Poll
Which work of fiction would you like to read with the group during October 2017?
Poll added by: Ally
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Having been up for less than a day it looks as though we have our winner. Five votes is usually enough to win, so almost certain that Cakes and Ale will win the Oct poll...Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham 5 votes, 71.4%
Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal 1 vote, 14.3%
Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann 1 vote, 14.3%
The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton 0 votes, 0.0%
Closely Watched Trains sounds very good and my library has both the book and the film, so I will read/watch those. But I've been wanting to read Cakes and Ale for years now, so I voted for that. Our group always has so many interesting choices!
Yes indeed Barbara. I have just ordered the film version of Closely Watched Trains and am really looking forward to it. An Oscar winner in 1966.
I haven't read Cakes and Ale for years, so, although there are some good choices (Closely Watched Trains also looked very good, as did the Rosamond Lehmann) I am unable to refuse a chance to read Maugham...I like the look of some of the non-fiction choices too, but I just can't commit to reading two books next month. Too many books, too little time.
I have no willpower where books are concerned. Having said I couldn't fit in the non-fiction choice, I have since started, "Letters from a lost generation," and am loving it, although it is almost unbearably sad and poignant.
Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal
It's a mere 84 pages
A classic of postwar literature, a small masterpiece of humour, humanity and heroism from one of the best Czech writers
For twenty-two-year-old Milos, bumbling apprentice at a sleepy Czech railway station, life is full of worries: his burdensome virginity, his love for the pretty conductor Masha, the scandalous goings-on in the station master's office. Beside them, the part he will come to play against the occupying Germans seems a simple affair, in Bohumil Hrabal's touching, absurd masterpiece of humour, humanity and heroism.
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.
* Closely Watched Trains * by Bohumil Hrabal
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I've already read it and here's what I made of it......
For a book that is a mere 84 pages, and beautifully reissued in the wonderful Penguin Modern Classics imprint, it packs a heck of a lot in.
22 year old Milos, is a depressed apprentice with low self esteem who works at a small and sleepy Czech railway station during the last months of World War 2. His life is full of worries: his failure to consummate his relationship with the pretty conductor Masha, the scandalous - and highly amusing - goings-on in the station master's office, his paranoia, and his family’s unpopularity in the community.
Closely Watched Trains' is beautifully written (and translated) and is yet another example of just how good east European literature there is from the mid 20th century. Other examples I have enjoyed include 'The Good Soldier Švejk' by Jaroslav Hašek the work of Stefan Zweig, and I could doubtless remember a few more if I had more time to ponder it.
This is an accomplished, moving, funny, compassionate, unusual, and informative novel with a strong sense of time and place. It’s so enjoyable that I am moving straight on with another book by Bohumil Hrabal, 'Cutting It Short'.
4/5
Click here to give my review a like
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Bohumil Hrabal met a rather tragic end...
Suicide or accident?: The Death of the Sad King of Czech Literature, Bohumil Hrabal...
When Bohumil Hrabal either jumped or fell from a fifth floor window of Prague’s Bulovka Hospital while feeding pigeons at 2:30 p. m. on February 3, 1997, it marked the end of a phenomenal literary career spanning six decades and contributing enormously to Czech culture. His death from the fifth floor has an undoubted symbolic dimension, whether sought or merely coincidental: In his works he wrote about philosophers and writers who had jumped to their deaths from the fifth storey and even confessed that he sometimes wanted to jump from the fifth floor window of his flat. Whether he did jump or whether he fell will forever remain a mystery. Yet one thing was for certain. The sad king of Czech literature was dead.
The rest of the article is here...
https://www.private-prague-guide.com/...
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I'm now about 30 pages into another book by Bohumil Hrabal called 'Cutting It Short', and it's another vivid and imaginative tale.
A different vibe to 'Closely Watched Trains' and, so far, a joyous interwar tale narrated by vivacious, carefree and sensual Maryska, married to Francin, who runs the local brewery, and is perpetually appalled at his wife's style and conduct...
“As I crammed the cream horn voraciously into my mouth, at once I heard Francin’s voice saying no decent woman would eat a cream puff like that.”
Bohumil Hrabal - another great BYT era writer