{"id":717,"date":"2018-09-24T13:15:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T11:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/?p=717"},"modified":"2020-05-29T01:53:07","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T23:53:07","slug":"pl100-blog-vol-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/","title":{"rendered":"#PL100 BLOG Vol.8"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019ve ever seen the films Solaris<\/i>, The Congress<\/i> or Apocalypse Now<\/i>, you\u2019ve most certainly been exposed to the fruits of Polish literature. Yes, Joseph Conrad \u2013 author of Heart of Darkness<\/i>, the novella that inspired Apocalypse Now \u2013 <\/i>wrote in English, but he didn\u2019t learn the language until his twenties and wrote in a distinctly un-English style. On the other hand, sci-fi writer Stanis\u0142aw Lem \u2013 author of Solaris<\/i> and The Futurological Congress <\/i>\u2013 lived in Poland for the majority of his life and wrote solely in his mother tongue.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Both authors works are available widely in English, and you\u2019re likely familiar with their cultural influence. Polish writing doesn\u2019t stop there though. The country has given birth to five Nobel Prize winners in literature (most recently, the poet Wis\u0142awa Szymborska). If your finger is on the literary pulse, you\u2019ll undoubtedly know that Olga Tokarczuk recently won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for her novel Flights<\/i> (translated by Jennifer Croft), the first Polish author to do so. Naturally, this has led to a slew of publishing houses rushing to translate her formidable back-catalogue.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

In the spirit of celebrating Polish literature, here\u2019s four modern novels you should have a crack at reading before the summer\u2019s over:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Lovetown<\/a> (Micha\u0142 Witkowski)<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThank God it\u2019s only queens and jolly old ladies here. The radio warbles Maryla and Budka. We have our Mars cigarettes, our Eris sunblock, our memories of caravan holidays, when you\u2019d spend a whole night on the train just getting there, honey, and a crowded train at that, standing in the corridor the whole journey, but happy just to be going to the beach.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Lovetown<\/span><\/i> is unlike any novel you\u2019ve read. The book is split into two parts: the first, set in the Wroc\u0142aw apartment of two older Polish drag queens as they reminisce about their gay escapades in the communist-era; the second, set on a nudist beach in the Western Baltic resort Lubiewo. The book is part-fiction, part-reportage, as Witkowski writes himself into the narrative, listening to countless stories from veteran queens in a contemporary Polish queer retelling of The Decameron<\/i>. This is a text with broad ambitions, one that attempts to recreate the vernacular and banal remarks of its participants, as a means of situating the reader most directly in their experiences. It\u2019s a wild book, full of wildly entertaining characters with wildly radical observations about the fortunes of queer men in a post-communist Poland.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

The 8th<\/sup> Day of the Week<\/a> (Marek H\u0142asko)<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018…To be or not to be. People are exhausted, they are dropping to the ground, what can raise them up again? To be or not to be. Cynicism is coming \u2013 and fast \u2013 to be the sole morality. To be or not to be. Can anything valuable come out of a world that has to use blackmail to keep from collapsing? To be or not to be. Oh we\u2019ve created artificial moons, but man with his true feelings and aspirations must find a safe refuge. To be or \u2026 Waiter, half a litre, please.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The 8th<\/sup> Day of the Week<\/span><\/i> was actually published in 1956, making it not quite as modern as the other titles listed here. It does, however, provide an insightful contrast in its depiction of post-war, pre-thaw gloom on the sullen streets of Warsaw. Simply put, the novel tells the story of two lovers attempting to find a private place to consummate their love. Across the course of a number of conversations, it ends up expertly spinning the web of disenchantment that fell over young people living in the shadow of Stalinism. The book\u2019s author, H\u0142asko, enjoyed domestic acclaim, followed shortly by censorship and international renown, but befell as grim a fate as his despondent narrative suggests: after a drunken scuffle with his close friend Krzysztof Komeda<\/span><\/span> led to the jazz pianist\u2019s death, H\u0142asko never quite recovered and died after taking a cocktail of drugs in 1969.<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Madame<\/a> (Antoni Libera)<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI looked up and froze. Yes it was she \u2013 Madame. My head spun. It\u2019s not possible, I thought; <\/span><\/i>such things don\u2019t happen in this world. But before I could embark on a discussion with the spirit of Thomas Mann, whose voice had once again sounded somewhere within me, there she was, standing before me.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n


