Bohumil Hrabal

Funny, absurd, sad, ultimately tragic and at the same time affirmational, this story of Hanta is one of the great celebrations of the human spirit and of the transcendent value of art and beauty.  (It is also a sly and delightful satire on totalitarian attempts to control what we read, think, and feel.) Hrabal is one of the most delightful and unpredictable writers of all time, and for all that this book takes place in a filthy cellar with the background noises of rats fighting in the sewers, it is an exhilarating and uplifting hymn to the beauty and worth of the human spirit.

Too Loud a Solitude

Hrabal’s writing is unbelievable. He transforms the mundane into sheer brilliance, managing to make every repeated scenario feel novel. Often humorous, sometimes sentimental, even shocking. Several passages knocked the air out of me.

It’s been days since I finished this and I am still thinking about it.

Annie Millman

Well. It’s perfect

Hrabal’s writing is unbelievable. He transforms the mundane into sheer brilliance, managing to make every repeated scenario feel novel. Often humorous, sometimes sentimental, even shocking. Several passages knocked the air out of me.

It’s been days since I finished this and I am still thinking about it.

fleeting moments of plain painful prose and passages are few and far between. bit of a drag to read

weli 

fleeting moments of plain painful prose and passages are few and far between. bit of a drag to read


Dělník ve sběrně starého papíru Haňťa pracuje pětatřicet let ve sklepení sběrny u stařičkého lisu. Z hromad starého papíru zachraňuje vzácné knihy a shromažďuje je ve svém pokojíku, čte si v nich a tak je "proti své vůli vzdělán". Celá novela je vlastně vnitřní Haňťův monolog, psaný sonátovou formou se spoustou stále se vracejících motivů. Čtenář se seznámí s Haňťovou první láskou Mančinkou i cikánkou Ilonkou, která zmizela v koncentračním táboře. Je svědkem každodenního zápasu s horami papíru i s nekonečnými džbány piva, vyslyší Haňťovy citace filozofů i jeho sny o důchodu, do kterého si odvede i vysloužilý mechanický lis.

Příliš hlučná samota

ellis

Amanda S

I read this novella in one sitting, while on holiday in Prague, and immediately re-read it. An incredible read about Communist-era Prague and literatures threat against oppressive regimes. My favourite part has to be this: 
"How much more beautiful it must have been in the days when the only place thought could make its mark was the human brain and anybody wanting to squelch ideas had to compact human heads, but even that wouldn't have helped, because real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself."

This parable of censorship and the modern state centers on Hanta, a trash collector whose habit of salvaging and reading discarded books has brought him both the richness of the classics and the ridicule of his boss

Rebecca Thornber

Klára Lišková

A fable about the power of books and knowledge, “finely balanced between pathos and comedy,” from one of Czechoslovakia’s most popular authors (Los Angeles Times). A New York Times Notable Book Haňtá has been compacting trash for thirty-five years. Every evening, he rescues books from the jaws of his hydraulic press, carries them home, and fills his house with them. Haňtá 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 “irresistibly eccentric romp,” the author Milan Kundera has called “our very best writer today” celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the written word (The New York Times Book Review).

Too Loud a Solitude

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