The Little Town Where Time Stood Still and Cutting It Short

I love the Czechs. Speaking in cultural generalities, they are second only to the Hungarians in their lust for life. Bohumil Hrabal beautifully demonstrates this in the two stories collected in _The Little Town Where Time Stood Still_. Really a collection of vignettes of life in a small Bohemian village, Maryska drinks deeply of the draught of life in all she does, be it making sausages, riding a motorcycle, or acting as... Read Full Review

If only, if only! time had really stood still in Hrabal's enchanting little town! But in fact just the broken town clock and the author's nostalgia for a more vivid but extinguished Life stood, while modernity in the form of radios and Skodas crept in, followed by the Russian army and the New Era of collectivization. That's the main point of these paired novellas, Cutting It Short & The Little Town Where Time Stood Still... Read Full Review

This book also contains the story "Cutting it Short" and has an introduction by Josef Skvorecky. An engaging portrait of a small town in Bohemia in the period between world war I and II. "Cutting it Short" tells the story of Maryska, an irrepressible young woman who had the habit as a child of nearly drowning. "The Little Town Where Time Stood Still" focuses on Maryska's son as a young man who shares the same talent for stirring... Read Full Review

Helo, I am Hungarian (so Molnár is my family-name). Hungary is in Central Europe too, and we were also a "red" country. Hrabal, I think, is my favorite writer. Hrabal was in his twenties when ww2 ended, and the comunists take the power. His father lost his job, the life of the hole family changed. The harmonic times ended. Hrabal was a young lawyer in these times, but he had to work at the train, couse his father was is... Read Full Review