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Too Loud a Solitude

by Bohumil Hrabal

Too Loud a Solitude Cover

ISBN13: 9780156904582
ISBN10: 0156904586
Condition: Standard
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Powells.com Staff Pick

This slim little volume is packed with symbolic elements. Hantá, a small man and quintessential dreck-hero, spends his life in a dank cellar where all manner of wastepaper (bloody butcher paper, paint-splattered wallpaper, gorgeous leather-bound tomes) rains down on him from a hole in the street above. While a bitter war between brown and white rats rages in the sewer below, Hantá pushes the red and green buttons of his hydraulic press. Though each bale is a work of art lovingly created, Hantá wonders at the karmic implications of his having crushed so many mice in the course of doing his work. Bohumil Hrabal's use of repeating phrasing and vivid imagery create such a lyrical and moving experience that you'll find yourself rereading many passages again and again.
Recommended by Liz V., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Hanta has been compacting trash for thirty-five years. Every evening he resues books from the jaws of his hydraulic press, carries them home, and fills his house with them. Hanta may be an idiot, as his boss calls him, but he is an idiot with a difference — the ability to quote the Talmud, Hegel, and Lao-tzu.

In this baroque and winsome tale, Hrabal, whom Milan Kundera has called "our very best writer today," celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the written word.

Review:

"[An] absorbing fable about a man who educates himself with the discarded printed matter he collects." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"Hrabal's tale, so finely balanced between pathos and comedy, loses none of its power now that Czechoslovakia is free." Los Angeles Times

Review:

"An irresistibly eccentric romp, quick with the heart's life." New York Times Book Review
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
venusinfauxfurz, May 5, 2007 (view all comments by venusinfauxfurz)
Simply a beautiful story. It grabs you on the first line and lets you down easily on the last.
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Ailana, January 4, 2007 (view all comments by Ailana)
Though brief, this is a powerful, compelling book. The details of the paper recycler's life and art are vivid and will remain with me. Hrabal focuses not only on books but also on the motivation and obsession of the worker/artist and society's response to them. The book is symbolic on so many levels.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780156904582
Author:
Hrabal, Bohumil
Publisher:
Harvest/HBJ Book
Translator:
Heim, Michael Henry
Author:
Heim, Michael Henry
Location:
San Diego
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
General Fiction
Edition Number:
1st Harvest/HBJ ed.
Edition Description:
Harvest/HBJ
Series:
Harvest in translation
Series Volume:
Nr. 4394
Publication Date:
April 1992
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
112
Dimensions:
7.93x5.34x.33 in. .26 lbs.
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