by Bohumil Hrabal
“… for him (the writer), everybody was a good man, who frequents pubs. ..” That is my favorite quote and a good summary of Hrabal’s life, who reportedly drank a lot of beer. Look at the pictures on wikipedia.
Are the Czechs really as we picture them in our prejudices? Bohumil Hrabal seems to be in the same tradition of other famous Czech writers, Hašek or Čapek come to my mind. At least their sense of humor and how they take on life are pretty similar. In German we even call it “Švejkian” humor after the main character in Hašek’s novel. This special humor consists in pretending to be an idiot while apparently trying to comply with some sort of authority. The most effective way to be subversive.
Sorry, I did not talk about the book yet, or only indirectly, since it is exactly that characteristic touch, which makes it so funny and foremost all – human. It is a kind of an auto-biography of the ordinary scenes of life. Never boring, always to the point. The story is told by his wife, which gives the narrative a credible honesty. It starts when Hrabal published his first book and he became unexpectedly famous. And it ends some years after the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. There is no heroism, all the opposite, he shits in his pants just thinking that he will be arrested by the new communists. He is also afraid of death, he overreacts when he spends some time in a hospital. On the other hand, his wife complains on every other page that he comes home drunk. Just read it! if you like to go to pubs, you will find it very funny.
Are the Czechs really as we picture them in our prejudices? Bohumil Hrabal seems to be in the same tradition of other famous Czech writers, Hašek or Čapek come to my mind. At least their sense of humor and how they take on life are pretty similar. In German we even call it “Švejkian” humor after the main character in Hašek’s novel. This special humor consists in pretending to be an idiot while apparently trying to comply with some sort of authority. The most effective way to be subversive.
Sorry, I did not talk about the book yet, or only indirectly, since it is exactly that characteristic touch, which makes it so funny and foremost all – human. It is a kind of an auto-biography of the ordinary scenes of life. Never boring, always to the point. The story is told by his wife, which gives the narrative a credible honesty. It starts when Hrabal published his first book and he became unexpectedly famous. And it ends some years after the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. There is no heroism, all the opposite, he shits in his pants just thinking that he will be arrested by the new communists. He is also afraid of death, he overreacts when he spends some time in a hospital. On the other hand, his wife complains on every other page that he comes home drunk. Just read it! if you like to go to pubs, you will find it very funny.
Facts:
English title: n/a
Original title: Proluky
Published: 1986
