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Stone Upon Stone
A masterpiece of post-war Polish literature, Stone Upon Stone is Wiesław Myśliwski’s grand epic in the rural tradition—a profound and irreverent stream of memory cutting through the rich and varied terrain of one man’s connection to the land, to his family and community, to women, to tradition, to God, to death, and to what it means to be alive.
Wise and impetuous, plainspoken and compassionate Szymek, recalls his youth in their village, his time as a guerrilla soldier, as a wedding official, barber, policeman, lover, drinker, and caretaker for his invalid brother.
Filled with interwoven stories and voices, by turns hilarious and moving, Szymek’s narrative exudes the profound wisdom of one who has suffered, yet who loves life to the very core.
Wise and impetuous, plainspoken and compassionate Szymek, recalls his youth in their village, his time as a guerrilla soldier, as a wedding official, barber, policeman, lover, drinker, and caretaker for his invalid brother.
Filled with interwoven stories and voices, by turns hilarious and moving, Szymek’s narrative exudes the profound wisdom of one who has suffered, yet who loves life to the very core.
537 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
About the author
Wiesław Myśliwski
19 books242 followersWiesław Myśliwski is a Polish novelist. In his novels and plays Myśliwski concentrates on life in the Polish countryside. He is twice the winner of the Nike Award (Polish equivalent of the Booker Prize) for Widnokrąg (1996) and Traktat o łuskaniu fasoli (2006).
His first novel translated into English was The Palace, translated by Ursula Phillips. His novel Stone Upon Stone (Kamień na kamieniu), won the 2012 Best Translated Book Award, translated by Bill Johnston (Archipelago Books).
His first novel translated into English was The Palace, translated by Ursula Phillips. His novel Stone Upon Stone (Kamień na kamieniu), won the 2012 Best Translated Book Award, translated by Bill Johnston (Archipelago Books).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 153 reviews
August 13, 2018
A long, slow read, meant to be savored and it is worth it. I read this bit by bit over a few months. It mixes up the present with reflections of the past in stream-of-consciousness passages. There is little dialogue.
The main character is a Polish man who fought in the resistance against the Germans and then the Russians in WW II. He was hospitalized for a year with wagon injuries to his leg.
He’s mainly a farmer but at times supplement his income as a barber and a clerk in the town hall. We read of his present doings and reflections on his growing up on the farm. He was one of four brothers. Two brothers left for the big cities and essentially never came back except for a visit of a few hours every three years. We see the infinite sadness of a mother writing to her sons who never reply. The youngest brother is mentally challenged and the main character takes care of him. --- but he’s no saint. On one occasion he savagely beats his woman friend and on another, his brother. He believes in God but in a superstitious way; he comes to believe that God is the land.
So what is like working on a Polish farm and growing up in rural Poland in what is probably around 1930’s to the 1970’s? When he was a boy they cut rye and wheat by hand with scythes and they used horses to plow and draw wagons. The hard work and tedium of cutting acres by hand!
We learn of his parents strong but simple religious beliefs; how he wooed young women at dances and village fairs, blind drunk on vodka. With the coming of autos, for horse-drawn vehicles the road became a danger and a barrier to crossing the town. There are legal battles and fistfights with neighboring farmers as they try to encroach on boundaries.
I’ll let the author speak for himself with samples of his excellent writing:
[On looking up at a crucifix] “Death draws you downward. With your head craned up it’s hard to cry even. The tears get stuck in your throat when it’s stretching up, and they trickle down into your stomach instead of into your eyes.”
[on his longing for a pair of officers’ boots] “I felt as if dying in those boots would be a different kind of death than dying in ordinary shoes or barefoot.”
“The world’s still the way it was, and all thinking does is make you want to think more and do less.”
On a battle that was fought over a patch of ground that held a cemetery: “It was so hellish even the worms couldn’t take it anymore, let a lone the dead….There were skeletons bodies, coffins, all over the place, like death had suddenly gone on the rampage all on its own because it had run short of living people and it had dragged the dead out of their graves so it could kill them all over again.”
“Words bring everything out onto the surface. Words take everything that hurts and whines and they drag it all out from the deepest depths. Words let blood, and you fell better right away…Because words are a great grace. When it comes down to it, what are you given other than words? Either way, there’s a great silence waiting for us in the end, and we’ll have our fill of silence…And every word we didn’t say to each other in this world we’ll regret like a sin…And how many of those unsaid words stay in each person and die with him, and rot with him, and they aren’t of any use to him either in his suffering, or in his memory?”
“And weeping knows everything, words don’t know, thoughts don’t know, dreams don’t know, and sometimes God himself doesn’t know but human weeping knows. Because weeping is weeping, and it’s also the thing that it’s weeping over.”
“Back then, friend, when you died there was a hole left in the village, like in the road. But in those times, you might say death was attached to people. Everyone lived their whole life in one place, so the death of one person was kind of like the death of all of them. These days everyone’s in motion, so death moves around as well.”
When someone talks of the main character’s exploits in the war: “I just nodded, because the way he told it was truer than it actually was.”
As he lays with a woman under a feather quilt: “Real geese had worn them [the feathers] as they lived and ate and grew and went down to the water, they had red beaks and cackled the way geese do. Then the women plucked the feathers from the geese. The women lived once just like the geese did. Those might even have been their happiest moments, when they gathered on winter evenings to pluck feathers, because why else would they have lived? If you listened really closely, you could still hear the sound of their hands in among the down, and the songs they sang.”
The book was written in Polish in 1999 and not translated into English until 2010 when it won two awards for translated books, one of which was the PEN Translation award.
Top photo of Polish farmers in 1930's from cultural-traditions.blogspot.com
Photo of the author from wikipedia
The main character is a Polish man who fought in the resistance against the Germans and then the Russians in WW II. He was hospitalized for a year with wagon injuries to his leg.
He’s mainly a farmer but at times supplement his income as a barber and a clerk in the town hall. We read of his present doings and reflections on his growing up on the farm. He was one of four brothers. Two brothers left for the big cities and essentially never came back except for a visit of a few hours every three years. We see the infinite sadness of a mother writing to her sons who never reply. The youngest brother is mentally challenged and the main character takes care of him. --- but he’s no saint. On one occasion he savagely beats his woman friend and on another, his brother. He believes in God but in a superstitious way; he comes to believe that God is the land.
So what is like working on a Polish farm and growing up in rural Poland in what is probably around 1930’s to the 1970’s? When he was a boy they cut rye and wheat by hand with scythes and they used horses to plow and draw wagons. The hard work and tedium of cutting acres by hand!
We learn of his parents strong but simple religious beliefs; how he wooed young women at dances and village fairs, blind drunk on vodka. With the coming of autos, for horse-drawn vehicles the road became a danger and a barrier to crossing the town. There are legal battles and fistfights with neighboring farmers as they try to encroach on boundaries.
I’ll let the author speak for himself with samples of his excellent writing:
[On looking up at a crucifix] “Death draws you downward. With your head craned up it’s hard to cry even. The tears get stuck in your throat when it’s stretching up, and they trickle down into your stomach instead of into your eyes.”
[on his longing for a pair of officers’ boots] “I felt as if dying in those boots would be a different kind of death than dying in ordinary shoes or barefoot.”
“The world’s still the way it was, and all thinking does is make you want to think more and do less.”
