This is the story of a man who lives in Prague who survived the ghettoes of WWII, lived in America for a while, has now taken a job as a street sweeper even though he doesn't need the money, and is having an extra-marital affair. I had trouble reading this book because the author switched between times and places without any transition whatsoever. This book was originally written in Czechoslovakian, so I wonder if this lack of transition is part of the author's style or if it's just poorly translated. There were some really good ideas presented in this book and it was interesting to look into a culture different than my own, but I didn't enjoy it because I was so often lost without transitions and trying to figure out what was going on. I might've started to get used to the style by the end but I continued to be bored because by then the story was boring while the main character did nothing.