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Attempt to analyze the book ‘Jak zit’ (How to live)

In the beginning, I would like to say I am over seventy years old and that until recently I minded my own business and I was enjoying my well-deserved retirement in Florida. In addition, approximately ten years ago, I established an internet domain ‘www.slintak.com’ but I did not utilize it at all; I do not advertize any product or service, I do not sell anything and I do not intend to educate people in general. My intention was to reserve the name Slintak-dot-com for a possible use by my family members in the future. Then Karel Pexidr published a book ‘Jak zit’.

The author describes the book as “the fact literature, where nothing is made up, everything to the smallest detail reflects real events and situations. The central character is a woman, a mother of three children, an intelligent and harmonious personality”. The next central figure is Franta and that is I. My friend who has read the book before I learned about it advised me not to read it but he did not want to elaborate. He just told me there are serious discrepancies in the book and in general, he described the book as thrash. Of course, I had to read the book but I cannot describe feelings I had while reading it. I do not use four-letter words and decent expressions would never describe my feelings, even if I knew how to use them in this situation.

For the book, ‘Jak zit’ is anything but the ‘fact literature’. The book is a product of a pathologically deranged mind of Anna Marik, a.k.a. Anna Slintak, my ex-wife. I used an expression ‘pathologically deranged mind’. Look at it like this: Somebody who consistently and consciously tell lies about herself, about her children and her parents, who describes all events in her life the way those events never happened; such person deserves to be called pathologically deranged rather then an intelligent and harmonious one.

It occurred to me then, that I could use my internet domain to defend myself against lies my ex-wife put forward in her phony biography. Everything what I write on my web pages is to balance out the book ‘Jak zit’, be it the description of my ham radio shack, the building of a sailboat ‘Beruska’, the discussion of my cooking as well as my life in Florida, or this attempt to analyze the book. In addition, I challenge anybody: You find a discrepancy in what I have written on my web pages you let me know and I will apologize for it and eventually I will correct it. I am not afraid to say this for I know there are no discrepancies there. Everything what I write on my web pages I write in a matter that I should never be afraid to look straight in anybody’s eyes. Obviously, I am talking here about honesty, honor and honorable human character.

Now, it only remains for me to justify the above statements or conclusions.

For the purpose of this discussion, I again will use an endearment term Andulka for my ex-wife, the way I called her for over thirty years. I have met her in a spring of 1957, right before we both graduated from a high school. In addition, from that moment, I was lost to the entire world around me. At that time, without really realizing it, I have created ideas about my own family mostly according to a family created by my parents for my sister and for me. I knew very well how the Second World War affected the family of my parents, how the forceful government action forced my parents to join a collective farm and how that action pushed us to the very edge of starvation. Yet in retrospect, I know I have spent a happy childhood down there in south Moravia thanks to my parents. Do not be surprised that for my future and for my future family I wanted to be the same parent and the same partner as was my father and my mother.
I have met Andulka before I graduated from a high school and I married her in Prague on a second day after I graduated from a university. Then we moved to a region of Karlovy Vary where Andulka would teach in a high school and I would work on a state farm. I will let you look into our marriage and into our family when I let you read a letter Andulka has written to me from a hospital about three years after we were married. She went to the hospital due to an acute case of kidney stones and she just woke up from an anesthesia when she wrote the letter. In that letter, she has opened her heart to me in a way that for more than twenty years I saw her in the light of that letter only. I had that letter in my pocket when we illegally left (then) Czechoslovakia for America about three years later . . . .

A copy of the letter is included as Attachment I, but some parts of it are no longer legible there. I translate the letter as follows:

