Ellipsis (February)

‘Proluky’ is volume three of Bohumil Hrabal’s novel Life. In fits of Joycean excitement he writes without aid of any punctuation but the ellipsis. The books are one long sentence. Like Gertrude Stein, the stories are told in his wife’s voice, so may well be titled ‘The Autobiography of Eliška Plevová’, complete with self-mockery. Proluky is Czech for gaps, so we are left to guess when she breathes, what omits, leaves to imagination, or treats as ‘Etc.’ What do the three dots stand for? On March 16^th ‘Stuff the Germans’, August 21^st ‘Damn the Soviets’, February 14^th ‘I love you’?