On a battle that was fought over a patch of ground that held a cemetery: “It was so hellish even the worms couldn’t take it anymore, let a lone the dead….There were skeletons bodies, coffins, all over the place, like death had suddenly gone on the rampage all on its own because it had run short of living people and it had dragged the dead out of their graves so it could kill them all over again.”
“Words bring everything out onto the surface. Words take everything that hurts and whines and they drag it all out from the deepest depths. Words let blood, and you fell better right away…Because words are a great grace. When it comes down to it, what are you given other than words? Either way, there’s a great silence waiting for us in the end, and we’ll have our fill of silence…And every word we didn’t say to each other in this world we’ll regret like a sin…And how many of those unsaid words stay in each person and die with him, and rot with him, and they aren’t of any use to him either in his suffering, or in his memory?”
“And weeping knows everything, words don’t know, thoughts don’t know, dreams don’t know, and sometimes God himself doesn’t know but human weeping knows. Because weeping is weeping, and it’s also the thing that it’s weeping over.”
“Back then, friend, when you died there was a hole left in the village, like in the road. But in those times, you might say death was attached to people. Everyone lived their whole life in one place, so the death of one person was kind of like the death of all of them. These days everyone’s in motion, so death moves around as well.”
When someone talks of the main character’s exploits in the war: “I just nodded, because the way he told it was truer than it actually was.”
As he lays with a woman under a feather quilt: “Real geese had worn them [the feathers] as they lived and ate and grew and went down to the water, they had red beaks and cackled the way geese do. Then the women plucked the feathers from the geese. The women lived once just like the geese did. Those might even have been their happiest moments, when they gathered on winter evenings to pluck feathers, because why else would they have lived? If you listened really closely, you could still hear the sound of their hands in among the down, and the songs they sang.”
The book was written in Polish in 1999 and not translated into English until 2010 when it won two awards for translated books, one of which was the PEN Translation award.
Top photo of Polish farmers in 1930's from cultural-traditions.blogspot.com
Photo of the author from wikipedia
May 16, 2021
I would've simply called Stone Upon Stone a narrative miracle.
The protagonist lived a long, rebellious and troubled life and now he attempts to build a tomb for himself and his kin. And in the process he remembers his entire life, mostly tumultuous and unhappy although he had his happy moments as well. The recollections come randomly: childhood, youth, adulthood, grandparents, mother, father, brothers, war, resistance, peace, hospital, work, drunkenness, harvests, lost love – everything gradually aggregates into a vivid mosaic of living.
The hero tells his story furiously as if he wants to give the world a piece of his mind… He philosophizes, polemizes and ponders until he comes down to the nitty-gritty of things.
Writers write, readers read and peasants feed them…
Though if you ask me, eternity’s the same whether you’re eaten by worms in your grave or fishes in the sea. When the Day of Judgment comes, the folk in their graves and the ones from the sea will have to rise up just the same. And it’s a lot less trouble in the sea than when you have to build a tomb.
The protagonist lived a long, rebellious and troubled life and now he attempts to build a tomb for himself and his kin. And in the process he remembers his entire life, mostly tumultuous and unhappy although he had his happy moments as well. The recollections come randomly: childhood, youth, adulthood, grandparents, mother, father, brothers, war, resistance, peace, hospital, work, drunkenness, harvests, lost love – everything gradually aggregates into a vivid mosaic of living.
People don’t need to know everything. Horses don’t know things and they go on living. And bees, for instance, if they knew it was humans they were collecting honey for, they wouldn’t do it. How are people any better than horses or bees?
The hero tells his story furiously as if he wants to give the world a piece of his mind… He philosophizes, polemizes and ponders until he comes down to the nitty-gritty of things.
You read and read, and in the end it all went into the ground with you anyway. With the land it was another matter. You worked and worked the land, but the land remained afterwards. With reading, not even a line, not a single word, was left behind.
Writers write, readers read and peasants feed them…
February 15, 2017
Stone upon stone is an epic saga and vast panorama of rural life and the peasant's view of the world. The main character, country bumpkin Szymek Pietruszka, a cross between a philosopher and chronicler, in a simple though not plebby way spins a story of his own life. And we, readers actually feel as if we were sitting on the threshold of his homestead and before our eyes pass a colorful parade of people and events which he had participated.
Country road, winding and full of holes hich one could go on the fair to the nearby town or to dance to the neighbouring village. And acacias which were growing by it and every summer smelled so stunningly that people walked like a drunk. And the cemetery which, during the war, was a place of six-week battle, and when it finally ended people had to bury their loved ones for the second time. And old verger Franciszek who with the acolytes had to catch starlings, titmice and other birds and let them out on cemetery to restore life and singing to that place again. And grandfather Kacper who forgot where he hid the document granting him the rights to the land, and that could make him a rich man. And grandmother Rozalia who drowned sailing to America and there is not even her grave, but after all it does not matter whether worms eat you in the grave or fish in the sea.
This novel is like a river spilled wide, fed with digressions and secondary threads like streams, and you even not knowing when are swimming caught by its current. Tales flow lazily and we can see Szymek as a guerilla, barber, policeman, wedding official, government worker. We know he loved women and good fun. In fact loved life.
Who knows, maybe living is the eleventh commandment that God forgot to tell us .
In broad flashbacks we learn about his parents, grandparents, neighbours and the changes of the Polish countryside in the first half of the twentieth century. His two brothers fled to the city and Szymek who seemed to be the least predestined to the life on the land, eventually took over the patrimony and care of crippled brother. His family fell apart and so Szymek came up with a seemingly bizarre idea to gather them again by building the family tomb.
Though they say a tomb is a house as well, just for the next life. Whether it's for eternity or not , a person needs a corner to call their own.
Novel, written in form of monologues, woven from memories which gradually, tale upon tale, song upon song creates a vivid and colourful image. Alternately playful, full of simple truths and folk wisdom, then again, serious and reflective.
With that novel Myśliwski in fact created monument to language and paid a homage to the traditional storytelling. Language is rich and exuberant, realistic even naturalistic descriptions mix with broad humour to be broken by lyrical passages or quiet meditation.
Stone upon stone , this unhurried, digressive tale, is like an elegy to passing world and ode to life as well. Because as Szymek used to say he was always more interested in living than in dying.
May 17, 2021
This book is over 500 pages of the internal monologue of Szymek Pietruszka, the peasant from a fictional polish village. It did not sound like my cup of tea on the surface, as I am as urban as one could be. Bu it is appeared to be the most wonderful read. Szymek so far is the best character I've read about this year and likely would stay this way. The author has created absolutely unique, idiosyncratic voice which makes the narrative flow. The period covered is approximately from the 30s to the 60s of the last century. It shows the fatalism and resilience of the peasant population at that time in Central Europe, the spirit which has almost totally disappeared. It is very colourful, humorous, but very profound book. Experience to treasure.
And I am totally in awe about the translation into English. Johnston has managed to keep the uniqueness of the voice and the rhythm of the prose. There are a few americanisms and a few choices which I would not agree with. But in general - superb work of the translator which certainly adds to the experience.
And I am totally in awe about the translation into English. Johnston has managed to keep the uniqueness of the voice and the rhythm of the prose. There are a few americanisms and a few choices which I would not agree with. But in general - superb work of the translator which certainly adds to the experience.
