Rondo by Kazimierz Brandys
22 May 2012 2 Comments
in Poland Tags: 2012, fiction, polish, prize winners, TRANSLATIONS
Rondo by Kazimierz Brandys
Polish fiction
Translated by Jaroslaw Anders
Kazimierz Brandys was a polish writer ,he is little known but a multiple prize winner and also a member of the order of fine arts in France .He was a graduate in law and made his writing debut in 1935 .his first novel published in 1946 .This considered one of his best was published in 1982 at that time he live in france where he lived until his death in 2000.
So rondo what is it well it is a man life the man in question is called Tom ,it is his story he has written after reading an account of the RONDO organisation a resistance movement in Poland written by a professor Janota in a historic magazine .Tom was a member of , but the question as the books unwinds is what is real and what is false in this account of Rondo and toms retelling of his remembrance of events ? .Tom past and present mix as we jump from the now of Warsaw in the 70′s a city just starting to become wealthy and changing .Then to the past of pre war and wartime Warsaw .So how did he get involved with the RONDO (Tom called it after a Chopin piece ) well this is how it started as he imagined it he was dating a girl Tola he made it up to impress her (haven’t we all bent the truth a little to impress a girl /boy ) but as the war progresses his peers start to build the imagine resistance movement into a real one because of the own selfish motives and thus fiction becomes fact .So tom is he the illegitimate son of a famous polish pre war leader ? This book very much in the allegorical vein of literature a display of what may have happen if person x had done this and persons a ,b and c had joined in rather than a truthful account of events .Then there is Tola an almost saintly women in Tom’s eye ,he is one of these men brought up to put the women in his life on the pedestal no matter what they do to them .
Professor W.Janota claims that (1) Rondo was founded in 1942 ;(2) it was established by people smuggled secretly from London;(3) its activities included extensive infiltration of the Wehrmacht and SS circles as well as surveillance of German strategic objectives ..
Tom read this and through that find out what happen for real or maybe for real .
So this is a mix of spy ,romance ,surreal ,memoir and allegory fiction ,all in one package ,I suppose the nearest book in English maybe is William Boyd’s Any human heart their is something of similar in Logan and Tom ,Logan is a man who ends up caught up in major events by accident rather like Tom has in Rondo and also Logan maybe extends the truth at times like Tom as well .But in the wider sense outside fiction ,he is a Walter Mitty the film character carried into a wider story of the second world war in Poland ,also rather like Clifton James the man who played a double of Monty to fool the Germans in the war and he played himself in the film where he was portrayed as a man who got carried along by events after he initially played Monty for a joke in a stage show ,there is a similar feel in Toms story here he started of with a small idea and then got carried along into a bigger idea .I loved this books take one world war two in Poland ,Tom was a great character to follow through these events .The book is published by Europa editions and is part of there first group of books to be published in the UK .
Treblinka A Survivor’s memory by Chil Rajchman
17 Apr 2012 13 Comments
in news, non fiction, Poland Tags: 2012, non fiction
Just read this book !!!!
Treblinka A survivor’s memory by Chil Rajchman
The hell of Treblinka by Vasily Grossman
Holocaust memoir
Translators (Rajchman ) Solon Beinfeld ,(Grossman) Robert Chandler
Chil Rajchman Was a twenty eight year old Pole when he enter the Death camp of Treblinka .He was on of the few survivors as Treblinka had a reputation as the most evil of the death camps .The camp killed an estimate 850,000 people during the war .Chil was among a group who manage to cause an uprising in the camp and escape in august 1943 he wrote his memories of the camp at that time on scraps of paper .He later settled in Uruguay worked this into the book Treblinka which he want published after he died to remind people of what had happened to him during the war
There was a difference in appearance of the dead from the small and from the large gas chamber .In the small chambers death was easier and quicker .The faces looked as if the people had fallen asleep , their eyes closed .Only mouths of some of the gassed victims were distorted ,with bloody foam visible on their lips .The bodies were covered in sweat .before dying people had urinated and defecated .
to find out the horrors of the large gas chamber read the book .
When this book arrived I was excited as I had want to get the hard back when it came out ,Rajchman’s account as one of the few survivors of the horrific Treblinka is an important document of Jewish history and Holocaust literature .Even 70 years after the events in this book took place we could all do with a remind of the horrors of mankind .I read the book in a day as I was gripped but the sheer bluntness of Rajchman memories ,he didn’t sugar coat a word this is like uncut diamond full of wonder and natrual beauty and you the reader have to cut the diamond to carry round and pass on to other readers and any one that mentions the war or says it wasn’t so bad it was that and more .I did just want put a short review up here and that would be
Just read it please
I m still not sure that is the best thing to have said as I as a blogger have to try to get you to pick this book .All I can say is the statement just read it some stories need to be read .This will make you feel like crying it did me .I choose today to put up my review as we see the horror of right-wing extremism raises it ugly head in the trail of the mass murderer in Norway Anders Brevik ,when today I heard him try to justify his actions it made me angry and I decide to do this review today .Chil entered Treblinka with his family the last time he saw them and because he was lucky or able to do jobs that no one else could do was able to survive and pass on this testament to future generations.Many hundreds of thousands couldn’t .
