A gem of a book about the aggravations and joys of cats from a literary masterIn the autumn of 1965, flush with the unexpected success of his first published books, the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal bought a weekend cottage in Kersko, about an hour's drive east of Prague. From then until his death, he tended to a community of cats at his country home. Over the years, his relationship to them grew more intense, becoming a measure of the pressures, both private and public, that affected his life as a novelist.Written in 1983, this is his confessional chronicle of what happened. It is the story of how a cat lover becomes increasingly overwhelmed by the demands of his life, and his cats, finding himself driven to the brink of madness by both the indulgent love and the resentment he feels. Moving, shocking and honest, All My Cats invites us to grapple with the meaning of love and loss.
Il volume ripercorre in otto sezioni l'intera produzione hrabaliana offrendo al lettore non solo le opere narrative piu note, ma anche un consistente numero di inediti, un'interessante proposta di scritti sperimentali e giovanili, due poemetti ("La bella Poldi" e "Adagio lamentoso", posti rispettivamente ad apertura e chiusura dell'antologia) e una ricca sezione di interviste. I testi sono corredati da note ad opera di Annalisa Cosentino, docente di Letteratura ceca all'Universita di Udine, utili per orientarsi nella vasta produzione dell'autore e seguirne le complesse vicende editoriali, spesso condizionate dalla censura. Saggio introduttivo di Jiri Pelan.
È raro che un libro riesca come questo a esibire una tale gamma di registri, di storie, di aspirazioni. C'e un erotismo festoso; c'e un'assoluta passione per la vita, per le sue sorprese; c'e la voglia di denaro e di successo come ansia di riconoscimento; c'e la tristezza della vita come delusione e solitudine: c'e una festa di immagini e di poesia.
TOO LOUD A SOLITUDE is a tender and funny story of Hant''a - a man who has lived in a Czech police state - for 35 years, working as compactor of wastepaper and books. In the process of compacting, he has acquired an education so unwitting he can''t quite tell which of his thoughts are his own and which come from his books. He has rescued many from jaws of hydraulic press and now his house is filled to the rooftops. Destroyer of the written word, he is also its perpetuator. But when a new automatic press makes his job redundant there''s only one thing he can do - go down with his ship. This is an eccentric romp celebrating the indestructability- against censorship, political opression etc - of the written word.
Desde hace treinta y cinco años, Hanta trabaja en una trituradora de papel prensando libros y reproducciones de cuadros. En cada una de las balas de papel que prepara conviven libros, litografías, ratoncillos aprisionados y su propio esfuerzo, que se manifiesta en una relacion absolutamente amorosa con los libros que destruye por oficio y salva por pasion. En Una soledad demasiado ruidosa se entrecruzan reflexiones sobre el sentido de la creacion artistica, la evocacion de una soledad existencial totalmente asumida y la complacida exploracion del universo literario. Con la maestria de Kafka o de Hasek , Hrabal hace aparecer con toda su fuerza la magia de una ciudad cuya atmosfera casi indefinible atenaza progresivamente el alma. Y del mismo modo que Hanta jamas olvida algunas de las frases que lee, nosotros conservaremos siempre en la memoria estos fragmentos de belleza arrancados al tiempo que constituyen Una soledad demasiado ruidosa . Especial de Literatura checa
Hanta rescues books from the jaws of his compacting press and carries them home. Hrabal, whom Milan Kundera calls "our very best writer today," celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the written word. Translated by Michael Henry Heim.
As I crammed the cream horn voraciously into my mouth, at once I heard Francins voice saying that no decent woman would eat a cream puff like thatIn a quiet town where not much happens, Maryska, the flamboyant brewers wife, stands out. She cuts her skirt short so that she can ride her bicycle, her golden hair flying out behind her. She butchers pigs. She drinks and eats with relish. And when the garrulous ranconteur Uncle Pepin comes to visit the locals are scandalized even further, in Bohumil Hrabals affecting, exuberant portrayal of a small central European community between the wars. One of the greatest European prose writers Philip RothHrabal combines good humour and hilarity with tenderness Observer
