Total Fears Letters to Dubenka

Rating:
Summary: Total Fears
Review: i stumbeled over this book in spring this year and i m still reading it (10 months!) though its not a very thick book. i read it very slowly that i can enjoy it for another while. its a wondrous book, very real very poetic far from kitch. i barely use the word beautiful, but in that case i may. besides, the cover is great art. i warmly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: One of Hrabal's Best!
Review: Total Fears takes the form of a series of letters to an American student before and during the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia. It is equal parts a love story, a personal memoir, and aching commentary on the fears Hrabal felt during the Communist regime as both a writer suppressed by the regime and fueled by it. Hrabal, a man of afterthoughts, writes his letters much as he does in his other works, in streams of consciousness. He moves from one topic to the next and then beautifully intertwines them. Though this book does not follow a traditional plot, it is traditional Hrabal, and moves the reader to see the extraordinary in history, love, and the conflict every one of us faces inside. I was truly moved by the book. While I do not consider it to be at the level of Too Loud A Solitude, perhaps Hrabal's most successful work, it is one of the warmest books I have read in quite some time. I highly recommend it!