Vladimír Páral came to the forefront of Czech literature in the late 1960s, at a time when enthusiasm for the communist revolution was waning and turning into self-criticism. Until 1968 there was an attempt to revise communist dogmas, and Páral's first novels surprised readers at home and abroad by the topicality and originality of his subject matter. His tales of life reduced to basics, as manifested in "statistically significant individuals," map out the mechanical lifestyle of certain social classes. At the same time, Páral's stories brought a sharply critical moral judgment to bear on the dull routine of that lifestyle. His individual writing style is a product of his technical education. Páral's method of composition is, for the most part, conjectural, deductive, and synthesizing. His work is on the borderline between pulp-fiction narratives and typically intellectual prose, involving permutations...