TOO LOUD A SOLITUDE by Bohumil Hrabal

Yet another very good book that few Americans (even literary types) have read, this novella is a wonderful Central European melange resounding with echoes of Kafka, Gogol and Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground. It's a marvelous book full of great ideas and images; it overflows with hope and hopelessness, dark humor and sly satire. (I'm starting to sound like a blurb writer, so I guess it's time to exit. Suffice it to say that Too Loud a Solitude is one of those books that, upon first reading, makes me want to gush.)