Dancing Lessons For The Advanced In Age (1998) - Plot & Excerpts
The delicate swirls of bubbles that dash to greet the robust rim of the glass, the bashful flour that audaciously rises to an aromatic marvel and the musical notes of the hammer as it drums the quiescent nails into colourful leather, only if they had words attached to their expeditions could we have then known the chronicles of a far-fetched yeast and a wooden caricature of an yet unborn shoe. Aren't we lucky to be humans, to be able to knit words into our experiences? Isn't life beautiful even with all its flaws? Untouched memories that nestle cozily in forgotten sentiments, lingering nostalgia that hides its viciousness behind the surreal veil of pleasantries, morph into an enlightening flow between a man and his alternative search for therapeutic consolations. Everyone is a story teller. Some carve, some orate and some discover a home to their lost words at the dusk of their lives. Yet, stories are somehow formed and lessons are bestowed step by step to the listeners who sway in these choreographed audible melodies, dancing to the tunes of splendor madness that transcends into the spontaneity of “palaverers”. Hrabal says, “Human being is always mistaken in his point of view on the world, but that the world in which he lives, its underlying truth as a context of facts, cannot be mistaken.”When the romanticism of the world seduces the melancholic acrobats of realism, imaginary tales are woven cheerfully indulging the severity of the past into an absolute tenderness of an aesthetic heroism. Have you ever noticed the face of the person who ecstatically recites nostalgic tales? At some stage in those various gradations of the sound bites, an infectious smiles get crafted on the narrator’s face that eventually finds a way to be plastered on your face and long after the stories fade in the moody air , the words remain powerfully glued like that smile. Jirka must have sported the identical contagious grin when he began telling his wondrous tales to a bunch of beauties lazing in the sun. Inspired by Bohumil’s Uncle Pepin, Jirka’s stories brought the pub alive with flamboyant memories that highlighted a harsh realism of a revolutionary era of the Austro-Hungarian landscape and the succeeding historical events with refined emotions. The noisy clatter of the Perko typewriter that Hrabal loved listening to as his poured his heart out resounded in the divine melodies of Jirka’s world. "The world is a beautiful place don’t you think? Not because it is but because I see it that way, the way Pushkin saw it in that movie , poor Pushkin, to die in a duel, and so young, his last poems gushing from a bullet hole in his head, I could tell from the picture that he admired the European Renaissance too, he had fantastic muttonchops, you know the whiskers our own Franz Joseph wore, and Strauss the composer,…”Jirka’s prose becomes an animated medium through which Bohumil depicts the chronological Austro-Hungarian revolution into diversified sovereignty. The reminiscence of a fading imperialist monarchy lingers in the ruins of pious love that had been washed by wantonness and glamour of money. The partisan of the Church refrained from sins but they were not saints. Bohumil impishly mocking the law of the Church by describing the Holy Trinity as a “carrier pigeon to communicate”; debates how the Church and the religious elites had insisted on “curbing passion” and restricting the liberation of human or rather sexual desires bringing nothing but sadness in the end. The discrepancies that prevailed in the society, the absurdities on the war front and the hypocritical approach to sexual aspirations, the suicide and other criminal exploits shine fiercely through Jirka’s words as the sun touches the supple skin of his gorgeous audience. "Javanese cinnamon is better than Ceylonese cinnamon is good in mulled wine and fruit......."A soldier who became a shoemaker and then found a concrete place in the vocation of brewery, Jirka was in love with his work, no matter its station. In his stories one can unearth meticulous recollection of the fermentation processes on how the yeast and hops made a wondrous marriage that resulted in one of the finest brew in Europe. For a sturdy soldier with a sensitive heart, he sure did make good quality shoes. As a charmer with fine hands, Jirka could have enticed the Prime Minister’s daughter, but he was a gentleman and there could have been bad consequences and Mr. Batista would not approve it at all. Isn't Jirka a hero? For he knows “how a real man trembles like a frog about to leap whenever he sees a beautiful woman” and yet he maintained his sexual hygiene. Hrabal, amuses the reader with such exquisite sentences that find prominent place in this fanfare of miscellaneous characters and simultaneous stories. Furthermore, it gets outright comical when Jirka lambast that even though progress is good for mankind, when it comes to his favourite bread, butter and beer, the damn technology is to be slowed down. ( “Why will no one see that progress may be good for making people people, but for bread and butter and beer it’s the plague, they've got to slow down their damn technology). Given that Hrabal scripted Jirka before the Communist occupation in 1968, Jirka and his opinions were not subjected to censorship, fortunately. "A certain poet by the name of Bondy once told me people have strange ideas about what writing poetry means, they think it’s like going for water with a bucket or that poets just lift up their eyes unto the heavens and the heavenly hosts rain down verses upon them.......he had such a head on his shoulders that even today the professors go gaga over him...."The free-thinkers who question the authoritative Church, the social democrats who widely indulge in the quintessential “chicken v/s egg” debate, place Charles Darwin on the pedestal. Egon Bondy was one of the dearest pal of Bohumil, a free-thinker, a poet who questioned every conservative regulation propelled amongst the societal more, Hrabal portraying his friend writes, “Bondy the poet- he wrote poetry only in the toilet with a poetry board on his kneed and a notebook on the pastry board.....”