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Title: I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal ISBN: 0-679-72786-8 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 27 November, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.46 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The return to innocence
Comment: The story of the young apprentice, then waiter going from hotel to hotel, then owner of his own hotel and millionaire, then losing everything, explores with the typical Hrabal's humour, full of tenderness, the physical and psychological development of the boy, his memories through the first Republic of Czechoslovakia after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then through the occupation of Bohemia by the Third Reich and the II World War until the final Communist take over. The lad, who at the beginning is a sort of parvenu, lusting for money and social recognition, suffers a progressive transformation of his soul which leads him to complete maturity, as he finally understands that wisdom lies in the heart of the humble, and that everything else is meaningless.
Rating: 4
Summary: Magical and mysterious
Comment: This is a strange little book. I bought it without knowing anything about the author or his work, and enjoyed it very much on a superficial level. But I also know that I missed out on a lot in the book- nuances and references which I will probably never understand given that I am not Czech. This is a book I want to re-read soon, and I will do so thoroughly.
The narrator is a fascinating creation. He breezes through a strange life without being unduly affected by whatever fortunes or misfortunes life tosses at him, playing the hand that he is dealt. His adventures make for a good read, and unlike some other Czech novels I have read the book is quite simple, not a hard slog from cover to cover.
Rating: 5
Summary: The essential Czech novel
Comment: I don't like words like 'masterpiece,' but there are books that I consider essential reading, books that allow you to connect to and unscramble the meaning of our troubled century. Bohumil Hrabal's I Served the King of England is one of those books and, in my humble opinion, it must be one of the great comic novels of the 20th century, along with The Good Soldier Schweik, The Tin Drum, The Master and Margarita and The Autumm of the Patriarch. It is like those comic novels, about the role of individuals in history, and like those novels, it sheds light on the meaning of life. Unlike those novels however, I Served the King of England has an almost minimalist plot, propelled by the ambition of the main character to become a millionaire. Hrabal does not uses modernist narrative techniques at all; instead his novel develops in a linear fashion as his main character moves from hotel to hotel as a waiter, furthering his ambition and learning from his bosses the art of running a hotel. In the process, the character even joins the nazis (and marries one), becomes a millionaire after the war and looses everything under communist rule. His adventures as a waiter in the hotels are told through a comic, highly visual style that reminded me of Chaplin's films, a feeling later confirmed by Hrabal himself when he compares the adventures of incarcerated millionaires during communism as the height of chaplinesque humor. Somewhere during the middle of the novel I became a little exasperated by the apparent lack of sophistication in the narrative, but the novel only 'appears' to be superficial. There is a big emotional and intellectual pay-off at the end, as the main character comes to terms with history and the value of his connection to humanity. As a reader, I felt privileged to have taken the journey this bawdy and wonderful novel put me through.
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Title: Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal ISBN: 0156904586 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 27 April, 1992 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal, Edith Pargeter ISBN: 0810112787 Publisher: Northwestern University Press Pub. Date: 09 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War by Jaroslav Hasek, Cecil Parrott, Josef Lada ISBN: 0140182748 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: August, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History 1848-1938 by William M. Johnston ISBN: 0520049551 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: June, 1983 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Prague: A Cultural and Literary History by Richard D. E. Burton ISBN: 1566564905 Publisher: Interlink Pub Group Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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