Proluky

trilogie #2

by Bohumil Hrabal

Czech

Genres: Czech Literature, Fiction

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

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.

Reviews

[James Klagge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once Milan Kundera was my favorite Czech author. And I do love "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "The Joke." But traveling in the Czech Republic in 1999 and 2004 I was surprised to learn he was not so popular there. (ULB was not even in-print in Czech for many years until recently.) Mostly I think because he was an expat who moved to France in 1975, became a French citizen, and began to write in French. But he is also not typically Czech in style. Czechs don't identify with him the way they do with writers like Hrabal or Hasek. When I expressed my admiration of Kundera, I was told I should try Hrabal.
Hrabal and his character Hrabal, like Hasek and his character Svejk, are inveterate palaverers. (Kundera is more of a philosopher.) Palavering is a Czech hobby, mostly occuring in the pub. Hrabal's novels do not have much of a plot--but they have story lines. It is in the stories and how they are told that the interest lies. If you don't love the words, you won't love the books. So it is amazing to me that the charm survives translation from Czech to English. There are big differences between the languages that make translation problematic. And both Hasek's and Hrabal's novels have been called untranslatable. So I'm sure there is much to admire in this translation. Or else Hrabal's way with words transcends his way with Czech.
This autobiographical novel is told from the point of view of Hrabal's wife. It takes place in the years just before and after the 1968 Prague Spring and the Soviet reaction. At the end they are moving out of their old apartment, and she looks around and recalls many scenes portrayed in his novels. She concludes:
"I stood here dazzled by those images I thought were long gone and buried in the past, I stood here in the little courtyard and as plain as day could recount that life of mine, from the moment I first set foot here and saw that man through the open twilit window washing floors, that man who was to be my husband, I saw myself in those days before we met, as the woman who had wanted to commit suicide, but once I was with my husband I had neither the time nor the inclination for such thoughts, for over the years my husband had so engaged me, frustrated and enraged me, that I had even forgot to have a child of my own, my husband was enough of a handful...I shrugged, what can you do? In tears I ran down the stairs, to smudge my sleeves on the peeling walls one last time..." (I did not insert the ellipses.)

[Vasko Genev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Не зная как е най-точно да се преведе Proluky. Директният превод би следвало да бъде "Празен парцел".

https://cs.wiktionary.org/w/index.php...

https://www.nechybujte.cz/slovnik-sou...

Английският превод е Gaps, нямам идея, защо е в множествено число!? В уикипедия дори има алтернативно име за тази новела: "Vacant Lot" - свободен парцел, свободно място. Твърде поетично ще е ако приемем, че е "Празнина", след като е по-скоро "Парцел"..., хайде де?! "Земя", "парцел за продан", "свободен нежилищен имот (терен)", "свободно място" ...


Нека е "Празнина", след като при Храбал всичко може да се приеме алегорично, след като в книгата, той и жена му напускат старото си жилище, в което са минали най-щастливите им години.

Всички книги на Храбал са своеобразна автобиография. Всички те описват фрагменти от живота му - случки и събития, някои от които са били ключови в историята на Прага и бивша Чехословакия.

Храбал отново пише от позиция на жена си. В тази последна част се описват т.нар. от нас "чешки събития", навлизането на съветските войски в Чехия през 1968г. и последвалата "Нормализация", Храбал е обявен за един многото т.нар. "писатели в ликвидация".

Изключително храбалски е описан моментът, в който Прага е окупирана от съветски танкове и войски, това съвпада с деня, в който отива да кумува на сватбата на Владимир Будник. В разгара на "пражките събития", случайно на площад „Венцеслас“ се среща и запознава с Хайнрих Бьол. Следва интересна комуникация, разговор, който Храбал определя по-скоро като монолог от страна на Бьол. Хайнрих Бьол споделя любопитни, звучащи противоречиво мисли, от една страна е ужасен от действията на съветската армия и дори изпитва странна вина за това, щастлив е, че Хитлер е победен и унищожен (тази лудост на Дмитрий Карамазов), от друга страна вижда същата тази Дмитрий Карамазова лудост да е обсебила и победителите. Изказва опасения, че руснаците са империя, която няма да се задоволи просто с победата, така е било и навремето след като са победили Наполеон. В книгата Храбал и Бьол се срещат още веднъж, в заведение, сред компанията на чешкия преводач Alois Josef Stastny (A.J. Šťastný) и други писатели. Пищно е описано.