. Through Jirka’s insightful eyes, Bondy who forever travels with his two babies pushing their buggy, elucidates why poets love to drink and meditate and how are blessed with sudden prophetic intellectual enlightenment. Hrabal puts forth the religion v/s atheist argumentative skilfully inferring how politics and writing go hand-in hand, no matter the pursued resistance.In this mesmerizing monologue, the 70-yr old Jirka who now quite often visits the cemetery and wonder why don’t working people sing songs anymore becomes Hrabal’s beloved palaverer who immensely appreciates the feminine charisma. After all, it is only the poets who think of death and “old fogies” like him think of women. Jirka's narratives not only bring surreal grandeur to his life but make the reader feel alive and sense the utmost sentiment of belonging in a place where beauty was discovered everywhere. Hrabal said of his palaverers, “Thanks to their madness, transcend themselves through experiment and spontaneity and through their ridiculousness they achieve a kind of grandeur, because they end up where no one expected them or expects them.”So, as the delicate aroma of the fragrant dough rising from its humid stupor fills the kitchen , I put on my new pair of shoes and wordlessly listen to the melody of a chilled lager cascading into a crystalline maze , the frothy allure embracing the steamy bliss that springs from the soft warm bread waving the mischievous beer bubbles a long farewell and when the butter melts into a golden stream, I leisurely pin my ears onto Jirka while clinking my glass to his amusing anecdotes and letting out a heartfelt gratitude to the literary art of Hrabal Bohumil and his dearest pal, Egon Bondy.
Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/clases-de-b...“Clases de baile para mayores” de Bohumil Hrabal. Un insolente y divertido libertinoBohumil Hrabal (1914-1997) es un escritor checo cuya obra se caracteriza “por una visión satírica de la realidad y la importancia que confiere a sus aspectos absurdos”. “Considerado uno de los más grandes autores del siglo XX en su lengua por su facilidad narrativa y el uso alternativo del humor y la tragedia en un mismo plano.” Nórdica nos trae ahora una de sus obras emblemáticas, “Clases de bailes para señoras” donde un anciano cuenta sus batallitas a una señorita con todo lujo de detalles.Para entender su estilo y su forma de escribir me voy a basar en tres fuentes, en primer lugar la opinión del escritor británico Julian Barnes:“Hrabal es un novelista muy sofisticado, con un gran gusto por el humor y una sutil ternura en los detalles.”De esta frase hay tres datos importantes a tener en cuenta: sutileza en los detalles, gusto por el humor y lo sofisticado de su propuesta.Como segunda fuente vamos a utilizar al propio autor que en la novela que me ocupa hoy dice lo siguiente en el prólogo:“Pienso que las expresiones idiomáticas poco ortodoxas a las que he recurrido en la construcción de Clases de Baile para mayores son necesarias en la misma medida, en la prosa contemporánea se aprecia un deslizamiento en la selección en la figura del héroe. Creo que existe un continuo trasvase entre la lengua coloquial y las jergas, y que un nivel idiomático presupone la existencia del otro. Las jergas, más que la lengua coloquial, tienen un interés en el idioma académico, puesto que se basan en saltarse las reglas establecidas mediante la creatividad, buscando un efecto de sorpresa y singularidad, para cogerte desprevenido.[…]”Su defensa a ultranza de la jerga idiomática como elemento desestabilizador del orden establecido le ayuda a desplazar la figura de un héroe atípico, como es en este caso el insolente, tierno, divertido anciano que nos cuenta las típicas batallas de los abuelos. La tercera fuente es mi propia experiencia observadora: Hrabal plantea una narración en primera persona que es un flujo continuo de pensamientos, de anécdotas y experiencias que se van sucediendo a lo largo de toda la narración; no utiliza el diálogo, pero se sabe que está narrándoselo a alguien.A pesar de la apariencia poco amigable (no hay apenas puntos y apartes) la narración avanza con solidez y resulta bastante adictiva ya que Hrabal es capaz de aderezarla con todo tipo de detalles que la enriquecen, tal es el caso de su descripción de lugares en los que nuestro querido anciano ha estado; en ese momento es cuando acentúa el uso de los adjetivos para exaltar el colorido de lugares tan exóticos como Hungría:“[…] y me fui a hacer mundo, a Hungría ¡qué delicia!