Bohumil Grabal is a popular Czech poet and prose writer. In 1994, he was nominated for a Nobel Prize. Among his other significant awards, the Oscar, which was awarded to a film based on his novel, should be noted. This is the drama by Jiri Menzel "Trains under close supervision." Grabbal wrote a script for her. He also received many other literary awards and prizes, not only at home, but also abroad. In 1996, he was awarded the Czech Republic State Award for Merit.
Childhood and youth
Bohumil Grabal was born in the Czech town of Brno. The city at that time was on the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, because it was born in 1914, just a few months before the outbreak of the First World War.
At the age of 5, Bogumil Grabal moved with his parents to the city of Nymburk, near Prague. There, his stepfather received the position of director at a brewery.
In 1935, the future writer entered the law faculty of Charles University.
Change of professions
When the Second World War began, Bohumil Grabal worked as a railway station duty officer and telegraph operator.
After defeating fascism, he changed many professions until he found his calling. During this time, he managed to be a salesman, an insurance agent. Like many other professions, this was directly reflected in his work. For example, in the 1950s, for seven years, Grabal worked as a waste paper packer and stage worker in the theater, although he was quite far from creativity to a certain time.
Creation
In his youth, Bogumil Grabal had not very interesting poetic experiments, after which for a long time he did not return to literature at all. His first major works were created only in the fourth ten of his life. It was then that significant changes began to occur in the biography of Bohumil Grabal, he finally sat down at his desk.
It is worth noting that the writer's works did not immediately find recognition among the public, they were published only in the 60s. Moreover, some books were actually banned for quite some time. For example, the novel "I served the English king."
In the 60s, real popularity came to Grabal, he became the most popular modern writer in Czechoslovakia. In 1965, one of his most recognizable works was published - the novel "Special Purpose Trains," in which he describes the resistance of the Czechs to the fascist invaders with his usual rude humor.
The biographers of the hero of our article note that the "German factor" in his life at the same time played a role. From his youth, he was closely associated with this environment, inspired by many German literary sources and philosophical ideas. Even his wife was a German woman named Elishka Plevova.
Death
Grabal died in February 1997 at the age of 82. He died in the hospital after he leaned out of the fifth floor to feed the pigeons. As a result of careless movement, he fell on the pavement.
Some researchers of his fate and work believe that this could be suicide, since such a fall in detail is described in several of his works at once.
After death, the writer was cremated. An urn with ashes was buried in a family crypt in a rural cemetery located near Prague.
"Special Train"
The first notable novel by Bohumila Grabala was released in 1963. It was called "Pearl at the bottom." This was followed by the work "Dance Lessons for Senior and Advanced Students", and then his first resounding success - "Special Train".
In 1968, the drama Trains Under Close Watch won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The main roles in this tape were played by Vaclav Netzkář, Josef Somr, Yitka Skoffin and Vlastimil Brodsky. Among the nominees that year were also the Spanish tape Francisco Rovira Beleta "Witching Love", the Japanese painting by Noboru Nakamura "Portrait of Chieko", Yugoslav drama by Alexander Petrovich "Feather Buyers", the French drama by Claude Lelouch "Live to Live".
The central character of this work is a teenager named Milos Grma, who undergoes an internship at a tiny railway station near Milovice. He is proud of the new form, trying in everything to match his older comrades who live an adult life still unknown to him.
Milos loves the young conductor Masha. After a meeting, they spend the night together, but due to a lack of experience, they fail at the first intimacy.
Meanwhile, the war is coming to an end. Partisans are watching the German trains passing through the station. They are counting on the help of the station staff. Milos brings explosives into the carriage of ammunition, but he perishes when he is noticed by security.
"I served the king of England"
The next high-profile novel by Grabal was a work entitled "I Served the English King." For political reasons, this book has been banned for a long time. It was written in 1971, it came out illegally several times. Its first official publication took place only after the fall of the socialist system in Czechoslovakia in 1989.
The narrative in the novel "I Served the King of England" Grabal in its genre is as close as possible to confession. The main character, Jan Dite, works as a waiter. His main dream and goal in life is to grow in the eyes of others and get rich. However, at the same time, he has to cope with the inferiority complex, since he was born of small stature, and besides, he was brought up in the status of an illegitimate child.
In 2006, Jiri Menzel directed the comedy of the same name on this novel. The main roles in the film were played by Ivan Birnev, Aldridge Kaiser, Julia Jench, Marian Labuda and Milan Lasitsa.
