Born in Brno-Židenice, Moravia, he lived briefly in Polná, but was raised in the Nymburk brewery as the manager's stepson.
Hrabal received a Law degree from Prague's Charles University, and lived in the city from the late 1940s on.
He worked as a manual laborer alongside Vladimír Boudník in the Kladno ironworks in the 1950s, an experience which inspired the "hyper-realist" texts he was writing at the time.
His best known novels were Closely Watched Trains (1965) and I Served the King of England. In 1965 he bought a cottage in Kersko, which he used to visit till the end of his life, and where he kept cats ("kočenky").
He was a great storyteller; his popular pub was At the Golden Tiger (U zlatého tygra) on Husova Street in Prague, where he met the Czech President Václav Havel, the American President Bill Clinton and the then-US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright on January 11th, 1994.
Several of his works were not published in Czechoslovakia due to the objections of the authorities, including The Little Town Where Time Stood Still (Městečko, kde se zastavil čas) and I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále).
He died when he fell from a fifth floor hospital where he was apparently trying to feed pigeons. It was noted that Hrabal lived on the fifth floor of his apartment building and that suicides by leaping from a fifth-floor window were mentioned in several of his books.
He was buried in a family grave in the cemetery in Hradištko. In the same grave his mother "Maryška", step father "Francin", uncle "Pepin", wife "Pipsi" and brother "Slávek" were buried.
He wrote with an expressive, highly visual style, often using long sentences; in fact his work Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age (1964) (Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé) is made up of just one sentence. Many of Hrabal's characters are portrayed as "wise fools" - simpletons with occasional or inadvertent profound thoughts - who are also given to coarse humour, lewdness, and a determination to survive and enjoy oneself despite harsh circumstances. Political quandaries and their concomitant moral ambiguities are also a recurrent theme.
Along with Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Čapek and Milan Kundera - who were also imaginative and amusing satirists - he is considered one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century. His works have been translated into 27 languages.
Hantá rescues books from the jaws of his compacting press and carries them home. Hrabal, whom Milan Kundera calls “our very best writer today,” celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the written word. Translated by Michael Henry Heim.
最起码,没有发明比人的语言牛的东西。 从人格的形成上看,主人公从废纸中汲取的文字营养和今天从互联网上看到的营养似乎也没有什么区别。似乎他老人家这种学习方式比我们今天的学校教育在最基础的方面还要先进很多。
评分这本书教会我最有用的,莫过于书中提到最多的一句:天道不仁慈,有头脑的人也不仁慈。因为这不符合常理。而常理就是在下水道里永远战斗不停的两个鼠族,为残渣剩饭,为腐烂的废物,为横流的污水,为一切的一切,不停撕咬征战永不止歇。一旦一方胜利,便又立马分化为两个阵营继...
评分正像对布罗茨基既爱又恨一样,对赫拉巴尔我也是既爱又恨。 爱的是那种稠密度和稠密度中的灵性一闪,恨的是它们又把一张张书页流淌得密密麻麻、疾风不透。 简单点说,我不太喜欢的是这种几页、十几页、几十页都不分段的行文。按我老家的俗语,这是狗喝面条一连汤儿。不过我还...
评分正像对布罗茨基既爱又恨一样,对赫拉巴尔我也是既爱又恨。 爱的是那种稠密度和稠密度中的灵性一闪,恨的是它们又把一张张书页流淌得密密麻麻、疾风不透。 简单点说,我不太喜欢的是这种几页、十几页、几十页都不分段的行文。按我老家的俗语,这是狗喝面条一连汤儿。不过我还...
评分I can be by myself because I'm never lonely,I'm simply alone, living in my heavily populated solitude,a harum-scarum of infinity and eternit
评分英译版不如中译版
评分一本爱书人的书,如诗歌一样优美。我想象着在布拉格红顶房子某处地下室,三十五年如一日独自一人的枯燥,却有耶稣、老子显灵,吉卜赛女孩、康德的Metaphysics of Morals 和黑格尔、尼采、伦勃朗、梵高(的复制品)伴随,一摞摞的废纸消失也就仿佛没那么残忍。“I am alone but not lonely”, 因为有书陪伴。爱看书,有时是对现实的逃避,但更多是寄希望与我们的生活也会因为书发生更好地变化吧。不过作者其实心中早就如那希绪弗斯一样了吧,虽然只提了两次加缪。
评分Translated by Michael Henry Heim.读的很艰难。baler的生活。
评分还没被生活毒打过的人表示这本书很难relate to。
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