I Served the King of England (New Directions Classic)

This is a fantastic novel - both literally and in the colloquial sense of that word when it is used as a hyperbolic form of praise; in this instance the praise is merited. Originally published in Czech in 1971, I Served the King of England certainly qualifies Hrabal to be considered as eminent a practitioner of "magic realism" as Gabriel Garcia Marquez or, for that matter, the Gunter Grass of The Tin Drum. If this places the author in elevated literary company, he has earned his place there.The story begins as a picaresque autobiography of the narrator, the runt "Ditie" who recounts his adventures as a busboy and waiter in Prague and elsewhere. Amazing and awe-inspiring things happen throughout the young man's career, often involving unlikely candidates (waiters, hotel owners, traveling salesmen) for the performance of outrageous or admirable deeds. Ditie is always game for adventures, especially of an erotic nature, and his lavish descriptions of the anatomy and enthusiastic love-making of his favorite prostitutes and other girlfriends is sensually arousing while touching and humorous at the same time (an erection with a heart of gold, wreathed in flowers. as it were.) The story takes a grimmer turn when he falls in love with Lise, a Bohemian German gym-instructor who is even more diminutive than he is. He becomes her knight-errant in a situation of deteriorating relationships between Czechs and Germans as the war approaches, and in his haste to defend his lady-love's honor he turns away from his countrymen in their time of need and oppression, a decision which eventually comes to haunt and discomfit him. This leads to their marriage and his subsequent odd career as a despised waiter at a Nazi "Lebensborn" resort for young women programmatically impregnated by warrior-studs. To the music of Wagner and under the banner of duty to produce a specimen of the Teutonic New Man, he and his wife conceive a stunted, retarded child. At the war's end his wife wends her way heavenward (hellward? Or perhaps just into the ground) courtesy of an Allied bomb, and Ditie has the chance to return to his beloved venue of hotel-and-restaurant in Prague. He is not received warmly by his old colleagues, but manages to create a unique hotel in an abandoned foundry on the grounds of a quarry, using as his capital a fortune Lise looted from Polish Jews during her war service. With his stained wealth and an uneasy conscience he creates a sort of dreamy hotelier's paradise, which is soon doomed to destruction by the new political regime. There is a hilarious interlude at a newly established Communist Party "prison/reform camp" for millionaires, where the prisoners and their guards (all former miners who miss their old job) become interchangeable and totally confused about what is expected from whom - it's a wonderful parody of Lenin's who-whom rhetorical question. Throughout these adventures Ditie has been driven by the desire to become a very rich man, because as a youth he thought that rich men lived the most admirable and rewarding lives; he also desires the admiration of other rich men, especially those from the ranks of the hotel owners. After he realizes this dream he watches it go sour and be crushed. When he is released from the millionaires' prison, things take a final turn for the worse for Ditie, but only in the most superficial sense, because in his new life as an almost totally isolated rural road repairman (he has four animal companions) he discovers a kind of pantheistic tranquility and an impulse to recreate and reconsider his life by writing it all down -- the "arc" of his story is now "from-rags-to-riches-to-rags-again", with the final rags being the frowsy but durable mantle of a self-made philosopher.The way the story is told - the characterizations and especially the language of Ditie the narrator - is as important as the tall tales themselves. This raises a tricky point. The irascible but occasionally brilliant F. Nietzsche once made the observation that "it is neither the best nor the worst" of a language which is untranslatable, implying that there is a vast range of thought and expression in the "middle" of this spectrum in which deeper meanings and emotional overtones depend upon the unique subtleties of each language and are therefore beyond translation. In a brief after-note the translator, Paul Wilson, writes, "Bohumil Hrabal's work, Czechs say, is untranslatable. This book is my response to that challenge." I don't know how truly bilingual readers evaluate his effort, but for English-language readers I can say that Wilson's translation is much more than serviceable -- it is direct, colloquial, jaunty, funny, and poetic and reflective when it needs to be. It creates a vibrant voice which the reader who does not speak Czech hopes is an authentic mirror of the original. It is definitely a voice you want to listen to, compelling and amusing. Mr. Wilson should be praised for this.While I feel the above review does the book some justice, I also know that it is impossible to capture its animation and warmth in a brief sketch. How do I know that? Because I have read the work of the man who wrote about Ditie, the Man Who Served the Emperor of Ethiopia, and who himself was instructed by Skrivanek, the Man Who Served the King of England, and, once they -- we -- have been chosen for such estimable parts and acquitted themselves well, people like that just know certain things, don't they?

