Rake, drunkard, aesthete, gossip, raconteur extraordinaire: the narrator
of Bohumil Hrabal's rambling, rambunctious masterpiece Dancing Lessons
for the Advanced in Age is all these and more. Speaking to a group of
sunbathing women who remind him of lovers past, this elderly roué tells
the story of his life--or at least unburdens himself of a lifetime's
worth of stories. Thus we learn of amatory conquests (and humiliations),
of scandals both private and public, of military adventures and domestic
feuds, of what things were like "in the days of the monarchy" and how
they've changed since. As the book tumbles restlessly forward, and the
comic tone takes on darker shadings, we realize we are listening to a
man talking as much out of desperation as from exuberance.
Hrabal, one of the great Czech writers of the twentieth century, as well
as an inveterate haunter of Prague's pubs and football stadiums,
developed a unique method which he termed "palavering," whereby
characters gab and soliloquize with abandon. Part drunken boast, part
soul-rending confession, part metaphysical poem on the nature of love
and time, this astonishing novel (which unfolds in a single monumental
sentence) shows why he has earned the admiration of such writers as
Milan Kundera, John Banville, and Louise Erdrich.