July 22, 2018
This fat novel, first published in 1984 and translated into English in 1999, felt to me like a masterful paean to the power of human memory to hold a lifetime, to reconstruct a dying way of rural life, and to reveal the heroic and stubborn resilience of the spirit. We start with Szymek in middle-age working on a stone tomb for his two brothers and already dead parents in a rural village in Soviet-era Poland. One thought leads to another, back and forth through time, spanning his history of rebelliousness while growing up in a farming family and eventual return to the land after a life of trying to escape. Depending on the flow of his memories, we are treated to episodes and chapters from different phases of his life. These include his traditions in youth as a bully, a womanizer, and a boozer, his more noble but brutal service with the resistance in the war, and his post-war forays into work as a barber, a policeman, and finally different positions in the local government bureaucracy, all with interludes of helping his aging parents manage their farm. In his recent history, we learn about his recovery for years from serious leg injuries caused by an accident and get visions of him facing up to intimations of mortality and living alone without God or a wife.
Thus, we get a quite fulsome perspective on a whole life and in the process get a priceless biography of a place and rural community at a time of great change. The concept of a larger Poland barely penetrates into the personal lives we come to know, only the challenge of maintaining some kind of local integrity in the face of German followed by Soviet invasions. I don’t believe the words Nazi or communist were ever used by the characters. Only the human connection to the land and the joys of celebrating life through humor and lust shows any persistence. Syzmek is the epitome of a man who wants primarily to live life and not mortgage it to duty.
Mysliwski’s narrative flows well despite the hopping into different tributaries. In a number of places a long discussion ends up portraying a microcosm of from the life and outlook of another character. Examples include 10 to 20-page monologues from his boss, the Soviet appointed mayor, and another from the local priest, who has been trying to get Syzmek to submit to confession since his youth. At first these accounts seem a diversion to Syzmek’s purposes of getting the mayor and priest to approve his plans for the tomb, but both outpourings end up revealing struggles with their missions that parallel Szymek’s and seeking his understanding in common causes. As always throughout this tale we are left wondering whether Syzmek will succeed or fail in his goal for the tomb, whether he can keep the farm he inherited going, whether he will find God, and whether he will succeed in love. The reader gains enough knowledge to forge his own ending, Hollywood-style or going down fighting for such goals.
To help your judgment over to pursue this book I now pull a few passages. From near the beginning, we follow Syzmek’s train of thought about the contrast of a lasting tomb to the anonymous graves they put their slain compatriots in during the war. The motley caps used to mark the graves reminds him of how ragtag they were, their true integrity obscured:
To judge from their caps you might have thought we were a bunch of riffraff and pansies, not an army. A rabble that was only good for digging ditches, or building dikes, or beating game when the masters go hunting, not an army. But inside each man there was a devil, and each one of them had a heart of stone. They forgot about God and forgot how to cry. And even when burying one of our own, no one shed a tear. It was just, Ten-shun! Because sometimes tears make a bigger hole than bullets. … Because in my command, didn’t just mean feet together and hands at your buttocks. It meant attention in your mind, and standing up straight in your soul. … At attention the heart beats slower and the mind thinks straighter. Who knows, maybe at attention you could even die without regrets….
If I died they were forbidden the same to shed a tear, they just had to stand at attention. At most someone could play a song for me on the mouth organ. “Stone upon stone, on stone a stone.”
Now I share another sample passage that demonstrates Szymek’s marvelous lust for life as expressed in his bacchanalian penchant for dancing as part of his seductions of women, his favorite being polkas and obereks:
The musicians had had their supper, and the vodka was playing in their veins. They’d taken off their coats, they were playing in shirtsleeves. Some of them even unbuttoned their shirt down to their belly button, and loosened their belt, and took off their boots because they were pinching. And all for the music. Because it was only now the musicians’ souls would come out. And man, would they play! They couldn’t feel their lips or their hands, they’d play with their gut, like their fathers and their fathers’ fathers before them. They played like they were about to die. Till lightening flashed, and armies marched off to war. And a wedding party rode on drunken horses. And flails flailed in barns. And earth fell on a casket. And there wasn’t any shame anymore in feeling up a young lady here and there, you could even put your hand on her backside. And reach under her blouse. And pull her legs to yours. And young ladies would find themselves between your knees of their own accord, like chickens coming home to roost. And they’d fly around the dance floor breathless. They’d forget their fathers, their mothers, their conscience. Even the Lord God’s commandments. Because at those dances heaven and hell mixed together. Chest squeezed against chest, belly against belly. They’d giggle and faint their way into such a paradise, you could feel it flowing out of them even through their dresses.
Reading this book reminded me of other favored portraits of rural life, including de Bernieres’ portrait of village life in Anatolia “Birds Without Wings,” and Wendell Berry’s series on the fictional Port Jefferson community of Kentucky. It also brings to mind a recent read I enjoyed, “Memed My Hawk”, which portrays the life of a Kurdish peasant in Anatolia who also became a rebellious fighter (and bandit) while continuing to revere rural farming traditions. This book takes some patience to deal with the narrator’s diversions in memory and forgiveness for his transgressions of violence and womanizing, but the warm life it holds breathes and the potent truths in its hero’s stubborn soul made it well worth the effort. Thanks to Agnieszka for recommending it.
Thus, we get a quite fulsome perspective on a whole life and in the process get a priceless biography of a place and rural community at a time of great change. The concept of a larger Poland barely penetrates into the personal lives we come to know, only the challenge of maintaining some kind of local integrity in the face of German followed by Soviet invasions. I don’t believe the words Nazi or communist were ever used by the characters. Only the human connection to the land and the joys of celebrating life through humor and lust shows any persistence. Syzmek is the epitome of a man who wants primarily to live life and not mortgage it to duty.
Mysliwski’s narrative flows well despite the hopping into different tributaries. In a number of places a long discussion ends up portraying a microcosm of from the life and outlook of another character. Examples include 10 to 20-page monologues from his boss, the Soviet appointed mayor, and another from the local priest, who has been trying to get Syzmek to submit to confession since his youth. At first these accounts seem a diversion to Syzmek’s purposes of getting the mayor and priest to approve his plans for the tomb, but both outpourings end up revealing struggles with their missions that parallel Szymek’s and seeking his understanding in common causes. As always throughout this tale we are left wondering whether Syzmek will succeed or fail in his goal for the tomb, whether he can keep the farm he inherited going, whether he will find God, and whether he will succeed in love. The reader gains enough knowledge to forge his own ending, Hollywood-style or going down fighting for such goals.
To help your judgment over to pursue this book I now pull a few passages. From near the beginning, we follow Syzmek’s train of thought about the contrast of a lasting tomb to the anonymous graves they put their slain compatriots in during the war. The motley caps used to mark the graves reminds him of how ragtag they were, their true integrity obscured:
To judge from their caps you might have thought we were a bunch of riffraff and pansies, not an army. A rabble that was only good for digging ditches, or building dikes, or beating game when the masters go hunting, not an army. But inside each man there was a devil, and each one of them had a heart of stone. They forgot about God and forgot how to cry. And even when burying one of our own, no one shed a tear. It was just, Ten-shun! Because sometimes tears make a bigger hole than bullets. … Because in my command, didn’t just mean feet together and hands at your buttocks. It meant attention in your mind, and standing up straight in your soul. … At attention the heart beats slower and the mind thinks straighter. Who knows, maybe at attention you could even die without regrets….
