Closely Watched Trains - Penguin Modern Classics
Closely Watched Trains - Penguin Modern Classics
paperback | English
Published:
30 March, 2017
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Description
For gauche young apprentice Milos Hrma, life at the small but strategic railway station in Bohemia in 1945 is full of complex preoccupations. There is the exacting business of dispatching German troop trains to and from the toppling Eastern front; the problem of ridding himself of his burdensome innocence; and the awesome scandal of Dispatcher Hubicka's gross misuse of the station's official stamps upon the telegraphist's anatomy. Beside these, Milos's part in the plan for the ammunition train seems a simple affair.
Closely Watched Trains, which became the award-winning Jiri Menzel film of the 'Prague Spring', is a masterpiece that fully justifies Hrabal's reputation as one of the best Czech writers of the twentieth century.
More Details
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| ISBN13 | 9780241290224 |
| ISBN10 | 0241290228 |
| Number Of Pages | 96 |
| Item Weight | 80 g |
| Product Dimensions | 130 x 197 x 6 mm |
| Publisher / Reseller | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Format | paperback |
Media Reviews
Hrabal bounces and floats. His mode is a sort of dancing realism, somewhere between fairy tale and satire. He is a most sophisticated novelist, with a gusting humour and a hushed tenderness of detail. We should read him -- Julian Barnes
Hrabal, to my mind, is one of the greatest European prose writers -- Philip Roth
One of the most authentic incarnations of magical Prague; an incredible union of earthy humour and baroque imagination... What is unique about Hrabal is his capacity for joy -- Milan Kundera
Hrabal's comedy is completely paradoxical. Holding in balance limitless desire and limited satisfaction, it is both rebellious and fatalistic, restless and wise -- James Wood * London Review of Books *
A poignant, humorous tale * New York Times Book Review *
GoodReads Reviews
Author's Bio
Bohumil Hrabal was one of the most important and admired Czech writers of the twentieth century. He was born and raised in Brno in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914. After working as a railway labourer, insurance agent, travelling salesman, manual labourer, paper-packer and stagehand, he published a collection of poetry that was quickly withdrawn by the communist regime. His best-known books include I Served the King of England, Closely Watched Trains (made into an Academy Award-winning film directed by Jiri Menzel) and Too Loud a Solitude. In 1997, he fell to his death from the fifth floor of a Prague hospital, apparently trying to feed the pigeons.