     “My love, how many days are there left for us? We will use them nicely, won’t we? Let us live reasonably. You do not know how
     much I am embarrassed for some of my behavior. Those were not world greatest sins, but I am sorry when I realize that I hurt
     somebody or caused him/her sorrow; my grandmother, my mother and most of all that I hurt you. Why do we have to hurt somebody
     who is closest to us and who deserves it the least. How many times did I insult you, how many mean words did you hear from me. I am
     very sorry for that. I will say to you something like that again, probably, but believe me that my nature - as hot-tempered as it is, will be
     difficult to change. But believe me that I always will love you. It is sometime against my nature to do something. I am afraid that I
     compromise myself, it is silly I know, but I cannot help it. I feel that your health would not last long. All those trips by the buss, the cold,
     and you do not eat well. My golden boy, tell me we will love each other a lot and all the time and that we will overcome everything. I am
     proud of you and I know for sure you will study well and you will be successful. And if not, it will not matter at all. I would never believe
     I am capable to feel such a strong love for you. I am happy that I married just you, my, my, my golden love, you and our children. I
     would give away myself for all of you. My head is spinning, I hardly see what I write, but I have to write what I feel so strongly.
     . . . . .
     I love my children with no limit but I love you very, very much; I love you so much you can’t even imagine how much. I was very selfish,
     but in the last two years I have changed and I have changed even more now.
     . . . . .
     It’s so wonderful feeling to love children so much. I love our children because they are your children. I see Martin has your inclinations.
     I like that very much. Maybe even Verunka will inherit your prudence and perseverance. I don’t have these properties (but I’m trying to
     have them).”

It is very difficult to say anything after you read a letter like this. So read a letter that Mrs. Marik wrote to my wife, to the same person who wrote the letter you just have read. Mrs. Marik’s letter is included as Attachment II with its translation included there as well. You read both letters, you read my web pages, you know almost everything about me by now and you already have read the book ‘Jak zit’. Therefore, you understand why (1) I could never divorce Andulka, and why (2) Andulka so easily could divorce me. Starting with a divorce, I no longer use the term of endearment for her. Henceforth, she is my ‘ex-wife’ only.

In the book ‘Jak zit’, my ex-wife is very anxious to convince everybody that our divorce was a mutual separation of two people who no longer have common interests and who no longer care about their family. Nothing relates to the truth as remotely as this. The truth is Anna found still a new partner, who was married as well and she has followed him to California. She did not mention this move in her book.

Our divorce was an example how little anybody can achieve by telling lies. Should Anna accept a division of our property the way she initially suggested, she would own maybe 80% of what we have own and the divorce would be over in about three months. I unconditionally accepted what she has suggested; the divorce was so devastating blow to me that I could not care less about something as meaningless as is the property division. However, that was not supposed to happen. Anna hired a divorce attorney and she came back with new property demands. That virtually pushed me to a corner and the circus started right there. It all started in September of 1989 and ended in March 1995, almost six years later. It ended abruptly when a divorce judge got mad at Anna after she explained inconsistencies in her business practices by telling him that she does not understand the math involved and after my attorney made her admit the following:

       - her original profession is a high school teacher,
       - she graduated from a university where her major was math,
       - she taught math at the high school.

A court clerk recorded all this and anybody can verify it.

This affected the judge so much he ended the six years divorce proceedings in about ten minutes and I ended up owning maybe 75% of our original property mainly because the court awarded our home to me. There is a lesson to learn here; do not tell lies in front of the judge.

Approximately in the middle of the divorce proceedings the Court transferred the mater to a Court Referee. I do not include a Referee’s Report here but I can present it upon a request. Also, please remember: The Plaintiff is Anna Slintak and the Defendant is Frantisek Slintak. The Referee’s Report is a lengthy document and I present a few abbreviated parts in Attachment III. Reading the Referee’s Report you can learn about deceitful dealings by the Plaintiff (Anna) and her boyfriend Bab, about Anna’s dishonesty, about suspicious nature of all Anna’s documents, about Anna’s questionable behavior in front of the Court, about Anna’s ridiculous exaggeration in evaluation of the house and the boat, etc. However, you will not find a single negative remark concerning the Defendant Frantisek Slintak there.

It is worth mentioning that Anna hired four attorneys for the divorce proceedings, who ran away from her, one after another; in one case while very loudly screaming at her at the Court lobby “. . . I will no longer tolerate you telling lies to me”.

The Referee’s Report is very ‘mild’ comparing to what the Referee said in the concluding speech. The speech was so scathing and so brutally honest about Anna’s questionable business dealings that everybody present, including Anna’s attorney, felt embarrassed. And what about Anna? She looked with impudence at everybody around her with no sine of remorse. She was always doing that when she was a small one, Anna’s mother used to say.

