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Magic From Prague
| Article
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17495 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1990 |
2,989 Words |
| Author
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Arnost Lustig
Arnost Lustig is a Czech novelist whose books include Darkness
Casts No Shadow, Diamonds of the Night, and A Prayer for
Katerina Horovitzova. He teaches literature and film at
American University. |
PRILIS HLUCNA SAMOTA
(TOO LOUD A SOLITUDE)
Samizdat edition
Prague, Czechoslovakia
This fall, American readers will be treated to Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal's Too Loud a Solitude. It is the story of a man who is sent with others so-called unreliables by the proletarian state of Czechoslovakia to destroy confiscated books and paintings. Before the books are destroyed, however, their souls penetrate the souls of the "unreliables," who are touched by the most noble of ideas. The paper shredders become the companions of Socrates and Plato, Sophocles, Aristotle, Confucius, Moses, Jesus, Freud, Franz Kafka -the endless richness of human life.
Too Loud a Solitude is in the form of a passionate confession, a monologue by the main character, Hrabal's alter ego. Other voices appear as quotations. The structure is repetitious, almost like a musical composition, but it is literature. It is his best book. Even Hrabal agrees. It contains the essence of his life and the essence of civilization as he has perceived it.
In one passage Hrabal tells of books from monasteries where books were collected for centuries. These books will be destroyed in a day. And they are beautiful books that were hand painted. The protagonist feels the pain of these books, and he knows there is no substitute for them. And without his saying it, the books that are destroyed remind us of the people that were destroyed by communism. This is what is written but unwritten.
It is an unforgettable book. Each of Hrabal's books has some mystery, but through this one, Hrabal has entered the league of the world's best writers. Too Loud a Solitude was never published in Czechoslovakia except in samizdat, but it will be published there soon under the auspices of the newly formed Society for Bohumil Hrabal (for Czechs, Hrabal is almost a national hero) as well as in America by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Outliving the Censors
Hrabal started his literary career as a poet relatively late in life. Born in 1914, he collected his first poems in a tiny volume called Little Lost Street in 1948. But the book never reached the public, and all that remains are the galley proofs. His next collection of poems, Flowerbud, also went to a
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