Елишка (жената на Храбал) напуска старата си работа и е назначена като счетоводител във Вторични суровини, същото място, където Храбал продължава да работи. Трудно би работил друго, след като е обявен за "писател в ликвидация". В този пункт с процеса на "Нормализация" наложена от СССР, започват да пристигат камиони пълни с "неблагонадеждна" литература. Голяма част от стоварваните книги са чисто нови, идващи директно от печатниците. Елишка и някои от персонала на предприятието понякога успяват да спасят известно количество от тези издания. Описан е интересен случай, в който Храбал и Елишка успяват да спасят няколко издания от книга на такъв "писател в ликвидация" и дори успяват се срещнат с него, за да му ги дадат. Случаят беше описан много смешно, всъщност книгите са скрити в една прахосмукачка.

Идва и моментът, в който Елишка вижда как влиза камион в двора на вторичните суровини натоварен с изданията на книгата на Храбал - Poupata (Buds). Оказва се обаче, че толкова бързо са се разграбвали тези подготвени за ликвидация издания, че дори има смешни ситуации. Една такава е, когато полицай пита Храбал, има ли нужда от неговата книга - Buds, защото имал няколко заделени бройки и можел да му даде!

Интересен е моментът, в който Храбал празнува рожденния си ден (28 март) в Керско, на който е поканил много от т. нар. "писатели в ликвидация". В края на празненството идва полиция.

Храбал крайно иронизира себе си, на моменти дори грубо се подиграва.

Постоянно се появяваха персонажи и от другите му книги, както и от разказите "Празници на кокичетата". Особено внимание беше отделено на Лотар и Павел, двамата инвалиди, на които проблемите не им пречат, за да водят пълноценен живот. Постоянно да са сред приятелите си, постоянно да организират и участват в различни събития. Този момент се развива паралелно във времето, когато Храбал е в болница за операция за премахване на камък в жлъчката. Тръшкането и отчаянието на Храбал, мислейки си, че с тази операция приключва живота му, е съпоставена със силата на духа (най-общо казано) на Лотар и Павел, както и на всички техни приятели инвалиди.

Книгата завършва с напускането на стария им дом на ул. Na Hrazi 24, Prague, след като идва редът им да се нанесат в нов апартамент в Прага на Sokolníky, Kobylisích. Този момент е едновременно очакван и тежък за Елишка и Храбал, тя (той) си припомня всички години, които са преживяли заедно в този стар дом, където са се запознали за първи път.

[Кремена Михайлова · Rating 5 out of 5]

„.. my husband can't pass by a beautiful birch tree or a beautiful spruce without just standing there, thunderstruck, watching... I'll have to be careful he doesn't merge with those trees body and soul, careful not to lose him altogether.“

Удивява ме още и още този човек, с всяка следваща автобиографична книга. Мисля, че не съм срещала такава ярка и добре описана проява на обич към:

- децата (макар че като е бил толкова шашав, Храбал се е опасявал да има деца)
- водата
- гората
- слънцето
- котките и изобщо животинките
- полето и изобщо природата:

„…he didn't like anyone talking to him on the bus, he just sat there, hands clasped, gazing out at the countryside, at that monotonous plain, and there was always something out there for him to see, something out there he agreed with, he smiled at that monotonous plain and she, as he said, smiled back.“

Толкова съм доволна, че прочетох и трите автобиографични книги, макар че ще бъдат издадени и на български в превод на В. Самоковлиев. Заздрави ми се обичта към писателя и личността Бохумил Храбал. Специално в тези книги – с похват, който не би се удал на всеки автор. И в трите „разказва“ жената на Храбал. Така разбираме, че той е осъзнавал всички свои недостатъци, но и с такава любов описва природата и животните, че явно е наясно и с това в себе си. Необикновена личност със сигурност. С неподправен писателски талант.
От трите книги чрез споменатия похват опознах добре и жена му и брака му. Трудно е да се живее с човек като Бохумил. Зачезването от реалността, непрекъснатото пиене, необузданото плюскане на празненства, неясното чувство за вина — това се налага да бъде ежедневие и за Елишка.

“That jewel of mine often said to me, during his pub days . . Ach, those blues of mine, those little hurts, that wish to slip into the void ... trivial, when I think of Pavel and Lothar... those boys all trussed up, and I never saw them anything but happy .. not that they are, but the kind of stuff that eats away at me, they got over a long time ago.. they focus on the pleasures of life... on wanting to live ... And me, ach, what a coward I am ...”

Но все пак я виждам като негов верен спътник в живота. С котенцата като техни деца.

