{"product_id":"9781590175569","title":"Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age","description":"Rake, drunkard, aesthete, gossip, raconteur extraordinaire: the narrator of Bohumil Hrabal’s rambling, rambunctious masterpiece \u003ci\u003eDancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age\u003c\/i\u003e is all these and more. Speaking to a group of sunbathing women who  remind him of lovers past, this elderly roué tells the story of his  life—or at least unburdens himself of a lifetime’s worth of stories.  Thus we learn of amatory conquests (and humiliations), of scandals both  private and public, of military adventures and domestic feuds, of what  things were like “in the days of the monarchy” and how they’ve changed  since. As the book tumbles restlessly forward, and the comic tone takes  on darker shadings, we realize we are listening to a man talking as much  out of desperation as from exuberance. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hrabal, one of the great Czech writers of the twentieth century, as  well as an inveterate haunter of Prague’s pubs and football stadiums,  developed a unique method which he termed “palavering,” whereby  characters gab and soliloquize with abandon. Part drunken boast, part  soul-rending confession, part metaphysical poem on the nature of love  and time, this astonishing novel (which unfolds in a single monumental  sentence) shows why he has earned the admiration of such writers as  Milan Kundera, John Banville, and Louise Erdrich.","brand":"New York Review Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47137970847984,"sku":"9781590175569","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781590175569_p0.jpg?v=1763804386","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781590175569","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}