I was interested to read about writer Bohumil Hrabal's status in Czechoslovakia where he is considered almost a national hero. His novels, such as Closely Watched Trains in 1965, came at the end of the period (the 'thaw') of social realism, and opened new vistas of writing beyond propaganda.
Social realism began as an attempt to portray only the rosier aspects of Communist life, to 'paint pink' any death not seen as grandly heroic, and water the sex down to Victorian innuendo. Many books were banned or censored so heavily they were unpublishable.
Closely Watched Trains was first written in 1949 at the beginning of this period, and was rejected many times due to the character's sexual drives. Resubmitted in 1962, it was finally printed in 1965 when the Stalinists were keeping a low profile. It was an essentially different book and became a best-seller in the 1960's.
It takes place in 1945, where the townspeople are accustomed to German's flying overheard, and if they get shot down, how quickly they mobilized to strip the wreck for parts. Twenty-one year old Milos Hrma works at the train station in the dispatch office, and working the block system switching the trains between the two main tracks. There are a few others who work there, including Dispatcher Hubricka and Virginia Svata, about whom bawdy rumours run rampant when she works the night shift. Along with the usual mail and passenger trains, there are SS transports moving through the station and Germans officers to deal with. Often passenger trains shot to pieces by guns and grenades. Departure Station : Krakow.
One day he meets Masha when they are assigned to paint a railway fence, and they being a friendship. Masha is a conductress who often helps load the German's onto hospital trains.
While the war is seen through the train station business, the station itself is full of bawdy stories - strip games, couples on the office couch, and a certain lady passenger who shows Milos extra attention. On the night of a terrible air-raid on Dresden, Hubricka tells Milos of a twenty-eight car ammunition train coming through the station. Milos agrees to help in the plan of derailing or stopping the cargo, bringing about a personal and human ending.
Closely Watched Trains was made into a popular film, winning the Best Foreign Picture Award at the 1967 Oscars. Two of Hrabal's other novels are I Served The King Of England and Too Loud A Solitude.
I'd recommend this book. It has many layers and as I flip through it again, I am reminded how well it is written. It's a true classic, a bestseller when it came out in 1965 and still interesting today.
1965 / Paperback / 88 pages
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