Although Madame<\/i> was first published in English in 2001, the novel is set in the Warsaw of the late 1960s, making it an ideal counterpoint to The 8th<\/sup> Day of the Week<\/i>. Gone is the gloom and \u2013 in the narrator\u2019s words \u2013 the \u201cdegeneration and crime and collective madness\u201d of Stalinism. In its place is a playfully curious schoolboy with a burgeoning Francophilia and thinly-veiled passion for his French teacher. Libera sets up his novel as a Bildungsroman <\/i>(at times literally invoking the spirit of Thomas Mann), yet with a twist of parody, ultimately ends up subverting the genre. This is the beauty of the book. You never really know quite where it\u2019s taking you, but its lively narrator fills it with enough wit, nostalgia and literary homage to reawaken your own dormant adolescent lust for learning. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

My First Suicide<\/a> (Jerzy Pilch)<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cIn our parts, houses in which the drapes were closed during the day were the houses of the dead. And the houses in which the drapes were not closed at night were the houses of demons. At the break of dawn, in winter at six at the latest, five at the latest in summer, Grandma Pech would open the drapes, lest anyone should glance at our windows and get the idea that someone had died in the Pech household; or, what is worse, that the Pechs were still sleeping.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

As the narrator explains to a most beautiful woman early on in the book, My First Suicide<\/i> is \u201ca collection of short stories of a different sort.\u201d The narrator\u2019s pretentiousness is sharply rebuked by his sparring partner, yet there\u2019s a truth in there. My First Suicide <\/i>undoubtedly consists of short stories, but whether they\u2019re confected musings or autofiction or real-life revelations remains unclear. The narrator hops from the deep Lutheran south of his Wis\u0142a childhood, to his later, established years in Warsaw, via an early upending to Krak\u00f3w \u2013 drinking in the distinctive cultures and ticks of a vast country. Pilch is a master at dropping linguistic threads and picking them up later in the most satisfying of ways. He\u2019s also a master at sharing his humanity for what it is (distracted, regretful and preoccupied with sex), thus bringing the reader closer and closer, leaving you wanting more of his sharp, humorous, different<\/i> short stories.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever seen the films Solaris, The Congress or Apocalypse Now, you\u2019ve most certainly been exposed to the fruits of Polish literature. Yes, Joseph Conrad \u2013 author of Heart of Darkness, the novella that inspired Apocalypse Now \u2013 wrote in English, but he didn\u2019t learn the language until his twenties and wrote in a distinctly un-English style. On the other hand, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-100-2","category-blogs"],"yoast_head":"\n#PL100 BLOG Vol.8 - Instytut Polski w Londynie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"pl_PL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"#PL100 BLOG Vol.8 - Instytut Polski w Londynie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you\u2019ve ever seen the films Solaris, The Congress or Apocalypse Now, you\u2019ve most certainly been exposed to the fruits of Polish literature. Yes, Joseph Conrad \u2013 author of Heart of Darkness, the novella that inspired Apocalypse Now \u2013 wrote in English, but he didn\u2019t learn the language until his twenties and wrote in a distinctly un-English style. On the other hand, […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Instytut Polski w Londynie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-09-24T11:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-05-28T23:53:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"295\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ochamanskij\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Napisane przez\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"ochamanskij\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Szacowany czas czytania\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minut\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"event\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/\",\"name\":\"#PL100 BLOG