At this point, you can already judge Anna’s personality according to the letters presented above and according to the Referee’s Report and you can compare it with Anna’s personality presented in her book.

Let me go back to the book. I present a list of discrepancies that I fond in the book as follows:
(Let me say that persons in the book are real people that I identify as follows: Anna is my ex-wife, I am Franta; Martin, Veronika and Peter are my children, etc.)

Page     Text in the book                                 Comments
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7           The author quotes here from                 This quote is from a poem composed by Svatopluk Cech.
             a Josef Vaclav Sladek’s poem              (An example from an English literature would be like saying that a Shakespeare’s play
                                                                        ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

11         Anna claims that her parents farm         Anna’s parents farm consisted of less than 13 acres of land.
             consisted of 76 acres of land.

11         Anna describes her father as a farm       As a little boy I was indirectly connected to Anna’s father's activity. I was about 12 years
             machinery agent.                                   old when my father bought a reaper/harvester. However, the machine was somewhat
                                                                         defective and did not serve us well. I remember my father expressing disappointment over
                                                                         its purchase and he did not talk nice about the salesman involved. I was later quite
                                                                         surprised when I met the salesman as a father of my girlfriend.

11         Anna describes how her father              Nowhere in Vlcnov, Anna’s hometown, is an orchard that have thousands of fruit trees.
             has established orchards that have
             thosands of fruit trees.

19         Anna claims there were hundreads        There were no books nicely stacked in a loft of Anna's home in Vlcnov.
             of books nicely stacked in a loft
             of her home.

19 (*)    Anna describes her involvement            I was there for that event. It was a summer school brake and of course, I was in Vlcnov
             during the harvest. Dad lashed out         where the family was going to harvest barley and I volunteered to help them with the
             with his scythe like a true competitor.     reaping. First, Anna’s father expressed doubts about my ability to know how to do it;
             Anna collected the cereal;                     nevertheless, we all went to the field. There was Anna’s father there, Anna’s mother,
             she hardly could keep pace with him.    Anna and I and Jarka, Anna’s little sister. As is the custom during the harvest, Anna’s father
                                                                         started reaping first and Anna’s mother collected the cereal behind him. I had to wait for
                                                                         them to make a room for me but I could not have helped not to notice that something was
not right. For Anna’s father ‘lashed out with his scythe like a true competitor’. Instead of being nicely put down to the side, the cereal was thrown there haphazardly which made it difficult for Anna’s mother to collect it. She had to put it in order first and afterwards she could collect it. Then it was time for me to start reaping. I knew how to do it and I could handle a scythe almost as skillfully as my father did. I was putting down the cereal nicely and in order so it would be easy to collect. To collect cereal properly, the person who does it has to go backward and using a sickle, the very important tool, she lifts the cereal to her lap and then in about two instances puts it on a binder. Well, Anna was collecting after me but instead of going backward, she was going forward. She was grabbing the cereal by one hand only, she was not using the sickle, and her sickle only hampered her effort. Of course, she could not keep pace with me. It was obvious she does not know what she is doing and that she does not even care to look at her mother to learn how it is being done.

The first person who could not stand it any more was Jarka who was about twelve years old then. She told Anna to go bind sheaves and she started collecting the cereal after me and, surprisingly she was doing a very good job. The next one who could not stand it was Anna’s mother. She stopped her job but she did not say anything for some time. However, what she then said to her husband that is something that keeps still ringing in my ears. “Do you know how much drudgery could you spare me in all those years should you learn how to reap as well as Franta?” That was forthrightness and such a candid admission that I have not expected and it surprised me very much. Anna’s father did not know how to handle a scythe (**) and Anna did not know how to collect cereal after a reaper.

Let me take an opportunity to mention Anna’s mother here. Mrs. Zemek, my ex mother-in-law, is a very distinguished woman. She is hardworking, good-natured and kind-hearted, able housekeeper, she is a most patient and devoted woman that does not deserve insincere and exaggerated praise (including those 76 acres) that Anna shoveled up on her in the book ‘Jak Zit’. It was an honor for me to know her and being able to call her ‘mom’, same as I called my own mother.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So far, I reviewed 19 pages of the book noticing the major discrepancies only, ignoring typos, ignoring Czech grammar errors, etc., and I don’t believe you want me to keep going on and on for all 200 pages. In edition, for me to continue is like fording a deep quagmire facing a fear that the deep mud would soon swallow me. Let me at least mention a few discrepancies that affect me directly.

