His best novel, Histoire de l’œil (Story of the Eye), today a classic of obscure symbolism and underage sex, was published in 1928 and peremptorily banned
Hrabal suggested another word for his works: pábení, Englished by the writer Josef Škvorecký as “palavering,” meaning “idle chatter” or “flattering babble,” here intended to characterize looping, loopy conversation
That history cannot repeat, which is an idea infused with both European Weltschmerz and hopeful American gusto, finds resonance in Mahler’s greatest contribution to compositional technique
His absence here speaks every cliché in the world: “louder than words,” certainly louder than de La Grange’s logorrhea
living on the same Manhattan island, just blocks south, but they in sumptuary garb, practicing traditions from centuries past
