Too Loud A Solitude

“That’s why I’m always behind in my work, why the courtyard is piled to the rooftops with old paper that can’t go down the opening in the ceiling of my cellar for the mountain of old paper blocking it from below; that’s why my boss, his face scarlet with rage, will sometimes stick his hook through the opening and clear away enough paper to shout down to me, ‘Haňt’a! Where are you? For Christ’s sake, will you stop ogling those books and get to work? The courtyard’s piled high with paper and you sit there dreaming!’ And I huddle in the lee of my paper mountain like Adam in the bushes and pick up a book, and my eyes open panic-stricken on a world other than my own, because when I start reading I’m somewhere completely different, I’m in the text, it’s amazing, I have to admit I’ve been dreaming, dreaming in a land of great beauty, I’ve been in the very heart of truth.”

In this quote, Bohumil Hrabal contrasts Haňt’a’s physical labor with his intellectual and emotional escape through reading. The imagery of the “courtyard piled to the rooftops with old paper” and the boss’s rage-filled shouts depict Haňt’a’s chaotic and abusive work environment. However, Haňt’a finds refuge in literature, where he transcends his physical environment and experiences a connection to truth and beauty. Haňt’a’s boss represents the tyrannical regime of the nation, while Haňt’a succeeds in carving out some intellectual space for himself despite his restrictive circumstances, highlighting the theme of The Struggle for Freedom Under Authoritarianism.

“For thirty-five years now I’ve been compacting old paper in my hydraulic press. I’ve got five years till retirement and my press is going with me, I won’t abandon it, I’m saving up, I’ve got my own bankbook and the press and me, we’ll retire together, because I’m going to buy it from the firm, I’m going to take it home and stash it somewhere among the trees in my uncle’s garden, and then, when the time is right, I’ll make only one bale a day, but what a bale, a bale to end all bales, a statue, an artifact, I’ll pour all my youthful illusions into it, everything I know, everything I’ve learned during my thirty-five years of work; at last I’ll work only when the spirit moves me, when I feel inspired, one bale a day from the three tons of books I have waiting at home, a bale I’ll never need to be ashamed of, a bale I’ll have time to think out, dream out, in advance.”

This quote illustrates Haňt’a’s deep connection with his work and the sense of identity it provides. The hydraulic press symbolizes both the monotony of his labor and his enduring commitment, becoming almost an extension of himself that he plans to take into retirement. His dream of creating a “bale to end all bales” reflects his aspiration to transform routine work into an artistic and meaningful endeavor, indicating a desire for legacy and fulfillment through the culmination of his lifelong experience and accumulated wisdom.

“But somebody leaked the hiding place and the Royal Prussian Library was declared official booty, so the column of military vehicles started transporting all the leather-bound tomes with their gilt edges and titles over to the railroad station, where they were loaded on flatcars in the rain, and since it poured the whole week, what I saw when the last load of books pulled up was a constant flow of gold water and soot and printer’s ink coming from the train. Well, I just stood there, leaning against a lamppost, flabbergasted, and as the last car disappeared into the mist, I felt the rain on my face merging with tears, so when on my way out of the station I saw a policeman in uniform, I crossed my wrists and begged him with the utmost sincerity to take out his handcuffs, his bracelets, as we used to call them, and take me in—I’d committed a crime, a crime against humanity—and when he did take me in, all they did was laugh at me and threaten to lock me up.”

In this quote, Hrabal illustrates Haňt’a’s sense of loss and violation as cultural treasures are desecrated by oppressive forces he cannot oppose. The imagery of “gold water and soot and printer’s ink” conveys the destruction of precious books, symbolizing the erosion of knowledge and heritage. Haňt’a begins to weep and pleads to be arrested, underscoring his profound helplessness as well as his sense of guilt at being unable to stop this desecration. Over time, he deals with it by desensitizing himself and accepting the necessity of destruction, balanced out by the transcendence of ideas.