Vol.8\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1-300x221.png\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png\"],\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-09-24T11:15:00+02:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-05-28T23:53:07+02:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/53963c4c768e79692e296cb2619bf9f9\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/\"]}],\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"startDate\":\"2018-11-11\",\"endDate\":\"2018-11-11\",\"eventStatus\":\"EventScheduled\",\"eventAttendanceMode\":\"OfflineEventAttendanceMode\",\"location\":{\"@type\":\"place\",\"name\":\"\",\"address\":\"\",\"geo\":{\"@type\":\"GeoCoordinates\",\"latitude\":\"\",\"longitude\":\"\"}},\"description\":\"If you\u2019ve ever seen the films Solaris, The Congress or Apocalypse Now, you\u2019ve most certainly been exposed to the fruits of Polish literature. 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Naturally, this has led to a slew of publishing houses rushing to translate her formidable back-catalogue.\\n \\nIn the spirit of celebrating Polish literature, here\u2019s four modern novels you should have a crack at reading before the summer\u2019s over:\\n \\n \\nLovetown (Micha\u0142 Witkowski)\\n \\n\u201cThank God it\u2019s only queens and jolly old ladies here. The radio warbles Maryla and Budka. We have our Mars cigarettes, our Eris sunblock, our memories of caravan holidays, when you\u2019d spend a whole night on the train just getting there, honey, and a crowded train at that, standing in the corridor the whole journey, but happy just to be going to the beach.\u201d\\n \\nLovetown is unlike any novel you\u2019ve read. The book is split into two parts: the first, set in the Wroc\u0142aw apartment of two older Polish drag queens as they reminisce about their gay escapades in the communist-era; the second, set on a nudist beach in the Western Baltic resort Lubiewo. 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Oh we\u2019ve created artificial moons, but man with his true feelings and aspirations must find a safe refuge. To be or \u2026 Waiter, half a litre, please.\u2019\u201d\\n \\nThe 8th Day of the Week was actually published in 1956, making it not quite as modern as the other titles listed here. It does, however, provide an insightful contrast in its depiction of post-war, pre-thaw gloom on the sullen streets of Warsaw. Simply put, the novel tells the story of two lovers attempting to find a private place to consummate their love. Across the course of a number of conversations, it ends up expertly spinning the web of disenchantment that fell over young people living in the shadow of Stalinism. The book\u2019s author, H\u0142asko, enjoyed domestic acclaim, followed shortly by censorship and international renown, but befell as grim a fate as his despondent narrative suggests: after a drunken scuffle with his close friend Krzysztof Komeda led to the jazz pianist\u2019s death, H\u0142asko never quite recovered and died after taking a cocktail of drugs in 1969.\\n \\nMadame (Antoni Libera)\\n \\n\u201cI looked up and froze. Yes it was she \u2013 Madame. My head spun. It\u2019s not possible, I thought; such things don\u2019t happen in this world. But before I could embark on a discussion with the spirit of Thomas Mann, whose voice had once again sounded somewhere within me, there she was, standing before me.\u201d\\nAlthough Madame was first published in English in 2001, the novel is set in the Warsaw of the late 1960s, making it an ideal counterpoint to The 8th Day of the Week. Gone is the gloom and \u2013 in the narrator\u2019s words \u2013 the \u201cdegeneration and crime and collective madness\u201d of Stalinism. In its place is a playfully curious schoolboy with a burgeoning Francophilia and thinly-veiled passion for his French teacher. Libera sets up his novel as a Bildungsroman (at times literally invoking the spirit of Thomas Mann), yet with a twist of parody, ultimately ends up subverting the genre. This is the beauty of the book. You never really know quite where it\u2019s taking you, but its lively narrator fills it with enough wit, nostalgia and literary homage to reawaken your own dormant adolescent lust for learning. \\n \\nMy First Suicide (Jerzy Pilch)\\n \\n\u201cIn our parts, houses in which the drapes were closed during the day were the houses of the dead. And the houses in which the drapes were not closed at night were the houses of demons. At the break of dawn, in winter at six at the latest, five at the latest in summer, Grandma Pech would open the drapes, lest anyone should glance at our windows and get the idea that someone had died in the Pech household; or, what is worse, that the Pechs were still sleeping.\u201d\\n \\nAs the narrator explains to a most beautiful woman early on in the book, My First Suicide is \u201ca collection of short stories of a different sort.