… en Sopron había una hermosa fábrica de cerveza, un edificio rojo y blanco con ventanas verdes como las tirolesas, y todo estaba alicatado, junto a cada una de las ventanas había una escalera de hierro para que los bomberos, en caso de incendio, pudieran subir y bajar con facilidad, como los monos aquellos de Dresde… y Budapest, ¡qué maravilla de ciudad!, una calle blanca con ventanas rojas y otra toda verde con ventanas amarillas; las había azules, doradas y con pintas; incluso durante la guerra se hacía un pan tan blanco como si fueran bollos…[…]”Todo esto salpicado de momentos metaliterarios donde reflexiona sobre el verdadero fin de la poesía en particular; el símil, desde luego, ayuda a entenderlo además de sacarnos una sonrisa:“[…] por ello el poeta Bondy me decía que la verdadera poesía debe ser dolorosa, como si uno olvidara la cuchilla de afeitar en un pañuelo y, al sonarse, la nariz se cortara con ella, que un buen libro no es el que sirve al lector para mejor conciliar el sueño, sino que, por el contrario, debe sacarle de la cama para que corra, tal como está, en calzoncillos, a propinarle unos coscorrones al señor escritor…[…]”En este vendaval de grandilocuencia, no duda en atribuirse las palabras de su teniente Hovorka a la hora de conquistar a una mujer, esa sutileza en los detalles de la que hablaba anteriormente:“[…]¡Chicos!, decía el teniente Hovorka, “a una mujer así hay que tratarla con suavidad, como si uno estuviera afilando un lápiz: eso con las mujeres es más eficaz que sacarles la bayoneta; […]”Y hace gala continuamente del humor, hasta cuando le llegaron a incluir en el parte de bajas, ¡estando él presente!“[…] y me sucedió a mí que un día, al pasar revista, leyendo el parte de bajas, me señalaron entre los caídos: todo coincidía, incluso la fecha de nacimiento, conque dije en voz alta: “¡Pero si yo estoy vivo!”, a lo que me cayeron dos semanas de arresto por hablar durante el pase de revista; […]”Es en el epílogo donde adivinamos por fin a quién está narrando sus peripecias; es entonces cuando el gran escritor checo hace gala de una mayor profusión lírica; en efecto, su escena final es de un gusto ciertamente conmovedor, un colofón extraordinario a esta pequeña sorpresa literaria.[…] y empezó a lavarse, y el anciano, que se había pasado toda la tarde contándole historias, en ese instante quedó como fulminado, su rodilla doblada, presa de unas manos anudadas, mirando más allá de ella, hierático, arrebatado, tierno, mientras ella le hacía ese regalo que solamente una mujer puede hacer a un hombre, lavándose, a la caída del día, para unos ojos emocionados…”Los textos provienen de la traducción del checo de Jitka Mlejnková y Alberto Ortiz de “Clases de baile para mayores” de Bohumil Hrabal para la editorial Nórdica.
What do You think about Dancing Lessons For The Advanced In Age (1998)?
Spicuiri din recenzia finala care se gaseste pe blogul meu ..........................................Bohumil Hrabal își alege un astfel de personaj, un bătrânel care o dă înainte cu aventurile sale din tinerețe. Fie că povestește despre aventuri amoroase, fie despre fabricarea berii sau despre viața din imperiul austro-ungar, bătrânul are o vervă și un debit de parcă a strâns tot aerul din lume în plămâni și-și spune toată viața dintr-o suflare de parcă ar fi ultima. Exact ca bătrânii pe care îi întâlneam eu în tren.Mucalit, inteligent, cunoscător, înțelept, bătrânul lui Hrabal este un one-man-show desăvârșit. Știe foarte multe pentru că a trecut prin multe, pentru că a învățat din ele, pentru că a venit momentul să învețe și pe alții ce înseamnă viața.Volumul lui Hrabal este de un umor debordant și seducător. Nu cred că există cititor care să citească Lecțiile și să nu se îndrăgostească de carte și de personajul său........................................
—Razvan Zamfirescu
I've been re-reading a lot of Raymond Chandler; in love with noir once again; confirming my younger self's high estimation of his books.But after three Chandlers in a row, I needed a break. So I turned to Hrabal, one of my favorite authors. I know his books are as fast as Chandler and as smart. So I picked up one I've never read.This book.And it IS fast and it IS smart. But it is reliant on you, the reader, loving the blabber-mouthed, self-important, facetious raconteur who is talking, non-stop, AT you. And this is a book about talking, not about reading. There are no periods. This guy just won't shut up and damn, does he go on about his romantic exploits, and the way he's always perceived as a "hero." And this and that and on and on.If you find him lovable, this book is incredible. If you find him insufferable, you'll quickly be throwing this book across the room. And if you find him, like I did, both lovable and insufferable, you'll vacillate, like I did, between laughing and quickly reading to see what this brilliant liar will say next, and slapping the book shut just so the insecure windbag will shut the fuck up.
—Troy
A wonderful excursion into a palavering world. Funny. Well written. Difficult. Everything to look for in a book. Would recommend to anyone who wants a diversion from the normal formulaic design of modern novels.Dancing Lessons is essentially the transcription of a man telling stories and boasting about his younger years or, even, just telling tall tales (*shocking*, right?).The novel is a wondering tale, with one thought fragment leading into the next, sometimes looping back to older fragments, sometimes languishing forever. I picked up the book because it was a novelty (130 pages, all one sentence !?!), and ended up quite enjoying it.
—Matt Kurjanowicz
