مرگ آقای بالتیس برگر

by Bohumil Hrabal, ساغر اسرار (Translator)

Originally published as The Death of Mr. Baltisberger, the fourteen stories in Romance showcase the breadth of Bohumil Hrabal’s considerable gifts: his humor of the grotesque, his often surprising warmth, and his hard-edged, fast-paced style. In the story "Romance," a plumber’s apprentice and a gypsy girl reach toward a tentative connection across the chasm that separates their worlds. Another unlikely love story, "World Cafeteria," features a romance between a young man whose girlfriend has just committed suicide and a bride whose husband lands in jail on their wedding night. The tone turns to the absurd in "The Death of Mr. Baltisberger," where a crippled ex-motorcyclist and three people he meets at the track exchange wildly improbably reminiscences, while a fatal Grand Prix motorcycle race rages around them. Hrabal’s psychological insight into quotidian interactions saturates stories such as "A Dull Afternoon," where a mysterious, self-absorbed stranger disrupts the psychic calm of a neighborhood tavern and becomes the silent catalyst for an unwanted truth. Throughout the collection, noted translator Michael Henry Heim captures the quirky speech patterns and idiosyncratic takes on life that have made Hrabal’s characters an indispensable part of world literature.

Genres: 20th Century, Czech Literature, Fiction, Short Stories

223 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

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

[Joe Drogos · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you approach this book, you'll initially be flummoxed by the quotidian nature of these stories. Nothing seems to happen. There are no identifiable conflicts, almost no epiphanies (certainly nothing articulated directly), no plot, really. Some of the stories are defined by a length of time: a train trip from the outskirts of Prague into the city center, a motorcycle driving lesson, the time that elapses in a tavern between the instant the regulars leave to watch a football match and when they return. If you approach these stories with a certain preconception about what a story's job is, you simply won't get it. If you don't look closely- or even if you do, but in the wrong place- this book will bore you to tears.

But step into these stories like you would walk into your favorite restaurant, or onto your evening el train, and you begin to see what a magical world Hrabal inhabits. Consider the bit in a "A Dull Afternoon" when the giant young man whose silent reading has been bothering the bartender quietly pays for a 17-crown tab with a 20 crown note. When the bartender returns 3 crowns and refuses a tip, the young man silently picks up the bill and lights his cigarette with it. There's not much to that, until you sit yourself in the bar and picture the gesture, how unexpected and magnificent it would be. It's almost that Hrabal's message is that everyday life can't contain these moments; they claw their way out from the lines of every page. On page one, a gypsy girl emerges from a store just after dusk, wearing only two aprons pinned together, one on front and one on the back, so that you "could not tell her back from her flat-chested front." She skips down the darkening street, carrying "the hemisphere of the half-loaf of bread beside that black hair of hers and the white crust sketched her path in the darkness." If- after seeing that- you can't help but follow her through this book, you'll witness hundreds of equal images, shining like dimes on the street.

As I read Hrabal's stories, and think of his novels, I begin to think of him as some sort of antidote to magical realism and a certain type of fantasy. (Not that I mind those genres.) Instead of taking everyday life and imagining fantastic events like virgins morphing into angels, soup that literally inflames lovers, ghosts that haunt generations, Hrabal looks directly at what happens every day and points out how much wonder and magic we trip over every hour. Consider the story of Vendulka, the blind teenager who is escorted into Prague by three strangers in her train car. She prompts them to share stories about their fathers. When one of the passengers tells a story about how his father used to direct traffic around a blind roadway curve and after his death two curved mirrors were placed in the spot as a courtesy for drivers, Vendulka says, "Oh my, you must have a famous father, too. A father who changed into a mirror!" And that story ends with a young conductor entering the car, yawning.

Hrabal's stories are filled with storytellers, and they fill these everyday adventures with layers of mystery and wonder. The archetypal story in this collection maybe "The Notary." Notice again the bland profession of the protagonist, a man who draws up wills and witnesses contracts. Our hero begins the story with his daily prayers, remembering that he forgot to gargle that morning. This is pretty tame stuff. The notary's peace is pierced by a shouts from the courtyard, where a child is tattling on her younger brother, "Graaaaaandma!" she yells, "Zdenka is eating dog-doo!" From there we hear the tales of his secretary, whose previous afternoon was spent playing tennis and sunbathing on the Vltava. It's filled with incredible images, but still nothing happens. A couple shows up to have their will drawn up, and they share at least ten or twelve remarkable stories of their small town. Given only a paragraph or two apiece, each of these tales could furnish the plot of an entire novel. When the notary begins his lunch-time stroll through Prague, we are already dizzy, but the stories continue to spill at us. We are allowed to see them, and if we take the time to notice the beauty in each of them, we are stunned. Of course, if you keep waiting for something to happen in the notary's tale, you'll miss everything.