“By then I had mustered the strength to look upon misfortune with composure, to still my emotions, by then I had begun to understand the beauty of destruction, and I loaded more and more freight cars, and more and more trains left the station heading west at one crown per kilogram, and as I stood there staring after the red lantern hanging from the last car, as I stood there leaning on a lamppost like Leonardo da Vinci, who stood leaning on a column and looking on while French soldiers used his statue for target practice, shooting away horse and rider bit by bit, I thought how Leonardo, like me, standing and witnessing such horrors with complete composure, had realized even then that neither the heavens are humane nor is any man with a head on his shoulders.”

In this passage, Hrabal explores Haňt’a’s resigned acceptance of destruction and his evolving perception of beauty within it. The comparison to Leonardo da Vinci, who watched the desecration of his own work with similar detachment, underscores Haňt’a’s sense of futility and inevitability in the face of human and cosmic cruelty. This parallel elevates Haňt’a’s experiences to a universal level and highlights a shared realization of the harsh, indifferent nature of existence, suggesting a stoic understanding that transcends personal suffering.

“When Mama died, I cried a bit to myself, but never shed a tear. Leaving the crematorium, I watched the smoke rising from the chimney into the sky, watched Mama making her way upward to the heavens, but before leaving I decided to take a trip down-stairs: after all, didn’t they do in their cellar with people what I did in my cellar with books? Anyway, I waited until the service was over and watched them burning four corpses, the third of which was Mama, looked on motionless at the final state of man, observed my counterpart picking out the bones, grinding them in his hand mill, grinding up Mama, too, and laying her earthly remains in a metal box, and all I could do was stand there and stare—the way I stared after the train taking those wonderful libraries off to Switzerland and Austria at one convertible crown a kilo—stand there and think of the lines from Sandburg about how all that remains of a man is the phosphorus for a box of matches or the iron for a noose-worthy nail.”

This quote reflects the Haňt’a’s stoic confrontation of mortality, drawing a parallel between the incineration of books and human bodies. The imagery of watching his mother’s cremation with the same detached observation he applies to his work underscores Haňt’a’s understanding of material existence as impermanent. He contemplates life’s impermanence and the reduction of both people and knowledge to mere remnants. The reference to American poet Carl Sandburg’s lines about the insignificance of human remains emphasizes a bleak, existential view, suggesting that, in the end, all that once held meaning is reduced to basic, utilitarian elements that have the potential to cause destruction and suffering.

“And when there was no room for even a single addition, I pushed my twin beds together and rigged a kind of canopy of planks over them, ceiling high, for the two additional tons of books I’ve carried home over the years, and when I fall asleep I’ve got all those books weighing down on me like a two-ton nightmare. Sometimes, when I’m careless enough to turn in my sleep or call out or twitch, I am horrified to hear the books start to slide, because it would take little more than a raised knee or a shout to bring them all down like an avalanche, a cornucopia of rare books, and squash me like a flea. There are nights when I think that the books are plotting against me for compacting a hundred innocent mice a day, that they want to get even with me, and well they might: our transgressions haunt us.”

Haňt’a’s relationship with the books he collects reflects the precarious balance between his love for books and ideas and the oppressive weight of the accumulated objects and knowledge. He personifies the books, imagining them as plotting revenge for his daily transgressions, underscoring a sense of guilt and anxiety—his actions and the burden of his passions are inescapable and ever-present in his conscience.

“I could see how right Rimbaud was when he wrote that the battle of the spirit is as terrible as any armed conflict; I could grasp the true meaning of Christ’s cruel words, ‘I came not to send peace, but a sword’; and having received my education unwittingly, I was always amazed at Hegel and what he taught me, namely, that the only thing on earth worthy of fear is a situation that is petrified, congealed, or dying, and the only thing worthy of joy is a situation where not only the individual but also society as a whole wages a constant battle for self-justification.”

This quote explores Haňt’a’s realization of the profound and often brutal nature of intellectual and spiritual struggles. By referencing Rimbaud and Christ, Haňt’a acknowledges that inner conflicts and the quest for truth can be as harrowing as physical battles. The mention of Hegel’s teachings emphasizes the value of dynamic, ever-evolving situations over stagnation, highlighting a belief in the necessity of continuous striving and conflict for both personal and societal growth and vitality.

