THE DEATH OF MR. BALTISBERGER

by Bohumil Hrabal ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 1974

Hrabal wrote the short story upon which the movie Closely Watched Trains was based, and again in this form, these are montages about motorcyclists and pensioners and couples in a postwar, and for the most part serenely small-town, Czechoslovakia. In an introduction, Josef Skvorecky (scriptwriter-novelist of Miss Silverstein's Past -- KR, p. 763) makes a big fuss about Hrabal's avant gardism while advising that Hrabal should not be labeled a Jaroslav Hasek just because they both have a sense of humor. Hrabal certainly lacks the irony of Hasek, author of the classic Good Soldier Schweik; and he is by western standards a slice-of-life modernist, not a daring experimenter. Hrabal's own prefatory revels in wet sidewalks, beer, semen and himself would seem to peg him as a repulsive Saroyan. Fortunately the stories show him to be a skillful and sensitive and mostly unsentimental writer. The theme of motorcycles and races and sports expresses both the self-diminution of the characters, and their animation. The reliance on barrooms as a mise-en-scene does involve both Hasek-style storytelling (a good thing) and temptations to Saroyan-like archness. But if there remains something thin about these stories -- the plumber's helper taken up by a young gypsy or the religious notary benumbed by his rural clients' tales of animal sodomy -- the problem seems to have more to do with the inherent limitations of the genre; and unlike pure, dreary naturalist compositions, which leave the reader knowing and feeling less than before, there is an expansive spirit at work here.

Pub Date: Jan. 10, 1974

ISBN: 0810127016

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION