#839 Ingots- Bohumil Hrabal
Another cold, dreary story about post war eastern Europe. This one is intertwining two spectrum of the suffering decline of the country. One story is giving you the large view, the macrocosm.
“At one end of the spectrum you’ve got one brilliant Jew, Christ, and at the other end you’ve got another genius, Marx. Two specialists in macrocosms, in big pictures. All the rest of it is Mother Goose territory.”
The large view is also represented by the industrial break down and the literal melting of their glorious past and mans of production. “All our good old golden days are being smelted down, and you don’t even know it’s happening.” The ingots of the title are these pieces of smelted old machinery turned into blocks of steel.
The microcosm is a woman needing help, she has been burned, beaten, diseased and taken advantage of, especially by those who first claim to help.
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