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Rambling On: An Apprentice's Guide to the Gift of the Gab
Novelist Bohumil Hrabal was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and he spent decades working at a variety of laboring jobs before turning to writing in his late forties. From that point, he quickly made his mark on the Czech literary scene; by the time of his death he was ranked with Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Čapek, and Milan Kundera as among the nation’s greatest twentieth-century writers. Hrabal’s fiction blends tragedy with humor and explores the anguish of intellectuals and ordinary people alike from a slightly surreal perspective. His work ranges from novels and poems to film scripts and essays. Rambling On is a collection of stories set in Hrabal’s Kersko. Several of the stories were written before the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague but had to be reworked when they were rejected by Communist censorship during the 1970s. This edition features the original, uncensored versions of those stories.
213 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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About the author
Bohumil Hrabal
187 books1,324 followersBorn 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 3, 2018
quirky, certainly rambling. not one of his best in my view
April 5, 2015
collecting nineteen stories (culled mostly from 1978's slavnosti sněženek [the snowdrop festival]), rambling on: an apprentice's guide to the gift of gab offers the late czech master in top form. set mostly in kersko, where hrabal lived for some time beginning in the mid 60s, the short stories in rambling on feature the stylistic and thematic trademarks of his longer, more well-known works of fiction. humor and heartbreak, triumph and tragedy, hrabal always wrote so effortlessly about the daily lives, dreams, and struggles of ordinary people. these stories don't read as fluidly as some of hrabal's other work in translation, but are always enjoyable nonetheless.
...i am then a maker of rash generalisations, a taster and sampler of adulterated space, to me forgetfulness and dementia and the twittering of children are the start of potential discoveries, through playfulness and play i convert the vale of tears into laughter, i invoke reality and it does not always give me a sign, i am a shy roebuck in a glade of impertinent expectation, i'm a solid bell of imbecility cracked by a thunderflash of cognition, in me objectivity takes on a measure of extreme subjectivity, which i consider an increment of nature and the social sciences, i'm an anti-genius, a poacher in the game enclosures of language, i'm a keeper of the game of humorous inspiration, a sworn guardian of fields of anonymous anecdotes, an assassin of good ideas, a water-bailiff overseeing dubious hatcheries of spontaneity, an eternal amateur and dilettante of moronity and pornography, a hero of thoughtful imprudence, an impulsive augustinian of premature parallels who would fain eat a slice of bread buttered with infinity, who would drink from a pint pot of the cream of eternity, now, now and at no other time, so never...*translated from the czech by david short
(from the "an apprentice's guide to the gift of gab")
June 3, 2015
"Every public house in the world is a group of stags entangled by the antlers of conversation."
"From six o’clock onwards the sole preoccupation of any true man of Kresko and its forests is to spend a pleasant evening over a pint in the pub, and all the banter and chit-chat, the arguments and imbecilities are a brilliant way to unwind from our daily tribulations."
This book was long-listed for the 2015 Best Translated Book Award and would likely (per the judges) have been shortlisted but for another Hrabal novel (see my review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), which was eventually a runner-up for the award.
The physical book itself is beautifully produced by Karolinium Press (Charles University Prague), with impressionist illustrations by Jiří Grus.
It was a little disappointing not to see the translator, David Short, mentioned on the title page, given the difficulties of translating Hrabal. Although Short is permitted an informative translator's note as well as space for his own dedication to two recently deceased fellow Hrabal translators, James Naughton and the renowned Michael Henry Heim.
Short's first and perhaps most difficult decision was the title itself. "Rambling" in used in the verbal sense, from the Czech pábit, a word heavily associated with Hrabal albeit invented by a 19th century poet, and which might also be rendered burbling, or in earlier translations, palavering
And that gives a good flavour to the nature of these bucolic stories, set in the Czech forests of Kersko where Hrabal himself had his own country home, and which often centre around the local hosterly and drunken adventures of a memorable collection of characters.
Hrabal's own manifesto is set out in the best piece in the collection, An Apprentice's Guide to the Gift of the Gab:
"I am a maker of rash generalisations, a taster and sampler of adulterated space, to me forgetfulness and dementia and the twittering of children are the start of potential discoveries, through playfulness and play I convert the vale of tears into laughter.
I'm a corresponding member of the Academy of Rambling-on, a student at the Department of Euphoria, my god is Dionysos...my church father is the ironic Socrates...my first-born sun is Jaroslav Hasek, the inventor of the cock-and-bull story and a fertile genius and scribe who added human flesh to the firmament of prose."
The comparison with Hasek and the Good Soldier Sjevk is apt, although Laurence Sterne or Rabelais may have a prior claim to the invention.