If I died they were forbidden the same to shed a tear, they just had to stand at attention. At most someone could play a song for me on the mouth organ. “Stone upon stone, on stone a stone.”
Now I share another sample passage that demonstrates Szymek’s marvelous lust for life as expressed in his bacchanalian penchant for dancing as part of his seductions of women, his favorite being polkas and obereks:
The musicians had had their supper, and the vodka was playing in their veins. They’d taken off their coats, they were playing in shirtsleeves. Some of them even unbuttoned their shirt down to their belly button, and loosened their belt, and took off their boots because they were pinching. And all for the music. Because it was only now the musicians’ souls would come out. And man, would they play! They couldn’t feel their lips or their hands, they’d play with their gut, like their fathers and their fathers’ fathers before them. They played like they were about to die. Till lightening flashed, and armies marched off to war. And a wedding party rode on drunken horses. And flails flailed in barns. And earth fell on a casket. And there wasn’t any shame anymore in feeling up a young lady here and there, you could even put your hand on her backside. And reach under her blouse. And pull her legs to yours. And young ladies would find themselves between your knees of their own accord, like chickens coming home to roost. And they’d fly around the dance floor breathless. They’d forget their fathers, their mothers, their conscience. Even the Lord God’s commandments. Because at those dances heaven and hell mixed together. Chest squeezed against chest, belly against belly. They’d giggle and faint their way into such a paradise, you could feel it flowing out of them even through their dresses.
Reading this book reminded me of other favored portraits of rural life, including de Bernieres’ portrait of village life in Anatolia “Birds Without Wings,” and Wendell Berry’s series on the fictional Port Jefferson community of Kentucky. It also brings to mind a recent read I enjoyed, “Memed My Hawk”, which portrays the life of a Kurdish peasant in Anatolia who also became a rebellious fighter (and bandit) while continuing to revere rural farming traditions. This book takes some patience to deal with the narrator’s diversions in memory and forgiveness for his transgressions of violence and womanizing, but the warm life it holds breathes and the potent truths in its hero’s stubborn soul made it well worth the effort. Thanks to Agnieszka for recommending it.
January 15, 2016
Finished it and said something like "whoa, great book." The title is perfect -- per the epigram it's from a folk song: "stone upon stone / on stone a stone / and on that stone / another stone." A perfect title because it's a simple introduction to the novel's alinear associative structure/progress across the clear-cut beginning, middle, and end of a few eras -- the narrator's pre-war youth of mostly satisfying work in the fields, fighting in the resistance during WWII, and the post-war soviet era marked by administrative work, excessive drinking, and chasing women. Like the last book I read (Buddenbrooks), it light-handedly dramatizes totally dramatic societal shifts occuring over a few decades -- in this, the blacksmith's sons repair TVs. The present scenes, whenever the narrator Syzmek comes up for air after dunking his head in the river of the past, involve building a tomb. Each anecdote amounts to a virtual stone Syzmek uses to construct this tomb of a book, divided into nine long chapters, two or three of which are masterpieces. The chapters "Land," "Hallelujah," and most of "Bread" supplied exactly the sort of thing you hope to find when you open a 534-page dense peri-WWII not-western-Euro novel published by the great Archipelago Books. Disputes over boundaries between fields, near-fatal beatings, in-depth descriptions of various war wounds, drinking binges and deceitful drunks, all sorts of earthly desires and earthly horrors -- why fear hell when we've lived through so much on earth, sexiness and sorrows, a virtuoso accordion player who used to play crazy amazing improvisations at funerals hanged by the Germans with his bandmates (they hanged his accordion too), sumptuous passages about some wartime respite with a lovely young lady completed with an off-hand phrase like "before they burned her," an isolated town in the woods burned and everyone hanged, wonderful steady scenes of slow careful courtship and desire fulfilled before happiness is wrenched back by miscommunication and violence, the best descriptions of scythe-work/threshing since Levin in Anna Karenina, a locked iron gate leading to nowhere in the middle of a field, a simile involving turning into a snake to wrap around a neck and hang someone from the nearest tree. Fantastic soliloquies, especially by a pretzel seller early on about her many husbands, by an administrator later on about the ways of the world, and later by a long-time lover about everything and nothing that delivers the moral of the story, and toward the end an awesome semi-querulous Q&A with a priest about the ways of men, women, God, and the afterworld wherein Syzmek stands his ground and defends his hard-won wisdom against accusations of sin and heresy, rejecting easy consolation. All angles organically covered: love, hate, life, death, joy, sorrow, sex, solitude, work, play, war, peace, life on earth and the afterlife, the life of the body and life of the mind -- even a little light metafiction at the end about the language of everyday objects. All in all, an excellent novel -- not for everyone of course since it's hardcore Euro Lit, associatively structured, rangy sentences, replete with paragraphless pages and subcharacters with too many consonants in their names, no easy conclusions other than the certainty of moral ambiguity and always coming down on the side of life, more life, you have to live! If there's any moral to the story, it's that: you have to live, even if decisions don't make life easier. How else do you become wise to the ways of the world? Represents and revels in the complexity of everything, including life's simplicities, and reeks therefore of the best sort of lit. Mysliwski's a little like the better-known Bohumil Hrabal but without as obvious a smile of his face and maybe a little more reckless for stretches (these aren't criticisms of either writer). If this sort of thing is your thing, this one's highly recommended. Won the "best translated book" award from a few years ago, if you'd prefer to take an official organ's word for it.
June 14, 2017
Son yıllarda okuduğum en güzel roman. Çeviri olağanüstü, bir köylünün dilinden insanı, insanlığı, insanlık hallerini o kadar güzel anlatıyor ki, kısa cümleler ve basit tanımlamalarla seller sular gibi okunuyor. Hele bir konudan bir konuya geçerken, konular buketi ile çok keyifli bir okuma sağlıyor. İleride bir kez daha okuyacağım.
December 20, 2014
I very rarely leave a book unfinished and I had wanted to consign “Stone Upon Stone” to the heap of unreadable books after the first chapter. It took me a very long time to get to the end of the first chapter. But I felt I needed to read some more, so I read another two chapters and still I wanted to ditch it. However, I am thankful I kept on reading because it turned out to be an unusual story that touched me in unexpected ways.
I have never before read Wiesław Myśliwski. He is a Polish novelist. I found out later that “Stone Upon Stone” (translated by Bill Johnston) won the 2012 Best Translated Book Award.
The novel began with a strange subject matter: “Having a tomb built.” The main character, Szymek Pietruszka, was building a family tomb and straining to finish it because “...if you’ve never done it, you have no idea how much one of those things costs. It’s as much as a house.” For reasons that gained clarity as the story unraveled, building a tomb to house the entire family was important to Szymek – “Whether it’s for eternity or not, a person needs a corner to call their own.”
What made this book so hard to read? Myśliwski had a discursive style of storytelling that took the form of extended monologues. A monologue would ramble on and one subject would detour to another like an aimless conversation, for example, the description of the road led to the acacia trees to the table (its legs and drawers) whose parts were scattered and had to be put back together. The monologues often extended over pages with no paragraphing. It can drive you nuts. And it went on for 500 odd pages. To readers who encounter this same impulse to toss the book, soldier on because it will be rewarding. A huge saving grace was its humor and there was a generous supply of it, some bittersweet. The translation is excellent for the humor to be preserved and enjoyed.