Good Translation as far as I can tell

Intrigued by odd references to Hrabal and this book, I decided to take a stab, and I am glad for it. This will not be every reader's cup of tea, although I also am glad to recommend it: The greater difficulty is explaining why. Ultimately, I think it is that, while I did not like all of this book, I liked much of it a great deal. It is inconsistent, often foolish, but also often painfully wise and thought-provoking --- it made me look at things a bit differently. It is, to quote the hero's refrain, a story of how, time and again, "the unbelievable became true."I leave to others to expand upon the narrative exploits of the bus-boy, waiter, lover, millionaire hotelier and tree-cutting, road-repairing protagonist. Ditie (whose name we learn well along in the story) varies his own character and behavior from innocent to clever to bizarre --- and back. I gather from other reviews that Hrabal was "under the influence of French surrealism." Aside from this influence playing a very amusing, direct role in the closing chapter, it may be that "surreal" is the best short descriptive of the book as whole. Both tone and substance are absurd, and tragedy and comedy get at least equal time. Yet, there are extended passages that are genuinely lyrical and nothing short of beautiful. In the context of Czechoslovakia immediately before, during and after WW2, unbelievable things are constantly becoming true, and maybe that is the author's parable of life and what he intended to show to us.The book's jacket cover says that Hrabal "died falling from the fifth floor of a Prague hospital, apparently trying to feed the pigeons, in 1997." It would be difficult to imagine a demise more painfully and perfectly suited to his character, Ditie, or to life as portrayed in I Served the King of England.

Once you master the ongoing, flowing writing style of Hrabel, the framework to I Served the King of England becomes plausible.With American novels, there is a more consistent flow, most notably paragraph breakages that allow the reader to absorb the scenario the author is transposing. Hrabel's writing style, however, didn't leave that scope of following the storyline as easily.I enjoyed the clumsiness and emotive expressions portrayed in the main character Ditie, an almost hapless, yet eventual entrepreneur; his means of reaching that status a painful reminder of the atrocities of WWII Eastern Europe.The ending is thought provoking as it is one of many times in the novel Ditie recounts his life, but this time reminisces in self-imposed isolation. Hrabel wrenchingly captures the moments well, allowing Ditie the sole plaudit he so endearingly has clung to in his travels to remain a steadfast part of him.

Jumping on the positivity bandwagon here. Book arrived several days ahead of schedule. Great job of packaging. Book itself was in pristine condition -- even better than I imagined. Can't wait to dive into this novel by one of my favorite Czech authors.

I loved "Too Loud a Solitude" by this author, but this one is even more fantastic. In its very intriguing form-combination of satire, allegory, and the rich flavor of sharp criticism, humor, cynicism, he seems to have all the greatness of the authors like Marquez, Calvino, Vonnegut and Kafka. It is set in the complex and tumultuous Czech history, but essentially it is about the journey of a human being, born with imperfections, touched by environments and political storms, pursuing dreams and fantasies, but in the end, is left with stories to tell. Sad, funny, devastating, and deeply reflective.

Hrabal was a new name to me after seeing the film version of Closely Watched Trains. The story takes us through the experiences of a young Czech man working in hotels and the girls he meets, to his eventually buying a hotel of his own during the period of the Second World War, and the problems he faced taking on a German wife and her giving birth to their idiot son. It is written with such unique charm and wit that it is hard to find a comparison. Hrabal is a writer all to himself. I gather there is a film version of this book too, but forget that and read instead.

