A worker at a waste paper collection center, Hanta, has worked at a printing press for thirty-five years. He rescues rare books from piles of paper, reads them, and is thus ''educated against his will.'' The novella Too Noisy Solitude is Hanta’s inner monologue with many recurring motifs. The reader gets to know Hanta’s first love, Mancinka, and the gypsy Ilonka, who disappeared in a concentration camp. He witnesses the daily struggle with mountains of paper and endless jugs of beer, hears Hanta’s quotes from philosophers, and his dreams of retirement…