Radio Prague International named Bohumil Hrabal’s Too Loud a Solitude one of its Czech Books You Must Read. It’s an insightful and informative post that I highly recommend. Here’s a comment about the book from Esther Peters, Associate Director of the Center for East European and Russian Studies at the University of Chicago: “The world […]
Tag: Bohumil Hrabal
In my post on Rambling on: An Apprentice’s Guide to the Gift of the Gab by Bohumil Hrabal I mentioned that Jiří Menzel had directed a movie based on those stories set in the Kresko settlement of Bohemia. I finally watched a copy of the movie with English subtitles and I found it almost as […]
I had more quotes from the recently released Rambling on: An Apprentice’s Guide to the Gift of Gab by Bohumil Hrabal that I didn’t mention, but I didn’t want the post to run too long. I stumbled across a copy of Hrabal’s 1966 story collection The Death of Mr. Baltisberger (sometimes titled The World Cafeteria) […]
Rambling on: An Apprentice’s Guide to the Gift of the Gab by Bohumil Hrabal English translation by David Short Afterword by Václav Kadlec Illustrations by Jiří Grus Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press ISBN: 978-80-246-2316-0 Dear colleagues and friends, On the occasion of 100th anniversary of Bohumil Hrabal’s birth, we would like to present two […]
Another post from the Institute of Contemporary Arts recordings. This one is from May 17, 1990, with Julian Barnes introducing and conversing (through a translator) with Bohumil Hrabal (unfortunately the link to the conversation no longer works). The “conversation” is a little disjointed at times because of the need for translation, changes in plans on […]
Yet another preorder…I’ve fallen off the wagon on limiting my purchases. Not that I’m complaining, too much. Harlequin’s Millions by Bohumil Hrabal (translated from the Czech by Stacey Knecht) is scheduled to be released by Archipelago Books later this year. An excerpt can be found at Asymptote journal.
Continuing with my sort-of-bi-weekly foreign movie posts for this year… For more foreign movies, check out Caroline’s World Cinema Series 2012 and Richard’s monthly Foreign Film Festival round-up. The IMDb.com page for this movie can be found here. Bohumil Hrabal has been a favorite author of mine recently. Adapted for the screen by Hrabal and […]
Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabil Translation by Michael Henry Heim Harcourt Brace & CompanyI have enjoyed the works of Bohumil Hrabal to date and that streak continues with Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age. An 117-page sentence from an old shoemaker/brewmaster to some young ladies (he directly addresses them […]
From the back cover of the New Directions edition: First published in 1971 as a typewritten edition, then finally printed in book form in 1989, I served the King of England is a comic novel telling the tale of Ditie, a hugely ambitious but simple waiter in a deluxe Prague hotel in the years before […]
A Christmas Eve entry in the series of excerpts from Bohumil Hrabal’s fantastic tale, where the unbelievable routinely comes true. At times the plot feels like a rickety framework on which to hang anecdotes such as the following…not that I’m complaining. While in the prison for millionaires (more on this in the next post), Ditie […]
Bohumil Hrabal’s fantastic tale takes a dark turn as World War II begins. Ditie loses his job in Prague when he falls in love with a German. Even as Hrabal describes an absurd setting, an ugly edge creeps in with his humor. I’m providing another long excerpt to give an idea of his blending the […]
I wanted to pass on this extended quote from Bohumil Hrabal’s I Served the King of England because it captures the element of his comic madness. Ditie, a (short in stature) waiter-in-training at the Golden Prague Hotel and Restaurant, asks a traveling salesman representing a tailoring firm from Padubice why he cuts strips of parchment […]
After seeing glowing reviews of the works of Bohumil Hrabal, I thought I would read one of his books. Expect to see several more posts on his works over the next few months—I thoroughly enjoyed Too Loud a Solitude. Welcome to the world of Haňtá, a trash compactor in Prague, turning out compressed bales of […]
Given how things are going right now I need to remind myself, per Steven Riddle, William Michaelian and other wonderful book bloggers…I need to remind myself to take time out to enjoy and appreciate the wonders around me. This includes the pleasures from books… Because when I read, I don’t really read; I pop a […]