I found this book riveting. It's an account of the life of a character whom I found very sympathetic - a waiter who aspires to own his own hotel, then does and later loses it all. It follows the political experiences of the Czech people. It is said that Hrabal's writings are impossible to translate into English, but the translator has managed to produce a wonderful book which kept me enthralled from beginning to end.Valerie Norris

Another book club book for discussion and a good read

Bohumil Hrabal's I Served the King of England is a beautiful, sparse, simply told story about a little man named Ditie. Ditie is a little man in the sense that he is small in stature. He is also little in the sense that he is merely a waiter, a little man who wanders blithely through the critical historical events that buffeted Czechoslovakia between 1935 and 1950 or so.As the novel opens Ditie is a busboy at the Golden Prague Hotel. On his first day the hotel manager pulls him by the left ear to advise him to "remember, you don't see anything and you don't hear anything." The manager then pulls him by the right ear and tells him that he has "to see everything and hear everything." Ditie manages to learn how to accomplish this seemingly irreconcilable task.Ditie is an ambitious man whose ambitions focus on acquiring two things: money and 'sensuous' experiences. His life is otherwise void of conscious thought or awareness. In many respects Hrabal portrays him vividly as something less than a complete human being. He earns money on the side selling frankfurters at the local train station. He gains extra tips from passengers ordering frankfurters from the train by fumbling for change long enough for the train to pull out. He decides to become a millionaire after walking into a room to see a portly Czech salesman rolling around on a floor covered with money. Ditie's hunger for sensual experiences is fueled after his first visit to the local brothel, the aptly named Paradise. After his first visit Ditie vows to make so much money that he can continue to explore the delights found there. Hrabal's description of Ditie's introduction to the lure of money and flesh is both comic and delightful.Ditie leaves the Golden Prague Hotel and makes his way to the Hotel Tichota and then the Hotel Paris where he is promoted to waiter. It is there that he is taken under the wing of the headwaiter Mr. Skrivánek, who knows everything there is to know about being a top waiter. Whenever Ditie asks Skrivánek how he knows a particular fact Skrivánek replies - "because I served the King of England" at a banquet many years ago. Ditie later reaches one of his life's highpoints when he gets to serve the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie. He then gets to answer "I served the Emperor of Ethiopia" whenever a younger waiter asks him for advice. The description of the banquet is another wonderful example of Hrabal's story telling ability.It is while at the Hotel Paris that Ditie meets and falls in love with a young Sudeten German named Lise. As noted, Ditie is unaware or unfazed by the political events that are in the front of everyone else's mind. He is shocked that his fellow waiters ostracize him because of his relationship with Lise merely because of the troubles in the Sudetenland and the pending German invasion of Czechoslovakia. Ditie merely wants to become a millionaire and make love to Lise. Ditie is fired shortly before the German invasion.The story takes us through Ditie's life during the war and up through the Communist accession to power in Czechoslovakia. At every step of the way these events swirl around Ditie without seeming to touch him in any real way. He spends a six month term in jail after the war for his collaboration with the Germans but that does not interfere with his plans to open up a spectacular hotel and become a millionaire. Ditie accomplishes this goal just around the time of the Communist accession to power in Czechoslovakia. Again, this does not seem to have any real impact on Ditie at all. In fact, when it is announced that the new regime will impose a horrendous tax on all millionaires Ditie eagerly awaits the validation that paying this tax will accord him. Instead he is horrified when an old colleague, a member of the Czech resistance who later becomes a party leader, whose life Ditie inadvertently saved from the Gestapo manages to obtain a tax exemption for Ditie. Horrified, Ditie marches to the local police with his bankbook to prove he is a millionaire. Of course all his assets are taken and he is sent to a work camp in the mountains.It is only after Ditie has lost everything that he achieves some sense of his own humanity. It is a redemption that Ditie probably never knew he needed. As the story ends, Ditie wants nothing more than to be buried on the very top of a particular hill so that part of his remains make their way into some streams in Bohemia and the other part make their way into the Danube.Although it is certainly easy to set out the events in I Served the King of England it is hard to convey the beauty and the comedy of Hrabal's writing. Hrabal's writing style is something of an anecdotal, stream of consciousness storytelling. It reminds me of the times I would sit in a bar, pub, or café in some far away place and come across someone who simply knew how to tell great stories. They might be a tad drunk, they might have told those stories to anyone willing to buy them a pint or too. But they are fun to listen to and sometimes they tell you a little bit about the storyteller and a little about yourself. Hrabal's I Served the King of England is one of those stories.It is a delightful book.

100%satistfied,is very fun book.