“Now I’m back at my press, making up wastepaper bales, a classical philosopher in the heart of each bale, and my body is relaxed by my morning stroll through Prague, my mind is cleared by the thought that I am not alone, that there are thousands like me in Prague working underground, in basements and cellars, and that they have live, living, life-giving thoughts running through their heads.”

Haňt’a’s morning stroll through Prague and his conversations with the former academics working in the sewers of the city—a community of like-minded individuals working in obscurity—provide him with mental clarity and a sense of belonging. This emphasizes that intellectual and philosophical pursuit transcends individual isolation and connects a hidden network of thinkers in the underground (in this case, both literally and figuratively). This quote exemplifies The Struggle for Freedom Under Authoritarianism, showing that Haňt’a and his acquaintances retain their intellectual freedom, irrespective of their circumstances.

“They had a hard time of it, those Gypsy girls: they had not only themselves and two children to support, they also had to support their man, a Gypsy who took his cut every afternoon according to the size of their bundles. He was a strange type, that Gypsy: he wore gold-rimmed glasses, had a mustache, and parted his hair down the middle, and I never saw him without a camera slung over his shoulder. He took their picture every day, posing them carefully and stepping back to frame the picture, while they flashed him the brightest of smiles, but he never had film in the camera and the Gypsy girls never saw a single shot of themselves, and still they had their picture taken every day and looked forward to the results like Christians to heaven.”

This quote illustrates Haňt’a’s attentiveness to the lives of the Romani women he encounters. Haňt’a is empathetic with the hardships endured by others. His attention to their way of life and the episode of the Romani girls’ joy and hopes of seeing an impossible photo symbolize human striving and hoping in the face of hopelessness. This episode highlights Haňt’a’s sensibility and his longing for an innocence that is not part of his own daily life.

“I fastened the compacted cube with wire and wheeled it out, surrounded by what was left of the still-crazed flies, to join the fourteen other bales, all of which were also strewn with flies, green or metallic-blue flies shining on every black-red drop of blood, each bale like a gigantic side of beef hanging from a hook in a provincial butcher’s shop at hot high noon.”

In this passage, Haňt’a describes the grim reality of his work environment, comparing the compacted bales of blood-soaked paper to grotesque sides of beef, which underscores the dehumanizing and macabre aspects of his labor. The imagery of flies on blood-streaked bales creates a visceral scene of decay and corruption, reflecting Haňt’a’s inner turmoil and sense of entrapment.

“I was about to go back to the cellar when my boss dropped to his knees before me with a martyred look on his face and clasped his hands and pleaded, ‘Please, Haňt’a, for the love of God, come to your senses while there’s still time and stop pouring those pitchers of beer down your gullet. Do your job and stop torturing us. You’ll be the end of me if you go on like this.’ Trembling, I leaned over him and took him gently by the elbow. ‘Get a grip on yourself, my good man,’ I told him. ‘It’s not dignified to kneel.’ And as I helped him up, I felt him shake all over, so I asked him to forgive me, without knowing what for, but that was my lot, asking forgiveness, I even asked forgiveness of myself for being what I was, what it was my nature to be.”

In this passage, Hrabal uses irony and role reversal to explore themes of dignity and self-awareness. Haňt’a’s boss, typically a figure of authority, is depicted on his knees, pleading with Haňt’a, which undermines traditional power dynamics. Haňt’a’s response, characterized by a gentle yet patronizing tone, highlights his own lack of self-awareness and the tragic irony of his position—offering forgiveness and advice while remaining oblivious to the depth of his own issues.

“And so everything I see in this world, it all moves backward and forward at the same time, like a blacksmith’s bellows, like everything in my press, turning into its opposite at the command of red and green buttons, and that’s what makes the world go round. I’ve been compacting wastepaper for thirty-five years, a job that ought to require not only a good classical education, preferably on the university level, but also a divinity degree, because in my profession spiral and circle come together and progressus ad futurum meets regressus ad originem, and I experience it all firsthand: I, unhappily happy with my unwitting education, ruminate on progressus ad futurum meeting regressus ad originem for relaxation, the way some people read the Prague Evening News.”