Waiter's Story
At the very beginning, the reader gets acquainted with the former owner of the hotel, Jan Dita, who returned after spending a decade and a half in prison. He comes to his small homeland in the Sudetenland, where he settles in one of the houses, forcedly abandoned by the settlers. In silence and tranquility, he rethinks his whole life, recalling his youth, which he spent in a constant pursuit of fame and fortune.
He began his journey to success with small retailers. Having become a waiter, he began to change, with the patronage of a new friend, a small beer hall to a prestigious restaurant. Having married an ethnic German woman, he manages to find work even after the German occupation. At the end of the war, his wife Lisa brings a collection of postage stamps, which she collected from the houses of evicted Jews.
The sale of these brands allows the protagonist to turn into a real millionaire, even to buy out the hotel in which he worked. However, the price of this resounding success is too high. Lisa, trying to save the stamps during the bombing, dies. Soon they arrest Dita himself. Next begins the nationalization of property by the Czechoslovak government, the communist authorities, who come to power shortly after the end of World War II.
The most famous novel
The most famous work of a Czech writer is a philosophical novel called Too Noisy Loneliness. Bohumil Grabal wrote it by 1976, but for the first time the book was published only in 1989. This again happened for political reasons, as the Czech government severely censored the book.
This book by Bohumil Grabal begins with an epigraph from Goethe, which once again speaks of the proximity of German culture to the Czech classic. It is noteworthy that this novel of the hero of our article was filmed. And twice: first in 1996, and then in 2007 in the form of a puppet cartoon, directed by American Genevieve Anderson.
Plot
Summary of "Too noisy loneliness" Grabala will allow you to make a full impression of this novel.
The whole book is an internal monologue that unfolds in the soul of the protagonist. Gantia works as a paper packer. He is lonely, has been spending three and a half decades behind the press machine, pressing books into briquettes in whole runs. Grabbed in “Too Noisy Aloneness” notes that the main character became wise during this time, although he himself did not want to. To pass the time at work, he sews books that he presses.
When the reader gets acquainted with the central character of the book “Too Noisy Loneliness” by Grabal, Ganta remains only five years until retirement. He decides to take the press with him in order to continue working at home, only giving out just one book a day. He regularly begins to organize exhibitions of finished products.
In the finale of the work, the chief places instead of Ganti the workers who arrived from the advanced brigade of socialist labor. They demonstrate that they are able to fulfill the duties of the protagonist several times faster and more efficiently. Gantia immediately realizes that he was left out of work, useless to anyone. Saddened, he commits suicide by lying under his own press machine.
Finale versions
It is noteworthy that in the first versions of the novel, the author left the hero alive. At the very end, he woke up on a park bench, realizing that in reality it was only a dream.
Another interesting point: the name of the book Bohumila Grabala is a quote from it. In one scene, the main character sees Lao Tzu and Jesus Christ. He describes how he begins to climb stairs up, but moves only on three limbs, as he is very dizzy from the too noisy loneliness surrounding him.
Grabala novels
In total, the hero of our article wrote several dozen vivid and notable novels, many of which were translated into Russian, and some were made into films.
Among his works, which we have not yet mentioned, are the novels “Holidays of Snowdrops,” “Beautiful Moments of Sorrow,” “Millions of Harlequin,” “Weddings at Home,” “Clefts,” “The Magic Flute,” and “Chevalier of Roses.”
From the book “Life without a Tuxedo” Bohumila Grabala, who was released in 1986, we learn many details about the life of the author himself. This is largely an autobiographical work, which he begins with memories of a real school in Nymburk, where he spent his childhood, studied science, made first friends. The Czech classic recalls that for him it was a “shining castle”, turned into a wall of fear and crying, a place filled with a lot of emotions, but at the same time, amazing and difficult to explain joy.
In 1994, Grabal was nominated for a Nobel Prize in literature. However, he failed to win the award. The Nobel Committee awarded it to the Japanese humanist writer Kenzaburo Oe for creating an imaginary world in which myth and reality combine to give a full impression of the disturbing picture of modern human adversity. At least that's what the rationale for the award sounds like.
It is noteworthy that Grabal had a chance to become the only second Czech writer in the history of the Nobel Prize in literature, who would be awarded this award. Prior to this, only the poet Yaroslav Seifert became the laureate. He was awarded a prestigious award in 1984 for the fact that in his work he demonstrated human versatility and a proud independent spirit.