“His disappearance left an awful void, it was thanks to Ethan my husband and I often held hands, or embraced, or nuzzled up cheek to cheek, for Ethan was our go-between, he connected us, brought us together at a time we thought we didn't love each other anymore, would not and could not ever love each other again ... when Ethan paused over his bowl of milk and gave us that look, he forced my husband and me to give each other that little head butt, there on bended knee to give each other a little kiss ...”

От едно обикновено нещо умее да направи голяма картина. Аз, която не мога да кажа, че обичам котките, така се умилих от описанията, почувствах истинската любов. Аз, дето едва ли бих си плискала и лицето с вода от река, усещах как тя се слива с тялото на Храбал. Аз, непонасящата алкохола, разбирах наслоените болки на Бохумил; оправдавах бягствата му в гората и в никъде-то.

Интересно ми е всичко противоречиво в него - бере цветя в захлас, но наранява жена си с непредвидимостта и безразсъдството си; има какво да пише, но часове се рее из нищото и сякаш избягва срещата с пишещата машина. Но седне ли - хвърчат искри!

„The thing is, he liked to go into a deep reverie, liked to daydream ... not the sort of daydream like he was remembering a woman from his past or something, but say we were in that pine forest of ours, he'd suddenly get this dreamy look and drop into a squat and rest his chin in his hand and his elbow on his knee, and he could squat there like a Bedouin for a whole hour, eyes closed, smiling, intently focused on what he was seeing there in his mind s eye... And I absolutely hated this, I thought my husband was a nitwit. And out of the blue I shouted and startled him and he went pale and couldn't utter a word, as if woken from a trance .. And I said, If you'd rather do something useful, then the doorsill needs fixing, there's a draft, and mice will get into the cottage... And leaning against a tree, or down in his squat position, my husband looked at me and I saw that the arrow had hit its mark, that he despised me... I have nowhere else left to run, he said sadly, voice breaking..“

[Gabelohr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is first book I have read of Hrabal, but it won't be the last. Written from the perspective of his wife, he describes their life together.

I really loved this book because everything seemed so genuine. The wife tells a lot about the little faults and spleens of her husband (sometimes she is so annoyed with him that he has to sleep outside), while at the same time she seems very fond of him. The whole book consists of dozens of little anecdotes, starting with stories about the cats at their holiday home to the events of the Prague Spring and the effects on their family and friends. A book I can really recommend, cause it's entertaining, charming and authentic.

[Dymbula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prostě Hrabal, škoda slov, stačí hvězdičky.

[Bookmaniac70 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Обожавам Храбал и чета абсолютно всичко от него, преведено на български. След "Сватби в къщата" и "Vita Nuova" чаках с нетърпение третата част от автобиографичната трилогия. Стори ми се някак по-тягостна, по-тъжна. Може би защото стига до 1968 година и последвалите промени, които превръщат Храбал в "писател в ликвидация", както и здравословните му проблеми. Великолепен превод на Васил Самоковлиев.

[Ernie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hrabal, the ex-President of free Czechoslovakia was only known to me via that wonderful film adaptation of his novel "Closely Watched Trains". Here that unique Czech humour, dry and enduring comes through the unusual narative voice of Hrabal's wife Eliska. Her long suffering acceptance of Hrabal's drinking copious amounts of beer and vodka, washing down bread "slathered with pork fat" is the writer's idiosyncratic way of revealing his fears and sufferings under the rule of the post Prague Spring government whose subservience to the Russians is here symbolised by the gun of the Russian tank that was aimed at the building of the Prague writers' union building. At his birthday party after successfully recovering from a gall bladder surgery, his writer friends, including the newly awarded Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Boll, gather to celebrate at his rural village inn but he still imagines that gun aimed their way. Despite all evidence of his famous conviviability, the fear remains, further symbolised by his fear of death though his ruined liver. Ominously, the dark cars arrive and the inn is surropunded by men with pistols wearing leather trench coats but once more, Hrabal's survival humour wins me over.

[Stephan Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting portrait of the life of the Czech author by himself through the eyes of his wife. The appearance of Boell, the Nobel Laureate, is quite hilarious. Overall : lots of drinking, I'd say. The climate of repression after the Prague Spring, and the subsequent isolation of many writers is well described. Lacking just a little of what I have come to love as the Czech(?) humour, maybe I have to read more of his stories to better read between the lines, as I also have the distinct feeling that I could not parse everything. The "cat" (cats) as love catalyst and mirror is a nice idea. (read mostly while returning from sending off M&m to the US, in cold train stations during a strike of SNCF, hence maybe a little too negatively biased)

[Spiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third part of Hrabal's imagined autobiography of his wife, Eliska (or Pipsi), covering the years of his first literary success, his status as a "liquidated writer" following the Soviet invasion of 1968, and his gallbladder surgery. Hrabal sees fit to have his wife portray him as a hypochondriac, a palaverer, a coward, a hypocrite, a tosspot, a glutton, and a thoroughly likable rogue. The repeated themes, and the epithets she uses to express her exasperation ("that jewel of mine", "that laureate of mine"), lend the book an oddly Homeric air.