The metaphor of the blacksmith’s bellows illustrates the cyclical and contradictory nature of existence, reflecting Haňt’a’s view (inspired by Hegel’s work) that life constantly oscillates between progress and regression. Haňt’a’s work at the hydraulic press is a symbol for this philosophical observation, as he perceives his menial task as requiring profound educational and spiritual insight, merging classical and divine wisdom. The juxtaposition of high intellectual reflection with mundane labor underscores Haňt’a’s ironic contentment and sense of pride in his “unwitting education.”

“Humbly and quietly I scraped up the remains of his remains, the toughest part being the red hair in the linoleum—it was like the spines of a porcupine run over by a truck; I had to use a chisel on it—and when I finished, I stuffed the leftovers under the clothes he had on in the coffin, covered his head with the cap I’d found hanging in the signal tower, and placed a volume of Immanuel Kant in his hands, opening it to a beautiful text that has never failed to move me: ‘Two things fill my mind with ever new and increasing wonder—the starry firmament above me and the moral law within me,’ but, changing my mind, I leafed through the younger Kant and found an even more beautiful passage: ‘When the tremulous radiance of a summer night fills with twinkling stars and the moon itself is full, I am slowly drawn into a state of enhanced sensitivity made of friendship and disdain for the world and eternity.’”

This quote blends macabre imagery with philosophical reflection, highlighting the theme of The Coexistence of the Beautiful and the Grotesque. Haňt’a holds reverence for intellectual and existential contemplation even in the face of death. The detailed and visceral description of cleaning up his dead uncle’s hair contrasts with the serene and profound passages from Kant, creating a juxtaposition that emphasizes the duality of human experience—mundane and sublime, physical and metaphysical.

“Twenty-one sunflowers lit up the dark cellar and the few mice left shivering for want of paper, and one mouse came up and attacked me, jumping on its hind legs and trying to bite me or knock me over, straining its tiny body, leaping at my leg and gnawing at my wet soles, and each time I brushed it away, gently, it would fling itself at my shoe until finally it ran out of breath and sat in a corner staring at me, staring me right in the eye, and all at once I started trembling, because in that mouse’s eyes I saw something more than the starry firmament above me or the moral law within me. Like a flash of lightning Arthur Schopenhauer appeared to me and said, ‘The highest law is love, the love that is compassion,’ and I realized why Arthur hated strongman Hegel, and I was glad that Hegel and Schopenhauer weren’t leading opposing armies, because the two of them would wage the same war as those two rat armies in the sewers of Prague.”

This quote juxtaposes a vivid, almost surreal encounter Haňt’a has with a mouse against profound philosophical reflection, creating a moment of unexpected enlightenment. The mouse’s struggle and the intense eye contact evoke a sudden epiphany, where Haňt’a perceives a deeper truth about compassion and the nature of existence, as articulated by Schopenhauer. The reference to the philosophical conflict between Schopenhauer and Hegel symbolizes the internal and external battles of ideology, mirroring the confrontation between a powerful being (the human) and the helpless, though defiant, mouse. This further highlights the interconnectedness of all struggles, whether grand philosophical debates or simple encounters in a dark cellar.

“Anyway, there I lay, half asleep, overwhelmed by the gnawing going on above me, and, as usual when I drift off, I was joined by a tiny Gypsy girl in the form of the Milky Way, the quiet, innocent Gypsy girl who was the love of my youth and used to wait for me with one foot slightly forward and off to the side, like a ballet dancer in one of the positions, the beautiful, long forgotten beauty of my youth.”

The appearance of the Romani girl in Haňt’a’s drifting thoughts, symbolized by the Milky Way, evokes a sense of nostalgia and lost innocence. This imagery of the girl, poised like a ballet dancer, highlights the purity and grace of his youthful love, which is contrasted with his current overwhelming and oppressed existence.

“One evening I came home to find her gone. I switched on my light and went back and forth to the street until morning, but she didn’t come, not that day or the next or ever again, though I looked everywhere for her. My childlike little Gypsy, simple as unworked wood, as the breath of the Holy Spirit—all she ever wanted was to feed the stove with the big, heavy boards and beams she brought on her back, crosslike, from the rubble, all she ever wanted was to make potato goulash with horse salami, feed her fire with wood, and fly autumn kites. Later I learned that she had been picked up by the Gestapo and sent with a group of Gypsies to a concentration camp, and whether she was burned to death at Majdanek or asphyxiated in an Auschwitz gas chamber, she never returned. The heavens are not humane, but I still was at the time. When she failed to return at the end of the war, I burned the kite and twine and the long tail she had decorated, a tiny Gypsy girl whose name I’d never quite known.”