The stronger stories revolve around the recurrent character of the local policeman who sees his role between the people and the authorities in Communist Czechoslovakia as much the same as the role played by the parish priest in Catholic countries between parishioners and Rome:
"Keeping a close watch on anything criminal going on on my patch, but, more than that, I try to by my own diligence in office to keep myself, the district, the region and even the Interior Ministry informed of what people are thinking, how they live their lives, and what they commit in the way of petty misdemeanours, from which it is only ever but one little step to bigger ones"
But if that makes him sound sinister, the figure that emerges in the stories is more comic. He uses his powers in petty ways, fining his friends for being drunk and then reimbursing them the following day, and is self-important, his signature way of announcing his sudden presence at night, interrupting some drunken reverlies, being to shine a torch on his row of proudly worn medals. And the targets of his vigilance are typically not capitalist spies but:
"all other comrades and I, we guard the substance of socialism against the foe, even if that foe turns out to be a feral cow."
Indeed while Hrabal's stories are set in the post-1968 "normalised". ii.e. re-Communised, society, and were heavily censored by the authorities before publication, any subversion in the original stories, on which the translations are based, is sly and gentle. Indeed the main flavour that comes across is how little the basics of country life, revolving around beer, food, animals, the opposite sex and indeed material goods, are impacted by political regimes.
The recycled motifs and phrases, that are a feature of Hrabal's writing, and recurring characters, notably the policeman and a string of different pub landlords, add to the coherence of what is overall an enjoyable collection. But the BTBA jury made the right decision in shortlisting the stronger Hrabal novel.
"From six o’clock onwards the sole preoccupation of any true man of Kresko and its forests is to spend a pleasant evening over a pint in the pub, and all the banter and chit-chat, the arguments and imbecilities are a brilliant way to unwind from our daily tribulations."
This book was long-listed for the 2015 Best Translated Book Award and would likely (per the judges) have been shortlisted but for another Hrabal novel (see my review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), which was eventually a runner-up for the award.
The physical book itself is beautifully produced by Karolinium Press (Charles University Prague), with impressionist illustrations by Jiří Grus.
It was a little disappointing not to see the translator, David Short, mentioned on the title page, given the difficulties of translating Hrabal. Although Short is permitted an informative translator's note as well as space for his own dedication to two recently deceased fellow Hrabal translators, James Naughton and the renowned Michael Henry Heim.
Short's first and perhaps most difficult decision was the title itself. "Rambling" in used in the verbal sense, from the Czech pábit, a word heavily associated with Hrabal albeit invented by a 19th century poet, and which might also be rendered burbling, or in earlier translations, palavering
And that gives a good flavour to the nature of these bucolic stories, set in the Czech forests of Kersko where Hrabal himself had his own country home, and which often centre around the local hosterly and drunken adventures of a memorable collection of characters.
Hrabal's own manifesto is set out in the best piece in the collection, An Apprentice's Guide to the Gift of the Gab:
"I am a maker of rash generalisations, a taster and sampler of adulterated space, to me forgetfulness and dementia and the twittering of children are the start of potential discoveries, through playfulness and play I convert the vale of tears into laughter.
I'm a corresponding member of the Academy of Rambling-on, a student at the Department of Euphoria, my god is Dionysos...my church father is the ironic Socrates...my first-born sun is Jaroslav Hasek, the inventor of the cock-and-bull story and a fertile genius and scribe who added human flesh to the firmament of prose."
The comparison with Hasek and the Good Soldier Sjevk is apt, although Laurence Sterne or Rabelais may have a prior claim to the invention.
The stronger stories revolve around the recurrent character of the local policeman who sees his role between the people and the authorities in Communist Czechoslovakia as much the same as the role played by the parish priest in Catholic countries between parishioners and Rome:
"Keeping a close watch on anything criminal going on on my patch, but, more than that, I try to by my own diligence in office to keep myself, the district, the region and even the Interior Ministry informed of what people are thinking, how they live their lives, and what they commit in the way of petty misdemeanours, from which it is only ever but one little step to bigger ones"
But if that makes him sound sinister, the figure that emerges in the stories is more comic. He uses his powers in petty ways, fining his friends for being drunk and then reimbursing them the following day, and is self-important, his signature way of announcing his sudden presence at night, interrupting some drunken reverlies, being to shine a torch on his row of proudly worn medals. And the targets of his vigilance are typically not capitalist spies but:
"all other comrades and I, we guard the substance of socialism against the foe, even if that foe turns out to be a feral cow."
Indeed while Hrabal's stories are set in the post-1968 "normalised". ii.e. re-Communised, society, and were heavily censored by the authorities before publication, any subversion in the original stories, on which the translations are based, is sly and gentle. Indeed the main flavour that comes across is how little the basics of country life, revolving around beer, food, animals, the opposite sex and indeed material goods, are impacted by political regimes.
The recycled motifs and phrases, that are a feature of Hrabal's writing, and recurring characters, notably the policeman and a string of different pub landlords, add to the coherence of what is overall an enjoyable collection. But the BTBA jury made the right decision in shortlisting the stronger Hrabal novel.