I'm reminded of a line in Hrabal's novel, Too Loud a Solitude that might shed some light on the value of this story collection. "Because when I read," his protagonist explains, "I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel." Hrabal's books are books you want to own, to keep, to revisit every few years. It's taken me weeks to read this 194-page collection of 14 titles, because there are hundreds of stories inside it. Each concerns great things-- romance, jealousy, death, lust, friendship. And each is told with wry, Chaplin-esque pathos and humility. It is truly amazing that Hrabal contains so much vitality. "I am a jug filled with water both magic and plain;" the protagonist of Too Loud a Solitude says, I have only to lean over and a stream of beautiful thoughts flows out of me."

A couple personal notes:

-I've been looking for this book since 2000, and I finally found a copy in the Harold Washington Library. I've now read all the Hrabal that's been translated into English, and I even have a volume of poems that has been translated into Italian. If anyone can get a copy of The Death of Mr. Baltisberger, I will reimburse them for the cost.

-I'm filled with fear whenever I read Hrabal, because I know I'll end up paralyzed by his influence for another five years. I literally spent years trying to write Hrabal novels with my own cast of characters. Hopefully, having finally read everything he has in English, and having matured a little, I can treat Hrabal like the friend he should be, and not as my second, ideal self....

[Mahbubeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب مرگ آقای بالتیس برگر مجموعه داستانهای کوتاه نویسنده ست. کتاب خوبی بود. البته نه به اندازه کتاب تنهایی پرهیاهو. اون کتاب رو خیلی دوست داشتم. خوندن این کتاب با اینکه داستان کوتاه بود ولی به طرز عجیبی طول کشید! بعضی داستانهاش رو بیشتر دوست داشتم و بعضی رو کمتر. داستانها همون روند کند و آروم مدل نوشتن هرابال رو داشت.
کلا نویسنده های چک یه جور عجیبی مینویسن و حس و حال عجیبی دارن.

[Elham Ghafarzadeh · Rating 2 out of 5]

از ترجمه نه چندان دلچسب و غلط های املایی کتاب که بگذریم، هرابال پیرمردِ دوست داشتنیِ من باز سراغِ گفتنِ فکرها و ترس هایِ خودش لابلای زندگی رفته و ای کاش به جای سیزده داستان کوتاه سه یا چهار داستان را کمی طولانی تر روایت می کرد تا فرصتِ غرق شدن در دنیایِ دوست داشتنی اش را بیشتر پیدا می کردم..

[ablomof · Rating 2 out of 5]

آدمی می‌کوشد دنیایی کوچک برای خود فراهم کند با همه لذت‌ها، شادی‌ها، سختی‌ها و دغدغه‌های خاص خود ... آدم‌ها در همین محیط کوچک است که معنا پیدا می‌کنند ... اگر با این دید به دنیا بنگریم هر کس دغدغه متفاوتی دارد و می‌خواهد به بهترین نحو ممکن آن را به انجام برساند تا در انتها به آرامش برسد. برای مثال هیچگاه فکر نمی‌کردم که کسی تمام دغدغه زندگیش نحوه برگزاری مراسم خاکسپاری و یادبودش باشد. بطوریکه تمام نکات و جزئیات را مو به مو به منشی‌اش دیکته کند تا چیزی از قلم نیفتد.
به هر روی همه ما از این دغدغه‌های عجیب داریم و خودمان را با آن‌ها سرگرم کرده‌ایم چه بهتر که قدری از لاک خود برون آییم و نگاهی عمیق‌تر به دنیا داشته باشیم.

[Marly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew Czech satire was the shit

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

All these lists that appear on social media sites stating the ten, the twenty or the one hundred best books to read before you're 30, 50, or before you die are, of course, bullshit.
They are bullshit for many reasons but none greater than the fact that none of them have included The Death Of Mr. Baltisberger by, ( or anything else written by), Bohumil Hrabal.
This collection of short stories is like nothing I (and, most probably, you) have ever read. Most of the tales in this collection clearly begin with the first word and end with the last, but otherwise, leave the reader to guess at their structure. The stories are, at turns, humorous, gritty, endearing, unsentimental, and wonderous.
Hrabal has a perfect ear for dialogue and his characters can be drawn, with a rich humanity, in a few, terse sentences.

This book is an excellent companion to the Pearls of the Deep DVD (The Criterion Collection), a series of short films by The Czechoslovak filmmakers of the 1960s and based on Hrabal's stories, many of which appear in Death of Mr. Baltisberger.