This is a significant passage in the novella, where Haňt’a confesses to loss and deep trauma, which continue to inform his life. The harshness of reality, represented by the Gestapo’s act of murder, is contrasted by the innocence of the Romani girl in Haňt’a’s eyes, as well as by his continued love for her. The act of burning, instead of being one of anger, is an both an attempt to let go of pain and an attempt to accept the reality; at the same time, it acknowledges the transcendence of love and memory.

“Well into the fifties my cellar was piled high with Nazi literature, and there was nothing I enjoyed more than compacting tons of Nazi pamphlets and booklets, hundreds of thousands of pages with pictures of cheering men, women, and children, cheering graybeards, cheering workers, cheering peasants, cheering SS men, cheering soldiers. I got a specially big kick out of loading my drum with Hitler and his entourage entering liberated Danzig, Hitler entering liberated Warsaw, Hitler entering liberated Prague, Hitler entering liberated Vienna, Hitler entering liberated Paris, Hitler at home, Hitler at harvest festivals, Hitler with his faithful sheepdog, Hitler visiting his troops at the front, Hitler inspecting the Atlantic Wall, Hitler en route to the conquered towns of East and West, Hitler leaning over military maps.”

This quote illustrates Haňt’a’s grim satisfaction in dismantling symbols of the oppressive power that killed his lover. The repetition of “Hitler entering” various liberated cities emphasizes the pervasive and insidious reach of Nazi influence, which Haňt’a is metaphorically crushing through his work. The detailed litany of Hitler’s appearances underscores the ubiquity of fascist imagery in his environment, transforming his mundane task into a symbolic act of resistance and a way to process his own trauma.

“Only now did I see the workers at the foot of the conveyor belt tearing open the boxes, taking the virgin books out of them, pulling the covers off, and tossing the naked insides on the belt, and it didn’t matter what page they fell open to: nobody ever looked into them, nobody even dreamed of looking into them, because whereas I stopped my press all the time, they had to keep the belt full and moving. It was inhuman, the work they were doing in Bubny; it was like work on a trawler, when the nets are hauled in and the crew sort big fish from small, tossing them on belts that go directly to canning machines in the bowels of the ship: one fish after another, one book after another.”

This quote contrasts Haňt’a’s reverence for books with the dehumanizing, mechanical labor at Bubny, where workers destroy books without a second thought. The simile comparing the workers’ actions to a trawler’s crew sorting fish emphasizes the industrial, unfeeling nature of the process, reducing books to mere commodities devoid of meaning or value. This scene highlights the loss of intellectual and cultural appreciation, depicting an environment where efficiency and productivity are prioritized over the intrinsic worth of knowledge and literature.

“If I could go to Greece, I said to myself, I’d make a pilgrimage to Stagira, the birthplace of Aristotle, I’d run around the track at Olympia, run in my underwear, in long johns with shoelaces tied round the ankles, in honor of all Olympic champions, if I could go to Greece. If I could go to Greece with that Brigade of Socialist Labor, I’d lecture to them on more than just philosophy and architecture, I’d lecture to them on all the suicides, on Demosthenes, on Plato, on Socrates, if I could go to Greece with the Brigade of Socialist Labor. But they belonged to a new era, a new world, it would all go right over their heads, everything was too different nowadays.”

After initially feeling insulted by the Brigade of Socialist Labor’s plan to travel to Greece, Haňt’a fantasizes of honoring ancient traditions and lecturing on classical philosophers. However, his recognition that his knowledge and passions would be lost on the contemporary Brigade of Socialist Labor highlights a sense of disconnection and alienation from modern society, reflecting the broader motif of the erosion of cultural and intellectual continuity in a rapidly changing world.