Myśliwski painted a rural peasant world from an earlier era. When a new road was built, people, dogs, calves and chickens got killed crossing the road. The eastern European immigrants coaxed living from the land but also raucously indulged in merry-making (superfluous drinking, barn dances, etc). It was a world in which friendships were strengthened and trade secured at the cost of a few bottles of vodka. Yet it was by no means idyllic Polish pastoral. It was a hardscrabble existence: “And harvesttime was a curse. From dawn till night you worked like an animal.” The farmers suffered the scourge of the weather and hunger when the crops failed and flour ran out. It was heartbreaking to read of the boy Szymek lying in bed all night thinking about bread and scheming to get hold of the last piece of very stale bread placed out of reach and that was to be kept until spring plowing as an offering to the land.
The plain storytelling was touching without being maudlin. A scene in the hospital ward left an impression. Men with broken limbs and lives lay dying, and Szymek, himself nursing a serious leg injury, was distracting his dying neighbor with the joys of breeding white rabbits. There was a poignant chapter, titled “Weeping” in which Syzmek conveyed the unbearable pain of watching his mother cry. There was also a tender chapter in which Szymek bathed and shaved his mentally ill brother. Equally memorable was the “Hallelujah” chapter that spoke of the joys of eating blessed eggs at Easter. It just seemed like a lovely tradition.
Perhaps what finally held me to the story was the persuasive characterization of Szymek Pietruszka. He was no saint but he was real. He was the life wire of the party with an irrepressible zest for life that promised to spill beyond the grave. His brothers fled the backbreaking labor of the farm and never wanted to return. Szymek too wanted nothing to do with his father’s farm. He became a resistance fighter, a barber, a policeman, a government official who solemnized marriages, and yet he finally took over the family farm even though in his father's estimation, "he's not drawn to the land and the land's not drawn to him”. Szymek’s attachment to his family and unknowingly to the land was stronger than he cared to admit to himself. The complexity of family ties was observed in the apparent need of members to keep their distance and also in an undeniable closeness that expressed itself in biting antagonism. The story ended the way it begun and looped back to the tomb. Building a family tomb was perhaps Syzmek’s way of keeping his scattered family together.
Szymek’s life may not be all that different from that of most ordinary folks. "Maybe everyone has a different life than the one they'd want, but it's the best one they can have.” Isn’t this true?
And finally, this too is true. Regardless of what choices we make in life, no one has a choice about mortality. That is the last common denominator. "When death's staring you on the face even a college graduate becomes a person again, so does an engineer. At those times everything falls off life like leaves dropping from a tree on the fall, and you're left like a bare trunk. At those times you're not drawn to the outside world but back to the land where you were born and grew up, because that's your only place on this earth. In that land, even the tomb is like a home for you."
Good book. I may even read it again.
I have never before read Wiesław Myśliwski. He is a Polish novelist. I found out later that “Stone Upon Stone” (translated by Bill Johnston) won the 2012 Best Translated Book Award.
The novel began with a strange subject matter: “Having a tomb built.” The main character, Szymek Pietruszka, was building a family tomb and straining to finish it because “...if you’ve never done it, you have no idea how much one of those things costs. It’s as much as a house.” For reasons that gained clarity as the story unraveled, building a tomb to house the entire family was important to Szymek – “Whether it’s for eternity or not, a person needs a corner to call their own.”
What made this book so hard to read? Myśliwski had a discursive style of storytelling that took the form of extended monologues. A monologue would ramble on and one subject would detour to another like an aimless conversation, for example, the description of the road led to the acacia trees to the table (its legs and drawers) whose parts were scattered and had to be put back together. The monologues often extended over pages with no paragraphing. It can drive you nuts. And it went on for 500 odd pages. To readers who encounter this same impulse to toss the book, soldier on because it will be rewarding. A huge saving grace was its humor and there was a generous supply of it, some bittersweet. The translation is excellent for the humor to be preserved and enjoyed.
Myśliwski painted a rural peasant world from an earlier era. When a new road was built, people, dogs, calves and chickens got killed crossing the road. The eastern European immigrants coaxed living from the land but also raucously indulged in merry-making (superfluous drinking, barn dances, etc). It was a world in which friendships were strengthened and trade secured at the cost of a few bottles of vodka. Yet it was by no means idyllic Polish pastoral. It was a hardscrabble existence: “And harvesttime was a curse. From dawn till night you worked like an animal.” The farmers suffered the scourge of the weather and hunger when the crops failed and flour ran out. It was heartbreaking to read of the boy Szymek lying in bed all night thinking about bread and scheming to get hold of the last piece of very stale bread placed out of reach and that was to be kept until spring plowing as an offering to the land.
The plain storytelling was touching without being maudlin. A scene in the hospital ward left an impression. Men with broken limbs and lives lay dying, and Szymek, himself nursing a serious leg injury, was distracting his dying neighbor with the joys of breeding white rabbits. There was a poignant chapter, titled “Weeping” in which Syzmek conveyed the unbearable pain of watching his mother cry. There was also a tender chapter in which Szymek bathed and shaved his mentally ill brother. Equally memorable was the “Hallelujah” chapter that spoke of the joys of eating blessed eggs at Easter. It just seemed like a lovely tradition.
Perhaps what finally held me to the story was the persuasive characterization of Szymek Pietruszka. He was no saint but he was real. He was the life wire of the party with an irrepressible zest for life that promised to spill beyond the grave. His brothers fled the backbreaking labor of the farm and never wanted to return. Szymek too wanted nothing to do with his father’s farm. He became a resistance fighter, a barber, a policeman, a government official who solemnized marriages, and yet he finally took over the family farm even though in his father's estimation, "he's not drawn to the land and the land's not drawn to him”. Szymek’s attachment to his family and unknowingly to the land was stronger than he cared to admit to himself. The complexity of family ties was observed in the apparent need of members to keep their distance and also in an undeniable closeness that expressed itself in biting antagonism. The story ended the way it begun and looped back to the tomb. Building a family tomb was perhaps Syzmek’s way of keeping his scattered family together.
Szymek’s life may not be all that different from that of most ordinary folks. "Maybe everyone has a different life than the one they'd want, but it's the best one they can have.” Isn’t this true?
And finally, this too is true. Regardless of what choices we make in life, no one has a choice about mortality. That is the last common denominator. "When death's staring you on the face even a college graduate becomes a person again, so does an engineer. At those times everything falls off life like leaves dropping from a tree on the fall, and you're left like a bare trunk. At those times you're not drawn to the outside world but back to the land where you were born and grew up, because that's your only place on this earth. In that land, even the tomb is like a home for you."
Good book. I may even read it again.
August 17, 2023
To był ten sam rodzaj zauroczenia, które zapoczątkował "Traktat o łuskaniu fasoli". Ten sam, który kontynuował "Widnokrąg".
Niezwykłe doświadczenie wsi, która nie zawsze jest tak spokojna i wesoła, jak ją malują. Wspaniałe spojrzenie na różne rodzaje bliskości, a także (właściwie przede wszystkim) niezliczone formy gaśnięcia. Doprawdy, nie zliczę w jak wielu przypadkach autor posługiwał się metaforą śmierci - lub jej dosłownym rozumieniem.