April 8, 2017
Another collection of short stories by Hrabel--well worth reading. Almost all of these are slice-of-life vignettes of Czech country life. (A few of the stories are closer to stream-of-consciousness diatribes/reflections, which are much less engaging to me.) Their subjects are not at all romantic (we hear about pig-slaughters, a home for severely mentally and physically handicapped children, old men in wheelchairs, obese man without a shirt, etc), but Hrabel finds the beauty and passion of ordinary life.
November 13, 2015
I'm a big fan of Bohumil Hrabal, but these stories do not showcase his greatest gifts. Sure, the joyously rambling characters are there, as are the absurdities of the socialist state, but I couldn't find the insight that usually pierces through Hrabal's winding sentences. Also, I know people only acknowledge the translator when they don't like a work (because when a translation is successful, people attribute it to the author's genius), but some of the phrases just felt totally wrong.
June 13, 2015
This is a collection of short stories - probably the last that Hrabal wrote before turning to novels. They are a curious mixture of the erudite and the homespun. Set largely in the village of Kersko a tiny cottage community in the heart of a forest in the middle of totalitarian Czechoslovakia, they deal with all sorts of issues, but mainly beer and food. Important things.
December 17, 2024
It’s great that these stories have been rescued from their Soviet era bowdlerization, but some of the orthography, proofreading, and diction contained herein leaves much to be desired. I particularly look askance at the translator’s avowed insistence on replacing the perfectly fine English work “palaver” with the unwieldy phrase “rambling on” which has the unfortunate effect of putting a Led Zeppelin song firmly at the forefront of my consciousness (I mean, it’s a good song, but not one I need playing in my internal Wurlitzer while I’m reading Hrabal).
July 22, 2015
As I mentioned in my review of Bohumil Hrabal’s novel “Harlequin’s Millions”, also a contender for the 2015 Best Translated Book Award, Hrabal is considered, by many, to be one of the best Czech writers of the 20th century. “Harelquin’s Millions” was a runner up in this year’s Award with the judges mentioning “the wonderful lyricism of its winding sentences”. The work I review today is a collection of short stories, nineteen in all, published by Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press.
The book contains an afterword by Vaclac Kadlec and “Translator’s Notes” by David Short where the history of these stories and the lyricism and challenges of translation are explained. Our stories are from the 1970’s and it is actually his last collection of short stories. A number of these stories were omitted from the original publication with a number of them also reworked. Submitted in early 1975 it was three years before the book finally appeared. In this edition we are told the published have “sought to preserve the author’s original intention” with the omitted works included and a further two removed along with a 1972 story, “The Maid of Honour” included.
Our work begins with “The St Bernard Inn”, a tale of a dream to take over the local inn, serve local food, furnish the place in style, but it is told via the story of a St Bernard sitting on the patio. Welcome to the rural world of Bohumil Hrabal and more specifically the Kersko Forest. In fact our book contains a map of the region so we can refer to the region where the tales take place.
For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
The book contains an afterword by Vaclac Kadlec and “Translator’s Notes” by David Short where the history of these stories and the lyricism and challenges of translation are explained. Our stories are from the 1970’s and it is actually his last collection of short stories. A number of these stories were omitted from the original publication with a number of them also reworked. Submitted in early 1975 it was three years before the book finally appeared. In this edition we are told the published have “sought to preserve the author’s original intention” with the omitted works included and a further two removed along with a 1972 story, “The Maid of Honour” included.
Our work begins with “The St Bernard Inn”, a tale of a dream to take over the local inn, serve local food, furnish the place in style, but it is told via the story of a St Bernard sitting on the patio. Welcome to the rural world of Bohumil Hrabal and more specifically the Kersko Forest. In fact our book contains a map of the region so we can refer to the region where the tales take place.
For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
August 31, 2016
Hrabal is one of my favorite authors, but unfortunately David Short's translation is completely misguided. He is determined to anglicize most of the names (there were precious few "Mike"s and "Joe"s in Czechoslovakia) and flavor of the stories, so that it sound like you are reading the transcript of a Benny Hill episode (lots of "Cor, blimey, Guv'nor!" stuff). In this translation, the stories lack the joy, zest, and sardonic humor that characterizes Hrabal. It's possible they were just a lesser batch, but Tony Liman's translations of Hrabal's later memoirs (written in the voice of his wife) do not suffer from this absence, so I am inclined to lay more blame at the feet of the translator. If you have not read any Hrabal, whatever you do, do not start with this volume.
