Rake, drunkard, aesthete, gossip, raconteur extraordinaire: the narrator of Bohumil Hrabal's rambling, rambunctious masterpiece <i>Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age </i>is all these and more. Speaking one day to a group of sunbathing women who remind him of lovers past, this elderly rou&#233; proceeds to tell the story of his life-or at least to unburden 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 &#8220;in the days of the monarchy&#8221; 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.<br><br>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 <i>pabeni </i>(or &#8220;palavering&#8221;), 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 Milan Kundera called Hrabal &#8220;our very best writer today.&#8221;