Podobnie jak wszystkie książki pana Myśliwskiego, również i ta nie pozwala czytelnikowi na skonsumowanie ogromu swej treści w trakcie jednego posiedzenia (audiobook towarzyszył mi od czerwca). Niespieszna, skłaniająca do refleksji... Śmiem twierdzić, że z każdą kolejną lekturą oczaruje sobą jeszcze bardziej.
Niezwykłe doświadczenie wsi, która nie zawsze jest tak spokojna i wesoła, jak ją malują. Wspaniałe spojrzenie na różne rodzaje bliskości, a także (właściwie przede wszystkim) niezliczone formy gaśnięcia. Doprawdy, nie zliczę w jak wielu przypadkach autor posługiwał się metaforą śmierci - lub jej dosłownym rozumieniem.
Podobnie jak wszystkie książki pana Myśliwskiego, również i ta nie pozwala czytelnikowi na skonsumowanie ogromu swej treści w trakcie jednego posiedzenia (audiobook towarzyszył mi od czerwca). Niespieszna, skłaniająca do refleksji... Śmiem twierdzić, że z każdą kolejną lekturą oczaruje sobą jeszcze bardziej.
January 18, 2021
There's a blurb on the back of the book that talks about illuminating the balance of beauty and brutality that defines existence, and I thought that was a wonderful summation of Szymek's story. In a form that could be called naivete, Szymek tells the tale of rustic Polish life in and around WWII. The calm, relaxed lifestyle that is interrupted by mass violence and bloodshed. The good hearted gabber who takes to the bottle too often and can't be taken seriously by his neighbors. The wartime hero who kills Germans without remorse but delicately bathes his ill brother. Szymek's life is a paradox of sorts. It's a wonderful illustration of the fine line of existence.
There are so many qualities to love about this book. The nonlinear structure works wonderfully, Wieslaw's prose is beautiful, the characters are memorable- even the ones who only stick around just long enough to die. A testament to the quality of a writer is the ability to take a quiet scene and make it spellbinding to a reader. Szymek's conversation with the priest, for example. Or the scene of him bathing his brother. Or Szymek coming to terms with a quarrelsome neighbor. But this isn't just a quiet novel, Szymek's experiences during WWII are the stuff of tragedy. I guess that's just another example of the contradictions of Szymek's story.
There are so many qualities to love about this book. The nonlinear structure works wonderfully, Wieslaw's prose is beautiful, the characters are memorable- even the ones who only stick around just long enough to die. A testament to the quality of a writer is the ability to take a quiet scene and make it spellbinding to a reader. Szymek's conversation with the priest, for example. Or the scene of him bathing his brother. Or Szymek coming to terms with a quarrelsome neighbor. But this isn't just a quiet novel, Szymek's experiences during WWII are the stuff of tragedy. I guess that's just another example of the contradictions of Szymek's story.
January 30, 2019
The discursive narrative style is a blend of artfulness and artlessness that disarmed me with its power. All of the harrowing, deadly, tender, and memorable events in Szymek Pietruszka’s life are revealed to the reader, with many digressions along the way. Some events are sharply told in a single paragraph. Others reveal themselves in small increments that build throughout the novel, as if some memories are too painful to tell all at once. Szymek is irreverent and explosive. He's a drunk, a lout. And yet he loves his family deeply, and usually he acts selflessly when faced with people or even animals in need. What a compelling character. I'm very glad to have come across this novel.
March 6, 2018
Uzun zamandır okuduğum en ilginç kitaplardan biri. Okurken bir anda hüzünlenip, iki satır sonra kendi kendime gülmeye başladım. Polonya'yı, Polonyalıları niye sevdiğimi, niye kendime bunca yakın bulduğumu tekrar anladım. Eh be Syzmek (bana yeniden yorum yazdıran adam), alacağın olsun. Votka sevmem ama, seninle içerdim doğrusu.
December 25, 2022
It is not difficult to imagine, after returning home from a long journey of hunting and making his way through the dreadful storm, carrying the dead corpse of a huge mammoth, a precious trophy for his titanic determination, the exhilarating need of narrating what had happened in the mind of the cave man while he tried to assemble his thoughts using the very few words he knew, and searching for new ones, as his mate and offspring and perhaps two or three others who lived with them, gathered around the fire, on a magical night where thousands of stars glittered above them, to listen attentively to his incredible story. That was, most probably, the very beginning of literature.
I remember when I first visited Stonehenge, the powerful impression I felt while slowly surrounding the magnificent monument in Salisbury Plain. The questions that were posed on my mind then, remained deep inside me for a long time, some having the transcendental ability to open new paths for me, enriched solely by that unforgettable experience, some thirty years ago. Therefore, I could very well relate to the importance of stones in this magnificent novel of epic proportions, as Szymek Pietruszka, the narrator, a stubborn Polish peasant, builds up his life Stone upon Stone, just as the tomb he is planning to build, carefully assembling the words that would constitute ultimately his life story. The ambitious project becomes a fascinating fresco of 20th Century Poland, covering the war and its devastating power over the lives of ordinary people, in a small and insignificant village. Trying to avoid or escape destiny, Pietruszka joins the army and later works for the new government, just to return at old age, to his peasant origins.
The story can be seen and analyzed from different angles, but I believe the main quality of it rests on the way it is told, where the narrative follows a very peculiar path through the unexpected, as if in appearance, there was no direction. I can only relate it, in all fairness, to jazz improvisation. If I were to pick a recording that would encompass this concept, I would easily choose Miles Davis’ legendary Kind of Blue: as Coltrane’s impeccable line gives way to Cannonball’s solo, which in turn bows the first notes of the piano, in the masterful hands of Bill Evans, who will then prepare the scene for Miles’ tune, leaving us listeners in awe, in that same way, Wiesław Myśliwski builds his narrative through something very close to improvised lines, which transmute into an honest and vivid style that is at the center of this fantastic novel. The translation by Bill Johnston won him, rightfully so, the 2012 PEN Prize.
I remember when I first visited Stonehenge, the powerful impression I felt while slowly surrounding the magnificent monument in Salisbury Plain. The questions that were posed on my mind then, remained deep inside me for a long time, some having the transcendental ability to open new paths for me, enriched solely by that unforgettable experience, some thirty years ago. Therefore, I could very well relate to the importance of stones in this magnificent novel of epic proportions, as Szymek Pietruszka, the narrator, a stubborn Polish peasant, builds up his life Stone upon Stone, just as the tomb he is planning to build, carefully assembling the words that would constitute ultimately his life story. The ambitious project becomes a fascinating fresco of 20th Century Poland, covering the war and its devastating power over the lives of ordinary people, in a small and insignificant village. Trying to avoid or escape destiny, Pietruszka joins the army and later works for the new government, just to return at old age, to his peasant origins.
