Bohumil Hrabal
Paperback | Pages: 256 pages Rating: 4.11 | 6794 Users | 495 Reviews
Identify Regarding Books I Served the King of England (Sebrané spisy Bohumila Hrabala (SSBH) #7)
| Title | : | I Served the King of England (Sebrané spisy Bohumila Hrabala (SSBH) #7) |
| Author | : | Bohumil Hrabal |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 256 pages |
| Published | : | May 31st 2007 by New Directions (first published 1971) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. European Literature. Czech Literature. Classics. Historical. Historical Fiction. Literature |
Narrative Supposing Books I Served the King of England (Sebrané spisy Bohumila Hrabala (SSBH) #7)
In a comic masterpiece following the misadventures of a simple but hugely ambitious waiter in pre-World War II Prague, who rises to wealth only to lose everything with the onset of Communism, Bohumil Hrabal takes us on a tremendously funny and satirical trip through 20th-century Czechoslovakia.First published in 1971 in a typewritten edition, then finally printed in book form in 1989, I Served the King of England is "an extraordinary and subtly tragicomic novel" (The New York Times), telling the tale of Ditie, a hugely ambitious but simple waiter in a deluxe Prague hotel in the years before World War II. Ditie is called upon to serve not the King of England, but Haile Selassie. It is one of the great moments in his life. Eventually, he falls in love with a Nazi woman athlete as the Germans are invading Czechoslovakia. After the war, through the sale of valuable stamps confiscated from the Jews, he reaches the heights of his ambition, building a hotel. He becomes a millionaire, but with the institution of communism, he loses everything and is sent to inspect mountain roads. Living in dreary circumstances, Ditie comes to terms with the inevitability of his death, and with his place in history.
Details Books During I Served the King of England (Sebrané spisy Bohumila Hrabala (SSBH) #7)
| Original Title: | Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále |
| ISBN: | 081121687X (ISBN13: 9780811216876) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Sebrané spisy Bohumila Hrabala (SSBH) #7 |
| Setting: | Italy Czechoslovakia |
| Literary Awards: | награда "Пловдив" for Художествен превод (2012) |
Rating Regarding Books I Served the King of England (Sebrané spisy Bohumila Hrabala (SSBH) #7)
Ratings: 4.11 From 6794 Users | 495 ReviewsEvaluate Regarding Books I Served the King of England (Sebrané spisy Bohumila Hrabala (SSBH) #7)
This was a super uneven read for me. I was put off by the early chapters which were filled with Monte Python like physical humor and gratuitous objectification of women. The story bounced between lighthearted absurdities and grim horrors of the of the 20th century Czechoslovakian setting. I am certain much of the symbolic nuance was lost on me. I was often lost in the very long sentences and honestly I didnt understand much of it. However, I absolutely adored the ending(view spoiler)[ except forStatement 1: There are so many similarities here with Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel that the man must have absorbed the story in some form, reprocessed it and made it his own. Statement 2: There is something about Czech writers. They have this quality as though the writer is talking to you across a table at a boozy café, leaning back in his creaky chair and casually pulling out a yarn so that by the time you leave, you are fully intoxicated and have completely absorbed his story. I like
Czechs say Bohumil Hrabal's work is untranslatable. When I read Too Loud a Solitude I indeed felt something wasn't coming through. But I chalked it up to a style of Eastern European literature: dark, allegorical, an unfiltered cigarette of protest to communist grime. Glad I read it but no rush to read any more Hrabal.And then I stopped in a used bookstore, just this week. Monday. There was I Served the King of England. I jimmied it out and thumbed it open, expecting to read a sentence or two and
Translated by Paul Wilson (1980). A rich stream of consciousness novel, about Dite, a waiter who moves up in the world of Czech hotels, until the Germans invade and he marries a German woman. It jarred me: at first an absurdist romp, admiration for living life to its fullest à la Kazantzakis, then extremely abruptly, political nightmares intrude, and tragedy (albeit blithely reported, blithely experienced) and bittersweet philosophical observations rear their heads. I laughed out loud at some of
Czech writer, Bohumil Hrabal, is a raconteur par excellence. I Served the King of England is a highly entertaining story about how the unbelievable comes true many times over for Ditě. When we first make his acquaintance, he is only age 15 and a busboy at the Grand Prague Hotel. The story follows Ditěs colorful career in the hotel industry from busboy to waiter, to lead waiter and to hotel owner; his sexual exploits; his self-awakening. In essence, it is the story of Ditě, a pint-size man trying
Czechs say Bohumil Hrabal's work is untranslatable. When I read Too Loud a Solitude I indeed felt something wasn't coming through. But I chalked it up to a style of Eastern European literature: dark, allegorical, an unfiltered cigarette of protest to communist grime. Glad I read it but no rush to read any more Hrabal.And then I stopped in a used bookstore, just this week. Monday. There was I Served the King of England. I jimmied it out and thumbed it open, expecting to read a sentence or two and
Great characters don't die: take Svejk for example. Last seen hunting mongrels to smuggle into the purebred boudoirs of gullible dowagers , he emerges, after a Van Winklian absence, in the novels and persona of Bohumil Hrabal, arguably central Europe's greatest pure novelist of the post WWII era (by "pure novelist" here I mean something like what sportswriters mean when they describe a basketball player as a "pure shooter" or "pure point guard": nobility, heredity, mystical powers). I Served the
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