[Juliane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hrabal hat in diesem Buch auf wunderschöne Weise seine Frau verewigt. Sie erzählt von ihrem Mann, dem Schriftsteller, der unverhofft zu Ruhm kommt und sich wenig später auf der Liste der "zu liquidierenden Schriftsteller" wiederfindet. Ein Träumer und liebenswerter Egoist, ein Mann der gern zu viel Alkohol trinkt, in depressiven Phasen immer mal wieder sein Testament schreibt. Grotesk, komisch, traurig! Lesenswert!

[Collin Rogowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lustige Autobiographie in Roman-Form eines mir vorher unbekannten tschechischen Schriftsteller. Der Witz an dem Buch ist, dass die Autobiographie aus der Sicht der Ehefrau geschrieben ist. Das ganze Buch macht echt Lust auf die Ost-Europäische Intellektuellen-Szene. Hat mich etwas an Allerseelen von Cees Nooteboom erinnert, auch wenn die Hauptcharaktere sehr verschieden sind... Aber die Atmosphäre ist ähnlich.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The journey of Hrabal's life through his wife's eyes goes on. We get to know hia love and affection for cats, which he also spread out in "Auticzko", or his partial drinking problems, his aversion towards Czechoslovkian Intelligentsia, or he makes fun of his shoddy Czech in comparison with other writers. It is a compelling autobiographical story.

[Barbucha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Třetí část trilogie, autobiografie B.H. v próze opět nabývá kvalit prvního dílu (Svatby v domě). Líčí období v němž autorovi vyšlo prvních několik knížek, až do doby po srpnu 68, kdy byl zařazen do skupiny zakázaných autorů.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as strong as the other too volumes in this trilogy, but still sad and self-effacing, as Hrabal, in the voice of his wife, as when depicts his statements given against his friends and fellow writers to the StB.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of Hrabal's autobiography told in his wife Eliska's voice details his rise to prominence in the Czech literary scene and after the 1968 Soviet invasion his relegation to the liquidated writers list.

Full of the usual drinking and taking and good fun... oh, and the fear, the terror...

[Sebastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed the prose of Bohumil Hrabal, it is the second of his works I read and the second I liked a lot. If I understood it correctly, this work is based on his own life.

[Indrek Vaino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving and honest book by a great humanist Hrabal. Requires some previous texts to be read.

[Yacoob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Na Hrabalovy knihy by měli lepit varování jak na cigára: "Pozor, způsobuje neodolatelnou chuť na plzeňské pivo a uzené maso!"

[Erich C · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Breña · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ein autobiographischer Roman aus der Sicht seiner Frau - eigentlich eine gute Idee. Vor allem, weil Hrabal Alltagssituationen genauso aufgreift wie politische Ereignisse und sich selbst nicht überhöht, im Gegenteil. Leider mag ich den Stil nicht, besonders dann, wenn unzusammenhängendes Gerede wiedergegeben wird.

[E. Merrill Brouder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gaps is not a masterpiece of prose in the same way that Too Loud a Solitude or All My Cats are masterpieces, nor is it as brilliant of a piece of storytelling as Closely Watched Trains or I Served the King of England. Gaps is, however, a brilliant and—so far as I am aware—entirely novel literary project (a narrative autobiography told from the perspective of the author's ever suffering wife) that only Hrabal could pull off. The charm, honesty, self-deprecation, and empathy needed to finesse difficult moments in the author's life provide insights into character and psychology that go well beyond what can be otherwise ascertained from even the most wonderfully factual study of a life.

[DinosaursAtWork · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is so short and it took me quite a while to get through - mostly because I never got a feeling for why this book was written. It tells of several years of Hrabal's life from his wives perspective but it doesn't tell a coherent story. I was more immersed once the Prague spring was suppressed by the Soviet invasion.

[Tajnicka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skvelé. A je super vnímať Hrabalove životné osudy cez jeho ďalšie knižky. Ale tiež som nemusela začať čítať trilógiu od konca 😉.

[Teriteriri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Etánek...