I remember seeking out this book at the Boston Public Library almost 30 years ago. It had been stolen from the shelves then. Later, when I sought it out, it was out of print. There are quite a few other Hrabal title in translation that I read in the meantime, but it was well worth finally tracking Mr. Baltisberger down (at Northwestern University Press) and reading it.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories, this one. The only collection of this prolific writer's stories translated into English. And for all of you Hrabal lovers out there I have good news -I was doing online searches for new Hrabal stuff last night (because according to the magnificent translator Michael Heim the New York Review of Books is supposed to be doing a reprint of Hrabal's one sentence novel 'Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age' and Northwestern University Press is supposed to be in the works of reprinting 'Mr Baltisberger' as a different title) and there's a movie that was re-released called 'Pearls of the Deep'. This movie has four directors, each adapting a different story of Hrabal's into film. Among the directors is Jirí Menzel, who just directed 'I Served the King of England' as well as 'Closely Watched Trains' (the ladder won a best forign film Oscar and both are based on Hrabal's works). I still haven't seen anything about the Czech film that was made of 'Too Loud A Solitude' and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the stunning puppet movie by Genevieve Anderson, but it's nice to see some more media out that pays attention to Hrabal. Maybe it'll inspire more translations of his books.

[Spiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sparkling collection of inconseqential yarns set in and around Prague. In his introductory essay, "Handbook for the Apprentice Palaverer", Hrabal describes himself thusly: "I water flowers when it rains, in sultry July I pull my December sled behind me, to keep cool on hot summer days I drink up the money I put aside for coal to keep me warm in winter, it makes me nervous to think how unnervous people are about how short life is and how little time there is for going wild and getting drunk as long as there is time, I do not treat my morning hangover like a sample possessing no commercial value, I treat it as if it possessed the absolute value of poetic trauma with a touch of discord, which should be savored like a sacred gallbladder attack, I am a leafy tree full of sharp, smiling eyes in a constant state of grace and coupled axles of fortunes and misfortunes, how fine to see young shoots sprout from an old trunk, how fine to hear the laughter of newborn leaves on the youngest shoots,..."
Had Hrabal been an ancient Athenian, he probably would have been made to drink the hemlock.
Another passage, which tickled my fancy:
'Back at the tap, she drew a couple of steins and sent one more sailing down the wet tin surface of the counter. Again it stopped right under the young man's hand.
"Why do I always have to be around when something goes wrong?" she said. "Last year I was out for a walk along the tracks, when I see this girl walking toward me. Along comes the train, and the girl jumps right under the locomotive. Then her head rolls down the embankment, lands at my feet - and winks at me!"
But the young man was as deeply immersed in himself as a collapsible sewing machine. "I never let her go," he said. "If nothing else, she's done a great service for Czech graphic art by being frigid. What if I'd had a normal woman? Sure, we'd have made love, but that would have been the end of absolute graphics."'

[Poool · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of great books of my childhood. I found book in father's library and it was like struck by hammer.
Different from other books, from weird places to no story, like testimony of time by great (maybe twisted in some good sense) mind. I stole book later and sold it in secondhand bookshop (in real Hrabal's spirit then exchanged money for beer in student pub) and now I bought book again after 35 years.



Original from sixties.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A streetcar that looked like a harmonica was crossing a white bridge” (21)
“He had the feeling she was giving him the same kind of look she had given the apples she had just been crunching” (37).
“A pot of sauerkraut on a Sunday afternoon!” (51).
“‘You can’t weave a cat-o’-nine tails out of manure, and even if you could, you wouldn’t be able to crack it’” (136).
“‘Rum!’ thundered back a virile voice” (149).

[Dinesh Raghavendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given this book by friend JP during Christmas 2012 and I loved it. Filled with larger than life characters and colorful tales, it has a very Eastern European folksy feel to it. Hrabal is my favorite Czech writer and this story is regional and universal, rooted in Czech culture and vividly original simultaneously. I would love to revisit it one of these days.

[Christopherseelie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of short stories. Some are more like exercises in his own style, as if he's finding his voice. Some are early, condensed versions of material he will use in later books. But as a whole, this is a great way to see Hrabal at work in a more casual format.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hrabal is always great, but this volume, featuring stories from the forties through the early sixties, is not as poignant as his later books. Still, there are some great stories in here; I devoured the whole thing in two days.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

More high absurdity from Czechoslovakia although Hrabal skirts around communism and prefers to contend with everyday life on the street. Like most short story collections, it's variable but for the most part wryly amusing. The author certainly deserves to be better known in the UK and US.

[Marlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's Hrabal. What more needs to be said?

[Mitch · Rating 2 out of 5]

This probably got a low rating from me because, although it's supposed to be a fine addition to Czech literature, I didn't think it went very far.

Reading this series of short stories was kind of like walking around an unfamiliar block: you see something interesting, then you see something else so you forget the first interesting thing, and so on until you return home and retain just the last thing you saw.

In other words, things seemed pretty disconnected and stories just...ended.

Is that a Czech thing? It didn't register well with me.

[Mike Witcombe · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's sad that this wonderful collection hasn't been part of the surge of Hrabal's work to be republished in translation by Penguin and Vintage - alongside the majestic I Served the King of England, it's possibly the most accessible way into Hrabal's madcap universe. An absolute joy.

[E. Merrill Brouder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hrabal–beautifully, surreally–palavers through the tales told at the periphery of events. The stories are smart and poetic. Several of them had me rolled up, laughing.