The story can be seen and analyzed from different angles, but I believe the main quality of it rests on the way it is told, where the narrative follows a very peculiar path through the unexpected, as if in appearance, there was no direction. I can only relate it, in all fairness, to jazz improvisation. If I were to pick a recording that would encompass this concept, I would easily choose Miles Davis’ legendary Kind of Blue: as Coltrane’s impeccable line gives way to Cannonball’s solo, which in turn bows the first notes of the piano, in the masterful hands of Bill Evans, who will then prepare the scene for Miles’ tune, leaving us listeners in awe, in that same way, Wiesław Myśliwski builds his narrative through something very close to improvised lines, which transmute into an honest and vivid style that is at the center of this fantastic novel. The translation by Bill Johnston won him, rightfully so, the 2012 PEN Prize.
April 27, 2020
Wat een ontdekking! Wieslaw Mysliwski is zo’n schrijver waar ik al lang iets van wilde lezen, maar voor trage boeken heb je tijd en zielsrust nodig, dus kwam het er niet van. Nu wel. Ik las dit boek tijdens de eerste quarantaineweek , elke dag een hoofdstuk, in stijgende bewondering.
Szymek Pietruszka is een oude boer die, herstellende van een verkeersongeluk, terugblikt op zijn bestaan. Een heilige was hij niet, een rebelse tiener, flierefluiter, zuipschuit en meisjesgek wel. Hij heeft losse handjes en klopt er geregeld op los, ook later als volwassene.
In Steen op steen stapelen de herinneringen zich op. Tijdens de oorlog was Szymek lid van het verzet, dus ook de grote gruwel op het Poolse platteland komt aan bod. Na de oorlog verdient hij even de kost als kapper, daarna versiert hij een baantje als gemeentelijk ambtenaar, maar eindigen doet hij als boer, tegen wil en dank, want de boerenstiel is hard en hij had daar nooit echt zin in. Bovendien komt hij laat, want de wereld is grondig veranderd.
Tot een fatsoenlijke relatie is het ondanks – of net door – zijn vele liefjes vroeger nooit gekomen. Twee broers van hem hebben het platteland de rug toegekeerd en na de dood van zijn ouders blijft hij alleen achter om voor de boerderij te zorgen en voor de gehandicapte oudere broer die bij hem inwoont.
Steen op steen is een verhaal vol aardse schoonheid. De eindeloze memoriestroom dompelt je onder in de wereld van vroeger en dat was – voor alle duidelijkheid – géén paradijs! Maar ondanks de schrijnende armoede, het bijna dagelijkse geweld en de bittere kommer en kwel van het boerenbestaan…je voelt de schoonheid, de ontroering en liefde.
"Soms komt het me voor dat de enige wijsheid die ons van het leven rest de verbijstering over het leven is." (p.488)
Szymek Pietruszka is een van de indrukwekkendste romanpersonages die in lange tijd ben tegengekomen. Ik ga die klootzak missen…
Gustave Van de Woestyne, "De slechte zaaier" (1950)
Szymek Pietruszka is een oude boer die, herstellende van een verkeersongeluk, terugblikt op zijn bestaan. Een heilige was hij niet, een rebelse tiener, flierefluiter, zuipschuit en meisjesgek wel. Hij heeft losse handjes en klopt er geregeld op los, ook later als volwassene.
In Steen op steen stapelen de herinneringen zich op. Tijdens de oorlog was Szymek lid van het verzet, dus ook de grote gruwel op het Poolse platteland komt aan bod. Na de oorlog verdient hij even de kost als kapper, daarna versiert hij een baantje als gemeentelijk ambtenaar, maar eindigen doet hij als boer, tegen wil en dank, want de boerenstiel is hard en hij had daar nooit echt zin in. Bovendien komt hij laat, want de wereld is grondig veranderd.
Tot een fatsoenlijke relatie is het ondanks – of net door – zijn vele liefjes vroeger nooit gekomen. Twee broers van hem hebben het platteland de rug toegekeerd en na de dood van zijn ouders blijft hij alleen achter om voor de boerderij te zorgen en voor de gehandicapte oudere broer die bij hem inwoont.
Steen op steen is een verhaal vol aardse schoonheid. De eindeloze memoriestroom dompelt je onder in de wereld van vroeger en dat was – voor alle duidelijkheid – géén paradijs! Maar ondanks de schrijnende armoede, het bijna dagelijkse geweld en de bittere kommer en kwel van het boerenbestaan…je voelt de schoonheid, de ontroering en liefde.
"Soms komt het me voor dat de enige wijsheid die ons van het leven rest de verbijstering over het leven is." (p.488)
Szymek Pietruszka is een van de indrukwekkendste romanpersonages die in lange tijd ben tegengekomen. Ik ga die klootzak missen…
Gustave Van de Woestyne, "De slechte zaaier" (1950)
August 25, 2016
Imagine sitting with a great storyteller for over two weeks. His mind is full of stories from rural Poland, from the war before and after, from his adventures as a young wag and an aging but likable man. In no time at all, one thought strand leads to the next and he jumps. He has no problem with time, either, going back many years and then only a few, up to the present and back to wherever. Chronologies are for the history books, not the storytellers!
As you might expect, though, some stories are more riveting than others. Some novel, some repetitive. And if it's recorded in pages, as it is in Stone Upon Stone, you get over 500 pages of anecdotal, which is a heavy load for the province of anecdotes in the country of no plot.
Still, you stick with it. There's no denying the writing is solid. There's no denying you feel like a friend to the raconteur after a bit. There's also no denying that you feel like skipping pages at times, that you are occasionally aware of your surroundings and checking the page numbers.
You consider abandoning, but you're too far along. There comes a tipping point in every book where you just won't abandon. No, not in the first 100 pages like some folks. Those poor slobs who finish every book they start, as if some strict school master is at their back with a switch. No, this is different.
And when you get there, to the end, I mean, you feel a certain pride and a certain gratefulness as if it were the author, and not you, who demonstrated all the patience. Oddly enough. But reading books like this is an odd venture. And venture I did, gladly, because sometimes what's good for you includes a little adversity or pain, like a stone upon a stone, maybe.
As you might expect, though, some stories are more riveting than others. Some novel, some repetitive. And if it's recorded in pages, as it is in Stone Upon Stone, you get over 500 pages of anecdotal, which is a heavy load for the province of anecdotes in the country of no plot.
Still, you stick with it. There's no denying the writing is solid. There's no denying you feel like a friend to the raconteur after a bit. There's also no denying that you feel like skipping pages at times, that you are occasionally aware of your surroundings and checking the page numbers.
You consider abandoning, but you're too far along. There comes a tipping point in every book where you just won't abandon. No, not in the first 100 pages like some folks. Those poor slobs who finish every book they start, as if some strict school master is at their back with a switch. No, this is different.
And when you get there, to the end, I mean, you feel a certain pride and a certain gratefulness as if it were the author, and not you, who demonstrated all the patience. Oddly enough. But reading books like this is an odd venture. And venture I did, gladly, because sometimes what's good for you includes a little adversity or pain, like a stone upon a stone, maybe.
July 12, 2018
Another reviewer said that this book was like having a conversation with an elderly relative that talks about his/her youth without logical timeline, with repetitions, exxagerations and sometimes hard to follow. I agree but unlike the other reviewer, I liked it for it. There is no plot. Long chapters deal with themes of rural life and the characters, exploring a Poland that was once Russian, then Poland, then German occupied and then Poland again. At times funny, often heartbreaking, ridiculous, joyous, sad and everything in between.