“My boss told me to go and sweep the courtyard or help out in the cellar or just stand there and do nothing, because next week I’d be making bales of clean paper in the cellar of the Melantrich Printing Works, clean paper, nothing else. Suddenly everything went black: I, who had spent thirty-five years compacting rejects, wastepaper, I, who couldn’t live without the prospect of rescuing a beautiful book from the odious waste, I would be compacting immaculate, inhumanly clean paper!”

This moment marks Haňt’a’s existential crisis upon learning that he will be sent away to compact clean paper instead of his usual wastepaper. The transition from dealing with “rejects” to “immaculate, inhumanly clean paper” signifies a loss of purpose and meaning for Haňt’a, as his job was not merely a mechanical task but a mission to rescue valuable knowledge from the dirt. Therefore, the dirt is essential to Haňt’a, his life’s work depends on it, underscoring the theme of The Coexistence of the Beautiful and the Grotesque.

“Deep in thought, I walked to Charles Square, where I tore up the thank-you note, knowing it was the last, because the days of small joys, small pleasures had come to an end: my press had tolled their knell, it had betrayed me. And as I stood in Charles Square looking up at the glimmering statue of Ignatius of Loyola cemented to the façade of his own church and outlined in trumpet triumphant gold by his own halo, what I saw was a large gilt upright bathtub with Seneca lying upright in it just after he had slashed the veins in his wrist, thereby proving to himself how right he was to have written that little book I so loved, On Tranquility of Mind.”

In this quote, Haňt’a experiences a profound sense of betrayal and loss, symbolized by the act of tearing up the thank-you note and recognizing the end of his work. The juxtaposition of Ignatius of Loyola’s triumphant statue with the image of Seneca in his moment of death reflects Haňt’a’s inner turmoil, as he grapples with the ideals of tranquility and the reality of his own existential despair, drawing a parallel between philosophical resignation and his personal sense of betrayal.

“And when I considered the stripes of the priests and nuns and Hasidic Jews, I thought of the human body as an hourglass—what is down is up and what is up is down—a pair of locked triangles, Solomon’s seal, the symmetry between the book of his youth, the Song of Songs, and the vanitas vanitatum of his maturity in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Suddenly my eyes were drawn to Saint Ignatius of Loyola and his glimmering trumpet-gold halo, and I thought how odd it was that while the statues of our great literary lights—Jungmann, Šafařík, Palacký—always sit stiffly in chairs and even the Romantic Macha needs to lean against a column, our Catholic statues are full of motion, like athletes who have just spiked a ball over the net or finished the hundred-meter dash or a whirlwind discus throw, their sandstone eyes and arms raised as if on the point of returning God’s lob or rejoicing in His victory goal.”

The comparison of the human body to an hourglass and the reference to Solomon’s seal symbolize the interconnectedness of different stages of life, from youthful passion in the Song of Songs to the mature wisdom of Ecclesiastes. The contrast between the dynamic, triumphant poses of Catholic statues and the static, contemplative postures of literary figures underscores the tension between active religious fervor and intellectual introspection. Haňt’a, at this moment in the novella, represents both, as he is in a moment of crisis.

“I’m a schoolboy taking home a bad report card. The bubbles rise like will-o’-the-wisps. Three youngsters in a corner are playing a guitar and singing quietly, everything that lives must have its enemy, the melancholy of a world eternally under self-rejuvenation, that beautiful Hellenic model and goal, classical gymnasia and humanist universities. But in the sewers of Prague two armies of rats are locked in a life-and-death struggle. The right leg was a little frayed at the knee. Turquoise-blue and velvet-violet skirts. Helpless hands like clipped wings. An enormous side of beef hanging from the hook of a provincial butcher’s. I hear toilets flushing.”

Haňt’a’s feeling of shame and defeat is likened to a schoolboy with a bad report card, while the rising bubbles symbolize fleeting, elusive hopes. The contrast between the serene, idealized vision of a Hellenic model of education and the grim imagery of rat armies in Prague’s sewers, frayed clothing, and a butchered side of beef illustrates the tension between lofty aspirations and the harsh, unromantic aspects of life. This culminates in the mundane sound of toilets flushing, which underscores the banality and inevitability of these struggles.