Synopses & Reviews
Novelist Bohumil Hrabal (191497) was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and spent decades working at a variety of laboring jobs before turning to writing in his late forties. From that point, he quickly made his mark on the Czech literary scene; by the time of his death he was ranked with Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Capek, and Milan Kundera as among the nations greatest twentieth-century writers. Hrabals fiction blends tragedy with humor and explores the anguish of intellectuals and ordinary people alike from a slightly surreal perspective. His work ranges from novels and poems to film scripts and essays.
Rambling On is a collection of stories set in Hrabals Kersko. Several of the stories were written before the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague but had to be reworked when they were rejected by Communist censorship during the 1970s. This edition features the original, uncensored versions of those stories.
Review
"Beautifully illustrated. . . . The stories humorously portray the surreal surroundings of a miniscule mountain community in the midst of a totalitarian regime, creating an exquisite fusion of calamity and comedy."
Review
"The characters . . . ah, these creations are wonderful. . . . The stories are funny and often frivolous, but they also take on a serious and bittersweet tone when broken dreams of what might have been come into play. . . . This collection would be an excellent starting point for a reader wanting an introduction to Hrabal's writing. Very highly recommended."
Review
"An excellent introduction to the great Czech writer, in both content and form: the book is beautifully bound into a cloth cover and features an impressive number of collages by Jirí Grus that illustrate magnificently the whimsy of Hrabal’s prose. The book is a delight to hold and to read."
Synopsis
Hrabals books are distinctive witness to the life of ordinary people only at first glance. In the book, Rambling on await the reader stories set in the popular Hrabals Kersko. The book was filmed in 1983 by Jirí Menzel.
About the Author
Bohumil Hrabal (1914-97) was a celebrated Czech writer whose books include Closely Watched Trains, which was adapted into a film that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film in 1967, I Served the King of England, and Pirouettes on a Postage Stamp.David Short works as a translator, interpreter, and editor, and has authored several Czech textbooks and coauthored a number of publications in the field of linguistics.
Table of Contents
1 The St. Bernard Inn
2 A Moonlit Night
3 Mr. Methie
4 A Feral Cow
5 A Grand Piano Rabbit Hutch
6 Jumbo
7 Mazáneks Wonder
8 The Snowdrop Festival
9 Friends
10 Fining Salami
11 Leli
12 Beatrice
13 Lucy and Polly
14 The Feast
15 Ionic Man
16 Hair Like Pivarníks
17 The Maid of Honour
18 Adagio Lamentoso
19 An Apprentices Guide to the Gift of the Gab
Afterword
Translators Notes