The second part of the book is Vasily Grossman’s account for the russian papers when he was the first journalist to reach Treblinka after the camp was liberated .He wrote the history of the camp an exact description of what he saw when he enter the lay out .These lines struck me
The ashes and crushed cinders swish softly .We enter the camp .We tread the earth of Treblinka .The Lupin pods spilt open at the least touch they split with a faint ping and millions of tiny peas scatter over the earth .The sounds of the falling peas and the bursting pods come together to form a single soft sad melody it is as a funeral knell
This sums up how fragile human life is just like those lupin seeds
I can’t say any more I d love to se reviews of this every where as it is such a touching memoir and one to pass on to all .I wait to review this to a day when it would mean something and today seems like that day to me .
Phantoms of Breslau by Marek Krajewski
05 Sep 2011 10 Comments
in EUROPEAN FICTION, Poland, TRANSLATIONS Tags: 2011, crime fiction, eastern european, Marek Krajewski, TRANSLATIONS
Phantoms of Breslau by Marek Krawjeswki
Polish crime fiction
Translator – Danusia Stok
Now any one the follows me on twitter or have read comments I ve placed around blogosphere know I been singing the praises of this book .This is the third in the Eberhard Mock series all set in 1919 Breslau (a city in south-west Poland )it was the capital of the upper silisea region as part of the germany in 1919 ,it is now called Wroclaw and has been in Poland since 1945 .The book opens with the gruesome discovery of four sailors naked and on top of one another on a small island in the river Oder .Thus enter the lead character Eberhard Mock there is a message left for Mock this means it may be a serial killer on the loose ,this bring him into the dark streets of Breslau ,where there are drinking dens and prostitutes as he is trying to stop there being ,more victims .But as the case unfold we find a world on male escorts and women wanting men dressed up as sailor and workmen etc .This leads Mock down another line of enquiry .When this drop through the door I thought oh no not another european crime novel ,I had a few sent and read in last twelve months but I admit the hard back cover as you can see above is very eye-catching in fact on could say macabre .So I decide to give it a roll rather than but it on the not tojust yet read pile and boy I m so pleased I did ,yes its crime and dark crime ala Jo Nesbo or Ian Rankin but then its historic but not in the sub Christie way as a lot of historic crime is set around this time ,no this is something different more in common with the american fiction I ve read of the day which is little .Krajewski Main talent is detail the eye for detail from cigarettes smoke in a pip ,to th food they eat he makes 1919 Breslau come to life .We get drawn into a dark and dangerous place as the people there come to terms with the post war world of 1919 .Mock is a hard-drinking trouble detective I felt a german Phillip Marlowe (but a policeman).
he rolled a cigarette of Georgian blend tobacco and lit it up .Listening to the chimes of the school chapel bells ..
He crumpled up his shirt stained by the copper and stuffed it into his bag …
the slabs of glass shattered ,the formaldehyde sluiced over Ruhtgard as he lay curled up on the floor ..
Three snippets of descriptions from the book .
I feel this is the perfect autumn read as the nights draw in you can get drawn into the dark side of Breslau .
Marek Krajewski is a resident and grew up and still lives in Wroclaw (Breslau as was ) .he teaches classic at Wroclaw university .he has written six Mock books also two that of shoot from them and also two modern crime fiction set in Gdansk .The mock series follows the city of the time well (according to the Polish wiki page )the mock books have been translated into 14 languages .Here by Danuisa Stok she has translated the other books in the series as well as the screenplay for three colours .
Have you read this or any in the series ?
fado andrzej stasiuk
19 Jan 2010 2 Comments
in around the world, Poland, polish fiction Tags: around the world 52, polish
This is the third in my around the world challenge ,from Poland and is the first i ve read by a polish writer .Stasiuk is considered Poland’S foremost writer winning numerous awards in his homeland with his novel nine.The collection of essays describes as a slavic road trip .The road trip is invoked by the short stories being set all over former eastern europe the stories range from the present-day to the past ,dreams Stasiuk beauty is in the eye for detail he has that straight away lead you to small town cafe ,to slavic writers , the most touching is a story about his own grandparents and ecological issues ,a lament for simple times when things werent so available so families made do and used everything . Staisuk manages to catch the spirit of post communist times in these essays the searching for new indentys that people have had to do with the changing times ,having spent time in the early nineties working alongside Albanians ,Bosnians and Serbia i felt Stasiuk has really nailed the people of this region .A must read for any one interested in the changing face and map of europe .
In those days ,in the village there were no trash containers.there was also no trash .People brought all kinds of things,but not much was left after they were cosumed.Sugar was sold in paper bags that afterwards could be burned in the stove or reused .Bottles that had contained vinegar,oil and vodka could be sold back at the store for decent money
Stasiuk in the essay tranquilly talking about his grandparents village
The cover is a retro style cover that looks like it might have come from the seventies ,fado is published by the non-profit publisher dalkey archive late last year .
have you read polish fiction ?
what other books do you think examine the changing fac of europe ?