December 27, 2018
Последните три разказа стремглаво се храбализираха до степен, в която на последния: An Apprentice’s Guide to the Gift of the Gab вече гледах като теле в железница. И точно като теле, ще ми е необходимо време докато ги храносмеля, изисква се преживно-препрочитане, кой знае колко пъти... По тази причина ще допълвам това "ревю" допълнително :)
Добавеният разказ в този сборник The Maid of Honour ме шашна. По изключително странен начин се доближи до метафизичния край от "Обслужвал съм английският крал". В момента не мога да го обясня.
Отново всичко е храбалско и до голяма степен липсват точките, които да спират леещата се мисъл.
В основата на сборника е този от 1978г. - "Празници на кокичетата", събрани са преди всичко тези, които навремето са били цензурирани или премахнати:
2. A Moonlit Night,
4. A Feral Cow,
6. Jumbo - в разказа "Джъмбо" се повтаря сцената с "пърформънса" от разказа "Какра" в "Празници на кокичетата". Онова мнимо "изобразяване" на самолета, в нощта пред кръчмата "Горската жижа" от добре наквасените "постоянни клиенти"... Това се случва в различен период и с различни собственици на заведението.
10. Fining Salami (сушени салами - буквално), не знам за оригиналното издание, но за българското - "Празници на кокичетата" от 1983г. този разказ се оказа нецензурираният вариант на "В градинката". В последния липсва цялата първа част с "грубите шегички" - "бъзиците", които си правят един на друг г-н Свобода и г-н Кожишек. Освен това във "В градинката" г-н Свобода е наричан само с първото му име Карел.
12. Beatrice,
16. Hair like Pivarnik’s,
17. The Maid of Honour е добавен в настоящото издание,
18. Adagio lamentoso - по-късната версия на Variations on a Beautiful girl,
19. An Apprentice’s Guide to the Gift of the Gab,
Оказа се, че разказите са присъщи за ранното творчество на Храбал. Новелите са тези, в които съумява да събере сентенцията. Все повече съм нетърпелив за неговата автобиографична трилогия: 1. In-House Weddings, 2. Vita Nuova, 3. Gaps.
Добавеният разказ в този сборник The Maid of Honour ме шашна. По изключително странен начин се доближи до метафизичния край от "Обслужвал съм английският крал". В момента не мога да го обясня.
Отново всичко е храбалско и до голяма степен липсват точките, които да спират леещата се мисъл.
В основата на сборника е този от 1978г. - "Празници на кокичетата", събрани са преди всичко тези, които навремето са били цензурирани или премахнати:
2. A Moonlit Night,
4. A Feral Cow,
6. Jumbo - в разказа "Джъмбо" се повтаря сцената с "пърформънса" от разказа "Какра" в "Празници на кокичетата". Онова мнимо "изобразяване" на самолета, в нощта пред кръчмата "Горската жижа" от добре наквасените "постоянни клиенти"... Това се случва в различен период и с различни собственици на заведението.
10. Fining Salami (сушени салами - буквално), не знам за оригиналното издание, но за българското - "Празници на кокичетата" от 1983г. този разказ се оказа нецензурираният вариант на "В градинката". В последния липсва цялата първа част с "грубите шегички" - "бъзиците", които си правят един на друг г-н Свобода и г-н Кожишек. Освен това във "В градинката" г-н Свобода е наричан само с първото му име Карел.
12. Beatrice,
16. Hair like Pivarnik’s,
17. The Maid of Honour е добавен в настоящото издание,
18. Adagio lamentoso - по-късната версия на Variations on a Beautiful girl,
19. An Apprentice’s Guide to the Gift of the Gab,
Оказа се, че разказите са присъщи за ранното творчество на Храбал. Новелите са тези, в които съумява да събере сентенцията. Все повече съм нетърпелив за неговата автобиографична трилогия: 1. In-House Weddings, 2. Vita Nuova, 3. Gaps.
June 7, 2015
Hrabal has a unique writing style, to be sure. I struggled through this book of short stories, not because they were uninteresting, but because of his run-on, stream of thought style. Memorable, but difficult.
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May 7, 2015Often charming, but in the end, I don't think I'm a Hrabal person.
August 5, 2015
A difficult read for non-english speaker but the stories are over-whelmingly fascinating.
November 7, 2016
Giving up on this - didn't finish. However if you like a wild sense of humor - this is for you. The story about the feral cow was very funny.
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September 28, 2019Naprosto parádní. Jak jinak, když je to Hrabal.
May 3, 2025
Turns out the title was correct, it does ramble on. Two short stories stand out, the one about the cats, which breaks my heart (unsurprisingly) and the last story, which truly feels like the inspired ramblings of a drunker prophet.
June 13, 2020
Hrabal's schlemiels are there, dreaming pathetic dreams in a fascist state. But the endlessly burbling writing wore me down, and I drifted out. The poor translator.
August 9, 2023
Hrabals distinctive palavering is a joy to read. I know he was known for his rambling or palavering but it just fits so well. I really enjoy his writings.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews