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Bohumil Hrabal. Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age. Michael Heim, tr. Vladimir Suchanek, ill. London. Harvill. 1998. 103 pages, ill. L6.99. ISBN 1-86046-215-4.
The fact that we are presently reviewTing a work which first appeared thirty-six years ago, in 1964, should be interpreted as a tribute to not only a great writer but also a great translator of the twentieth century. Readers already familiar with Bohumil Hrabal will recognize in this short tale, accompanied by six elegant illustrations by Vladimir Suchanek, many of the literary traits and themes from his other works. It's all here again: sex, beer, war, reflections on the body (as a tribute to the "European Renaissance"). Readers discovering Hrabal with this text will enter into the "typical" world of Central European literature with the gratifying assurance that this translation by Michael Heim - an experienced Mitteleuropa hand - is the best Anglo-American translation of our times.
More a string of digressions than an incomplete sentence, this interior monologue of a shoemaker, who describes himself as "an engineer of human feet" and as a hero with a memory ("a true joy!"), captures or actually creates the spirit and ambience of a part of the...