Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997)

I didn't realise when I ordered a stack of Hrabal books online that this is the sequel to 'Cutting It Short' and features the same set of characters - so it's quite serendipitous that I left my daughter to select the order in which I read them, and she choose... wisely.

This is just tremendous work; Mary is in it a little less than in 'Cutting it Short' but Uncle Pepin is just as loud, arrogant, and magnificent as ever, and Francin even gets to play a bigger, more interesting role.

A joy to read from start to finish - I only wish there was more...… (more)

It feels like all of Hrabal's meticulously-told stories are really about something else. Closely Observed Trains was about the loss of innocence in war; All My Cats was about guilt; and Cutting It Short feels like a story of the inexorable march of history, with tradition inevitably being left behind.

This is a marvellous little book about a woman called Mary who tries to be decent but can't quite manage it; her long-suffering husband Francin; and her brother-in-law, Cousin Pepin, who tells the most weirdly amusing shaggy dog stories. There's no real plot here, just a series of vignettes, but taken together it works much better than it should because of Hrabal's incredible writing.… (more)