Cutting It Short

Short is indeed the key word here; a 120-page novel in 12 short chapters, told from the POV of a woman in a small Czech village in the first half of the 20th century as the modern world starts closing in. Maryska (based on Hrabal's own mother) is the wife of Francin, who oversees daily operations at the local brewery, and her life is one joy after another; precious gifts from her loving (but reserved and very busy) husband every time he comes back from Prague, taking long bike rides with her long hair flowing behind her, lighting the old-fashioned lamps at the brewery after the generator closes down at night, helping out with the annual pig slaughter and sampling the results... and of course, helping take care of Francin's brother who show more came back from the war a little weird and won't leave.

There's a great deal of warmth mixed with almost slapstickish bizarre humour in this, with kooky but alive small-town characters and told in a beautifully descriptive, down-to-earth language. Hrabal is such a great stylist that you'd almost be forgiven for thinking it's a pure piece of comic nostalgia about how everything was better and simpler back in the good old days - the novel ends before Hrabal himself is actually born.

But then there's the knowledge that this was a piece of forbidden literature back in the 70s, and the longer we get into the novel, the more a creepy undertone starts appearing as things start getting... shorter. Skirts, hair, tails, lives. As humorous as the presentation is, everything that gets cut off or out makes life poorer, duller, darker. Considering the circumstances it was written under, the subtext is subtle but insidious: the more of the little unnecessary, fun bits of life you cut off, the less humorous it gets. And then the jokes, and the stories, stop and all that remains is authority and punishment.

And, of course, a whole lot of laughter in between. It is mostly a comedy, after all. Just a darker one than it seems at first. show less

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.

Cseh idill. A 68-as prágai szovjet bevonulás után Hrabal bezárkózott kerskói házikójába. "Ha rossz kedvem volt, kimentem hozzá, és jól leittuk magunkat. Mellette visszatért az életkedvem" - emlékezik Jiří Menzel. A Sörgyári capriccio 1970-ben született. Hrabal a boldog időket örökíti meg benne, azt az időszakot, amikor ő még csak szerelmes gondolatként motoszkált az anyja fejében - ha igaz. Megeleveníti Nymburkot, a városkát, ahol megállt az idő: megidézi a sörgyár gondnokát, a daliás-ideges motorbicikli-bolond Francint, akivel gondolkodás nélkül cserélne a sörgyár teljes igazgatótanácsa - egy nő miatt. Egy gyönyörű aranyhajú asszony miatt, aki úgy issza a sört, úgy eszi a show more disznótorost, úgy mászik fel a kéménybe a lobogó hajával, hogy egész Nymburk szájtátva nézi. A tériszonyos tűzoltóparancsnokkal egyetemben. Csak egy igazi bolond tud ezzel a nővel - Hrabal leendő anyjával - lépést tartani: Pepin bácsi. Hrabal nagybátyja és zseniálisan szószátyár múzsája. Krónikában fogant költészet. Menzel felejthetetlen filmet komponált a szépségnek, a derűnek, az életörömnek és a komikumnak ebből az utánozhatatlan elegyéből. show less