TOO LOUD A SOLITUDE by Bohumil...

TOO LOUD A SOLITUDE by Bohumil Hrabal, translated from the Czech by Michael Henry Heim (Harvest International/ Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: $7.95). Hrabal offers a mischievous satire on the disinformation campaigns of the Soviet puppet regime in Prague under the guise of a sardonic, often scatological novel about a man who compresses old books into scrap paper. The author skillfully uses repeated phrases to suggest the routine of Hanta’s life and the limits of his world. Despite the insults of his bullying boss, Hanta is oddly content. He enjoys reducing literature to so much waste material; he saves an occasional rare book for himself, and worries about the families of mice who inhabit his cellar workroom. But his grubby idyll is threatened by the arrival of a new generation of paper processors: ambitious young party men who can destroy more books faster--and earn vacations in Greece. Hrabal’s satiric vision retains its strength, despite the change of regime in Czechoslovakia, and affirms the enduring power of the written word.