Comrade Humlova, preaches that religion is superstition. Despite this, and despite the fact that her parents are not religious, Dominika attends church and even manages to be baptized and receive communion. Why is Dominika drawn to Catholicism and its rituals? Discuss why a socialist regime would view religion as dangerous, and cite examples from recent history of religious practice that has survived despite oppression.

7. After falling ill, Dominika is diagnosed with dysentery, but when the Furmans seek medical help, they are told that dysentery does not exist under the socialist health care system. Still, there is an entire ward full of children similarly afflicted in the Infection Pavilion of the Prague hospital where Dominika is treated. Discuss the Orwellian use of "official language" and socialist euphemisms to conceal actual conditions throughout the book.

8. When Jana has an emotional breakdown, her husband exhorts her to be an optimist. She responds, "An optimist? You know what an optimist is? An optimist is a pessimist without information." Do you agree with this view? Was there a place for optimism in the Czechoslovakia of the late 1970s and early 1980s? Were there signs of hope on the horizon? Discuss the differing views of the family's prospects, as seen through Jana's eyes and her husband's.

9. Discuss the differences between the Polish children Dominika meets on vacation and the children in her Prague neighborhood and school. Discuss the differences between the Furman's neighbors and the Polish couple who take them in when the Furman's car breaks down. What accounts for the differences between the two communist countries?

10. The Twelve Little Cakes ends with Dominika and her parents driving home from their mishap-filled vacation in Poland (actually, they must push their broken-down car over the border). Dominika observes, "This was the country of little cakes and sausages," which is similar to the statement she makes at the beginning of the book: "When I think of my childhood, I think of little cakes and sausages, because they were symbolic of the way we lived under communism." Why does the author choose little cakes and sausages as a symbol of life in a communist society?

Editorial Reviews

… this ramble through a childhood that remained full of pleasure and affection despite the efforts of the communist regime is well worth taking.
— The Washington Post

Juliet Wittman

Poet/playwright Dery makes her English-language debut with a disarmingly sweet and savvy memoir of growing up in Czechoslovakia during the late 1970s and early '80s. She was born in 1975, during the years after the Prague Spring, when life was unpleasant for dissenters like her father. The Dery family (Dominika had one sister) lived in a small town outside Prague. Her mother wrote books for the Economic Ministry, for which others took credit; her father, an economist, took jobs where he could find them, working as a taxi driver for many of the seven years covered here. "Together they had a rare combination: incorruptibility and willingness to fight," writes their daughter. "While life may have been a lot harder than it needed to be, it was the life they had chosen, and they had few regrets." Dery inherited her father's optimism, conveyed in the lovely, childlike pitch and enthusiasm of her prose, and the writing is blessedly free of political moralizing. The family may have been shunned by the community, surrounded by informers, and teetering on the edge of insolvency, but, hey, they owned a St. Bernard that was a film star-beloved by the nation, but unfortunately underpaid. They lived by their wits, making all manner of under-the-table deals that enabled them, for example, to get sole ownership of their house away from the mother's parents (party hardliners who had disowned them) and to send Dery through the ranks of ballet school (a bastion for the party elite). The author's sly humor is evident throughout: she comments on her older sister's developing figure, making witty use of the word in Czech that means both "goat" and "breast"; and she skewers a local busybody who "spoke too fast,running his words into each other. It often sounded like he was speaking Hungarian." Life is hard, and then you laugh-if, like this author, you are wily enough, self-possessed enough, and love the ones you're with as they love you back. Agents: Shannon O'Keefe, Julie Barer/Sandford J. Greenburger Associates

Kirkus Reviews