On Page 52 of the book, Anna claims that it was she, who made a decision to leave the country and it was Franta who reluctantly agreed.

                   - Franta has suggested leaving the country.

On Page 132 Anna talks about huge problems Franta encountered when he was launching his boat. “What jinx was there at Franta’s heels,
                       what hellish phantom would not grant him enjoyment of the job well done?"

                   - Anna was not there when Franta has launched the Beruska. Anicka helped Franta with the launch and with finishing of the
                       boat. Please go visit my WebPages concerning Beruska and judge for yourself. Would you think it could be Anna’s envy
                       that made her talk about jinx and hellish phantoms just because she could not have enjoyed sailing Beruska with Franta?

On Page 135 Anna talks about both her and Franta’s desire to fly, the desire that resulted in their flying career. In other words she claims
                       she has a pilot license.

                   - Franta obtained a pilot license both in (then) Czechoslovakia and in the USA. Anna has never flown as a student pilot and
                       she has never obtained a pilot license.

On many Pages Anna emphasizes her ambitions for a scientific carrier in math as well as her achievements in a university during the math
                       classes.

                   - I already mentioned how Anna embarrassed herself in front of the Divorce Judge. Try to remember; she asserted
                      there she does not understand the math involved in her real estate business. Can you imagine at all that a high
                      school math teacher declares under oath she does not understand math? It takes lot of courage to do that. It
                      takes at least as much courage as it takes to write the book ‘Jak zit’.

                   - Anna could not graduate from the university with the rest of her class because she did not pass the final examination. She
                      graduated later after she has repeated the examination.

I am almost done with this 'analysis' but I would like to say a few words concerning my children. For a long time I was sorry that we did not teach them to speak Czech fluently. They can get along in a Czech envirnment but they have problems reading Czech. It does not bather me any more, however. Should they be able to read the book ‘Jak zit’ and should they have learned how their mother has heaped phony praises on them they would feel embarrassed for the rest of their lives. The same applies to my grandchildren as well.

When I look back over what wrote so far and when I think about it I have many feelings but none of them is a feeling of a ‚job well done‘. I hope you understand what I mean. I also believe that I convinced you that Anna Marik told lies in her book. Anna Marik told lies, Karel Pexidr repeated the lies and he published them trying to tell his readers he is publishing facts. Only the most despicable people can do that; Anna Marik and Karel Pexidr, that is.

Frantisek Slintak, January 2010
(fslintak@hotmail.com)

Note: I present a list of blunders found in the book in Attachment IV. Note that it is a partial list only. The complete list would take too
          much space to compile and as for myself, I am already tired of doing this. It is a true endless job.

(*)   A verbatim translation of the text on page 19 is as follows:

      “Dad’s reaction was his own. With a gloomy forehead and with a few helpers he himself would go to a field during the harvest to show
       how only he can pull. He lashed out with his scythe like a true competitor. Anna, when she once collected cereals by him and was
       binding sheaves - and that job is certainly less demanding as to the speed and swiftness of motion - she hardly could keep pace with
       him.”

       Please compare how Franta has described the same situation (see the Page 19 event above).

       Same way Anna describes every event in the book, be it a childhood event or an event from her studies in Olomouc or an event from
       America. Each event that Anna describes she twists it beyond recognition or she plainly fabricates it. Well, if you are not tired reading
       all this go look at Attachment V. You can take a closer look at Franta’s and Anna’s household there.

(**) I look over what I have just written and I realize what a true divine justice is expressed behind those lines. Look at it with me. In the first
        place, I have learned to harvest cereals using a scythe mainly because a mechanical reaper we had on our farm was somewhat
        defective and therefore my father and me had to reap cereals laboriously by hand for days during the harvest, instead of driving a horse
        team pulling the reaper. Then an agent who sold the reaper to my father would later express doubts about my ability to handle a scythe.
        However, it became obvious that the agent cannot handle the scythe properly and his wife would reproach him in front of his children.