\u201d The narrator\u2019s pretentiousness is sharply rebuked by his sparring partner, yet there\u2019s a truth in there. My First Suicide undoubtedly consists of short stories, but whether they\u2019re confected musings or autofiction or real-life revelations remains unclear. The narrator hops from the deep Lutheran south of his Wis\u0142a childhood, to his later, established years in Warsaw, via an early upending to Krak\u00f3w \u2013 drinking in the distinctive cultures and ticks of a vast country. 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On the other hand, […]","og_url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/","og_site_name":"Instytut Polski w Londynie","article_published_time":"2018-09-24T11:15:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-05-28T23:53:07+00:00","og_image":[{"width":400,"height":295,"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"ochamanskij","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Napisane przez":"ochamanskij","Szacowany czas czytania":"6 minut"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"event","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/","name":"#PL100 BLOG Vol.8","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/#primaryimage"},"image":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1-300x221.png","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png"],"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png","datePublished":"2018-09-24T11:15:00+02:00","dateModified":"2020-05-28T23:53:07+02:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/53963c4c768e79692e296cb2619bf9f9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"pl-PL","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/"]}],"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","startDate":"2018-11-11","endDate":"2018-11-11","eventStatus":"EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"OfflineEventAttendanceMode","location":{"@type":"place","name":"","address":"","geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":"","longitude":""}},"description":"If you\u2019ve ever seen the films Solaris, The Congress or Apocalypse Now, you\u2019ve most certainly been exposed to the fruits of Polish literature. Yes, Joseph Conrad \u2013 author of Heart of Darkness, the novella that inspired Apocalypse Now \u2013 wrote in English, but he didn\u2019t learn the language until his twenties and wrote in a distinctly un-English style. On the other hand, sci-fi writer Stanis\u0142aw Lem \u2013 author of Solaris and The Futurological Congress \u2013 lived in Poland for the majority of his life and wrote solely in his mother tongue.\n \nBoth authors works are available widely in English, and you\u2019re likely familiar with their cultural influence. Polish writing doesn\u2019t stop there though. The country has given birth to five Nobel Prize winners in literature (most recently, the poet Wis\u0142awa Szymborska). If your finger is on the literary pulse, you\u2019ll undoubtedly know that Olga Tokarczuk recently won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for her novel Flights (translated by Jennifer Croft), the first Polish author to do so. Naturally, this has led to a slew of publishing houses rushing to translate her formidable back-catalogue.\n \nIn the spirit of celebrating Polish literature, here\u2019s four modern novels you should have a crack at reading before the summer\u2019s over:\n \n \nLovetown (Micha\u0142 Witkowski)\n \n\u201cThank God it\u2019s only queens and jolly old ladies here. The radio warbles Maryla and Budka. We have our Mars cigarettes, our Eris sunblock, our memories of caravan holidays, when you\u2019d spend a whole night on the train just getting there, honey, and a crowded train at that, standing in the corridor the whole journey, but happy just to be going to the beach.\u201d\n \nLovetown is unlike any novel you\u2019ve read. The book is split into two parts: the first, set in the Wroc\u0142aw apartment of two older Polish drag queens as they reminisce about their gay escapades in the communist-era; the second, set on a nudist beach in the Western Baltic resort Lubiewo. The book is part-fiction, part-reportage, as Witkowski writes himself into the narrative, listening to countless stories from veteran queens in a contemporary Polish queer retelling of The Decameron. This is a text with broad ambitions, one that attempts to recreate the vernacular and banal remarks of its participants, as a means of situating the reader most directly in their experiences. It\u2019s a wild book, full of wildly entertaining characters with wildly radical observations about the fortunes of queer men in a post-communist Poland.