Description
The Gentle Barbarian takes us to the heart of Boudnik's creative drive: his gift for infusing the objects and events of everyday life with transcendent magic, and his passion for sharing his ideas and his art with anyone willing to listen. Hrabal's anecdotal portrait includes another controversial figure in that early postwar Czech avant-garde: the poet Egon Bondy, the pen name and alter ego of a self-styled "left-wing Marxist" philosopher called Zbynek Fiser.
Hrabal's amazing memoir celebrates the creative spirits who strove to reject, ignore, or burrow beneath an artificial "revolutionary" fervor. Fueled by vast quantities of beer, emboldened by friendship, driven by a sense of their own destiny, they filled the intellectual and spiritual vacuum around them with manic humor, inspiration, and purpose, and in doing so, pointed the way to a kind of salvation.
About the Author
Bohumil Hrabal (1914-1997) was born in Moravia. He is the author of such classics as Closely Watched Trains (made into an Academy-Award winning film by Jiri Menzel), The Death of Mr. Baltisberger, I Served the King of England, and Too Loud a Solitude. Paul Wilson lives in Canada and has translated works by Vaclav Haval, Bohumil Hrabal, Ivan Kilma, and Josef Skvorecky.
Reviews
"The narrative, more about their relationship than a critical discussion of Boudnik's art, is replete with humorous and lavish personal anecdotes about surviving during a politically repressive time. Sometimes joined by their poet friend Egon Bondy, they would walk, talk, argue, drink excessive amounts of beer, and engage in outlandish adventures, which Hrabal fondly recounts with extravagant glee and warmth." -- Kirkus
"Hrabal is quite capable of a Chekhovian realism, but always watchful for the splendid and sublime." -- James Wood - London Review of Books
"A touching homage to Boudnik's remarkable life and a showcase for Hrabal's skill." -- Publishers Weekly
"A master." -- The New Yorker
"Hrabal's capacity for simultaneous wonder and attentiveness-for a cold shrewdness matched by overflowing sympathy-is his most astonishing quality as a writer." -- Matt Weir - Dissent
"The Gentle Barbarian, Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal's memoir of his friendship with the painter and printmaker Vladimir Boudnik, depicts life as a more reckless leap of faith-one that lands not in the hands of God, but in a tightening rope." -- Paul Franz - Bookforum
Book Information
ISBN 9780811228589
Author Bohumil Hrabal
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publisher New Directions Publishing Corporation
Weight(grams) 166g
Dimensions(mm) 206mm * 137mm * 13mm
