[...] poor Pushkin, to die in a duel, and so young, his last poems gushing from the bullet hole in his head [...]
[...] which is why Batista’s book on sexual hygiene warns men against giving in to their passions, no more than three times an afternoon or four times for Catholics, to prevent sinful thoughts from taking shape, you never know where they might lead, they get into your blood, sultans are particularl…
[...] Bondy the poet says that real poetry must hurt, as if you’d forgotten you wrapped a razor blade in your handkerchief and you blow your nose, no book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it’s meant to make you jump out of bed in your underwear and run and beat the author’s brains out […
[...] when I was serving in the most elegant army in the world I told our medical officer, Doctor, I said, I’ve got a weak heart, but all he said was, So have I, boy, and if we had a hundred thousand like you we could conquer the world, and he put me into the highest category [...]
In the twentieth century, as Hrabal described it, Central Europe was a “literary laboratory.” But the moral paradoxes examined in this laboratory are not only Central European, or of the twentieth century. No, the questions are global, and permanent. And so Hrabal’s fictions, with their intent sad …
