num_pages: 92
description: Hrabal's postwar classic about a young man's coming of age in German-occupied Czechoslovakia is among his best loved and most accessible works. Closely Observed Trains is the subtle and poetic portrait of Milos Hrma, a timid young railway apprentice who insulates himself with fantasy against a reality filled with cruelty and grief. Day after day as he watches trains go by, he torments himself with the suspicion that he himself is being watched and with fears of impotency. Hrma finally affirms his manhood and, with a sense of peace and purpose he has never known before, heroically confronts a trainload of Nazis.
language: English
title: Closely Observed Trains
titlecomplete: Closely Observed Trains
characters: Miloš Hrma
genres: Classics, Novella, Novels, War, School, 20th Century, Literature, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Czech Literature
ratings_count: 10196
places: Czechoslovakia
publisher: Abacus