A literature course called Great Novellas beckoned me. I enrolled on it in order to discover writers or works I had not encountered before, and to sample fine writing I might learn from in order to improve my craft. This was one of the books on that course.

There is some very beautiful writing in this book, and plenty of humour. The humour is that of the grim variety. It’s similar to the deadpan humour in The Compromise, which I suppose is not surprising given that the author was a Czech, and therefore subject to the same restrictions.

An interesting aspect of the writing is the sudden changes of mood.

I really disliked the descriptions of casual cruelty to animals, but as the story is interesting, and the writing is so different from what I’m used to, I have no hesitation in recommending it.