#866 A Betrayal of Mirrors- Bohumil Hrabal

#866 A Betrayal of Mirrors- Bohumil Hrabal

The things we believe in keep us going. But what if it’s all a myth. Working for God and country is the drive of many people, but it could also be their undoing. We see a stonemason as a hard working man, literally working his fingers to the bone to remove commemorative plaques in one wall of a church just to re-attach them on another, all for the glory of the nation.

We also see an artist, temperamental and odd, but no less sacrificing in his work. He has been working night and day, to the point of being physically ill to create his latest piece of art, one that will be destroyed anyway, again, all for the glory of the state. Their sacrifice is to be looked on in envy by the rest of he public. Images and ethics to strive towards.

“The best minds in the country are sacrificing themselves…So am I. I’m educating the nation not to jump off moving streetcars.”

Rating: 7-8-7-7 Total= 29

#839 Ingots- Bohumil Hrabal

#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. 

Rating: 7-8-8-7 Total= 30

#810 The Angel- Bohumil Hrabal

#810 The Angel- Bohumil Hrabal

We slip once again behind the steel curtain early in the cold war. In an industrial waste setting, steel workers toil side by side with female prisoners. The workers get paid, and move freely in and out of the site but do the same work. Lenka, a prisoner befriends Mr. Hulikan and clings to him for a sense of hope and normalcy. Her despair and bitterness is momentarily silenced in small examples of human interaction. Given the circumstances anybody can be a guardian angel.

Notable Passage: “A stack of disabled typewriters, the consequence, he assumed, of a direct hit if a typewriter factory, their keys grinning in the sunlight like teeth in a dead man’s soul.”

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32

#782 Strange People- Bohumil Hrabal

#782 Strange People- Bohumil Hrabal

We are in a cold war factory, industrial, metallic, gray, bleak. The workers are told they have new higher quotas and they refuse to work until they see their shop steward. All quotas are supposed to be negotiated with the workers, but they aren’t. A theory of communism in practice is played out and workers rights as always are put to the test.

“If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other…Good advice for a saint, but a worker? If he doesn’t go straight for the solar plexus, he’s doomed.”

The problem with communism, especially in cold war eastern Europe was that few of the theories of worker-led production ever materialized. The hierarchies still existed and the workers were in poorer conditions than ever, but the slogans made it sound good. In practice the pride and patriotism was a murky thing at best and literally a propaganda film at times.

Notable Passage: “We can make a living here boys, but we can’t make a life.”

Rating: 7-7-8-7 Total= 29

#754 Mr. Kafka- Bohumil Hrabal

#754 Mr. Kafka- Bohumil Hrabal

Mr. Kafka: And Other Tales From the Time of the Cult (of personality) has only recently been published in English. Mostly written in Czechoslovakia in the 1950’s when Prague was still recovering from the war and a Stalinist government was reeking havoc on their culture. There is something both dark and intensely human about these stories, something that could only be crated behind the Iron Curtain. 

“This book is an expression not only of my own evolution, but of a part of society’s evolution as well, a society I live is that, like me, wishes to live in habitations where humor and the possibility of metaphysical escape reign supreme.”

There is such an intensity of mood and a richness of language that comes from oppression. But creativity will never be suppressed. This reads like a cold war echo of Henry Miller, living a wild life that’s both surreal and intently deliberate. Of course you have to love a story that references both Kafka and Job.

Notable Passage: “It’s good to live in anxiety, good to hear one’s teeth chatter in fear, good to push life to the brink of ruin and start fresh the next morning. It’s also good to part forever and praise misfortune.”

Rating: 9-9-9-9 Total= 36