\n \nThe 8th Day of the Week (Marek H\u0142asko)\n \n\u201c\u2018...To be or not to be. People are exhausted, they are dropping to the ground, what can raise them up again? To be or not to be. Cynicism is coming \u2013 and fast \u2013 to be the sole morality. To be or not to be. Can anything valuable come out of a world that has to use blackmail to keep from collapsing? To be or not to be. Oh we\u2019ve created artificial moons, but man with his true feelings and aspirations must find a safe refuge. To be or \u2026 Waiter, half a litre, please.\u2019\u201d\n \nThe 8th Day of the Week was actually published in 1956, making it not quite as modern as the other titles listed here. It does, however, provide an insightful contrast in its depiction of post-war, pre-thaw gloom on the sullen streets of Warsaw. Simply put, the novel tells the story of two lovers attempting to find a private place to consummate their love. Across the course of a number of conversations, it ends up expertly spinning the web of disenchantment that fell over young people living in the shadow of Stalinism. The book\u2019s author, H\u0142asko, enjoyed domestic acclaim, followed shortly by censorship and international renown, but befell as grim a fate as his despondent narrative suggests: after a drunken scuffle with his close friend Krzysztof Komeda led to the jazz pianist\u2019s death, H\u0142asko never quite recovered and died after taking a cocktail of drugs in 1969.\n \nMadame (Antoni Libera)\n \n\u201cI looked up and froze. Yes it was she \u2013 Madame. My head spun. It\u2019s not possible, I thought; such things don\u2019t happen in this world. But before I could embark on a discussion with the spirit of Thomas Mann, whose voice had once again sounded somewhere within me, there she was, standing before me.\u201d\nAlthough Madame was first published in English in 2001, the novel is set in the Warsaw of the late 1960s, making it an ideal counterpoint to The 8th Day of the Week. Gone is the gloom and \u2013 in the narrator\u2019s words \u2013 the \u201cdegeneration and crime and collective madness\u201d of Stalinism. In its place is a playfully curious schoolboy with a burgeoning Francophilia and thinly-veiled passion for his French teacher. Libera sets up his novel as a Bildungsroman (at times literally invoking the spirit of Thomas Mann), yet with a twist of parody, ultimately ends up subverting the genre. This is the beauty of the book. You never really know quite where it\u2019s taking you, but its lively narrator fills it with enough wit, nostalgia and literary homage to reawaken your own dormant adolescent lust for learning. \n \nMy First Suicide (Jerzy Pilch)\n \n\u201cIn our parts, houses in which the drapes were closed during the day were the houses of the dead. And the houses in which the drapes were not closed at night were the houses of demons. At the break of dawn, in winter at six at the latest, five at the latest in summer, Grandma Pech would open the drapes, lest anyone should glance at our windows and get the idea that someone had died in the Pech household; or, what is worse, that the Pechs were still sleeping.\u201d\n \nAs the narrator explains to a most beautiful woman early on in the book, My First Suicide is \u201ca collection of short stories of a different sort.\u201d The narrator\u2019s pretentiousness is sharply rebuked by his sparring partner, yet there\u2019s a truth in there. My First Suicide undoubtedly consists of short stories, but whether they\u2019re confected musings or autofiction or real-life revelations remains unclear. The narrator hops from the deep Lutheran south of his Wis\u0142a childhood, to his later, established years in Warsaw, via an early upending to Krak\u00f3w \u2013 drinking in the distinctive cultures and ticks of a vast country. Pilch is a master at dropping linguistic threads and picking them up later in the most satisfying of ways. He\u2019s also a master at sharing his humanity for what it is (distracted, regretful and preoccupied with sex), thus bringing the reader closer and closer, leaving you wanting more of his sharp, humorous, different short stories."},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Screen_Shot_2018-08-24_at_08.57.40_350371b3c1.png","width":400,"height":295},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/09\/24\/pl100-blog-vol-8\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"#PL100 BLOG Vol.8"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/","name":"Instytut Polski w Londynie","description":"Instytuty Polskie","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"pl-PL"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/53963c4c768e79692e296cb2619bf9f9","name":"ochamanskij","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b2ff67cc6eab38d2d3a7c1c5d354ef25?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b2ff67cc6eab38d2d3a7c1c5d354ef25?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"ochamanskij"},"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/author\/ochamanskij\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1777,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions\/1777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}