June 15, 2022
STONE UPON STONE (first published in 1984, translated by Bill Johnston and published by Archipelago in 2011) by Polish writer Wiesław Myśliwski, has been described as "peasant literature" and I wasn't very sure what to make of this "genre". Well, it was a very pleasant surprise.
The novel begins in mid-twentieth-century Poland with the building of a tomb, a tomb for the elderly peasant Szymek Pietruszka, the protagonist-narrator of this flowing and continually digressing monologue, and his family.
This family tomb and the struggles Szymek faces to find the money and materials to build it is the perfect excuse for the narrator who will take us on a journey through time, recounting stories of his past, including his days in the Polish resistance during WW2. Szymek will tells us the story of his family and his village and the hardships they suffered first by the war, and later by the modernization of agriculture under Communist rule. You might expect a sad, dark story, but if so, you will be quite wrong.
It is true that Szymek's life was full of hardships and family struggles, and the novel actually describes the gradual degradation of peasant life but the narrator is so strong and full of energy, he has such a delightful dark humor and his garrulous story- telling (which very much resembles oral story telling) is so captivating that the novel doesn't feel long at all, despite its length of 500+ pages.
Szymek's story is a homage to a dying peasant way of life in Poland and a rambling celebration of life and love for the land. The translation is brilliant, and the book itself, as beautiful as all Archipelago books.
The novel begins in mid-twentieth-century Poland with the building of a tomb, a tomb for the elderly peasant Szymek Pietruszka, the protagonist-narrator of this flowing and continually digressing monologue, and his family.
This family tomb and the struggles Szymek faces to find the money and materials to build it is the perfect excuse for the narrator who will take us on a journey through time, recounting stories of his past, including his days in the Polish resistance during WW2. Szymek will tells us the story of his family and his village and the hardships they suffered first by the war, and later by the modernization of agriculture under Communist rule. You might expect a sad, dark story, but if so, you will be quite wrong.
It is true that Szymek's life was full of hardships and family struggles, and the novel actually describes the gradual degradation of peasant life but the narrator is so strong and full of energy, he has such a delightful dark humor and his garrulous story- telling (which very much resembles oral story telling) is so captivating that the novel doesn't feel long at all, despite its length of 500+ pages.
Szymek's story is a homage to a dying peasant way of life in Poland and a rambling celebration of life and love for the land. The translation is brilliant, and the book itself, as beautiful as all Archipelago books.
December 15, 2012
I should start this review by saying it is completely inadequate. This fine book is a wealth of quiet wisdom that in its simple delivery reminded me of three other favorite books: Gilead, So Long, See You Tomorrow, and Stoner. Here, as in those three, we have wide-reaching reflection about a life. Here our narrator is Szymek Pietruszka, who, through a back-and-forth style, attempts to add up the pieces of his life as a farmer in rural Poland during the middle half of the twentieth century.
When Stone Upon Stone begins, much of Pietruszka’s life has past, and he is building a family tomb:
"Having a tomb built. It’s easy enough to say. But if you’ve never done it, you have no idea how much one of those things costs. It’s almost as much as a house. Though they say a tomb is a house as well, just for the next life. Whether it’s for eternity or not, a person needs a corner to call their own.
I got compensation for my legs –a good few thousand. It all went. I had a silver watch on a chain, a keepsake from the resistance. That went. I sold a piece of land. The money went. I barely got the walls up and I didn’t have enough for the finish work."
This passage introduces a few of its plot strands nicely: something happened to his legs, somehow he was involved in the resistance, and he sold some land. Also, death, and its matter-of-fact approach. This passage also introduces Pietruszka’s colloquial, grumpy, and practical tone. It’s not that Pietruszka and his family aren’t ready for the metaphysical aspects of death; he just isn’t sure he can afford it – isn’t that the way?
Stone Upon Stone contains nine chapters, and often Pietruszka returns to talking about his tomb; this voice continues:
"People keep asking me, when are you finally going to get that tomb finished? You might at least roof it with tar paper, keep the water out. Well I would have finished it, I’d have finished it long ago, if that was all I had to worry about. But as if I didn’t have enough on my plate already, here one of my pigs went and died."
Building this tomb, stone by stone, is mirrored in how Pietruszka builds his life for us. Each chapter flits back and forth in time, people who have died are alive again as he remembers a certain Christmas or, worse, a time when an argument broke out and the family distanced itself for a while.
Throughout it all is a seemingly simple lifestyle. A poor young man harvests the field alongside the old man who has been doing it all of his life. One of the biggest worries (on the surface) is crossing the busy road that divides the town (this is also one of the funniest, tragic moments in the book). Several communal rituals are shown, such as this dance Pietruszka remembers:
"They’d forget their fathers, their mothers, their conscience. Even the Lord God’s ten commandments. Because at those dances heaven and hell mixed together. Chest squeezed against chest, belly against belly. They’d giggle and faint their way into such a paradise , you could feel it flowing out of them even through their dresses. And the band would be filled with the devil, he’d have them waving their bows like scythes cutting off nobles’ heads. He’d put a storm wind in the clarinets. He’d set the accordion spinning. And hurl rocks at the drums. And if on top of everything else it was a hot close night outside, there was nothing for it but to let some blood."
It’s very earthy and, I think the passage shows, excellently rendered into English by the great Bill Johnston, who, in a presentation for the Center for the Art of Translation describes the various methods he used to portray a colloquial, rural style without using dialect (cut out the words with roots in Romance languages, no semicolons, overcome urge to fix run-on sentences, etc).
As we learn about his life, we get to know those around him who, living or dead, provoke his emotions, be they peevish or filled with sentiment, or, often, both. For example, early in the book, his two older brothers come to visit. After an argument (“They came. But they’d barely crossed the threshold and said their hellos when they started in on me.”), they leave relatively soon, and Pietruszka stands stunned:
"Because when brothers only get together once in such a long time they ought to have something to talk about. Talk all day and all night. Even if they don’t feel like talking, because what are words for? Words lead he way of their own accord. Words bring everything out onto the surface. Words take everything that hurts and whines and they draft it all out from the deepest depths. Words let blood, and you feel better right away. And not just with outsiders, with your brothers also words can help you find each other, feel like brothers again. However far away they’ve gone, words will bring them back to the one life they came from, like from a spring. Because words are a great grace. When it comes down to it, what are you given other than words? Either way there’s a great silence waiting for us in the end, and we’ll have our fill of silence. Maybe we’ll find ourselves scratching at the walls for the sake of the least little word. And every word we didn’t say to each other in this world we’ll regret like a sin. Except it’ll be too late. And how many of those unsaid words stay in each person and die with him, and rot with him, and they aren’t any use to him either in his suffering, or in his memory? So why do we make each other be silent, on top of everything else?"
I love that passage: what it says about brothers, words, the passage of time, waste, hope. And I like the final coda: “on top of everything else.”
There’s a beauty and humor in all of the pain and love this novel explores. It’s remarkable, and I can only hope that it eventually finds its rightful place in the hearts of many readers.
When Stone Upon Stone begins, much of Pietruszka’s life has past, and he is building a family tomb:
"Having a tomb built. It’s easy enough to say. But if you’ve never done it, you have no idea how much one of those things costs. It’s almost as much as a house. Though they say a tomb is a house as well, just for the next life. Whether it’s for eternity or not, a person needs a corner to call their own.
I got compensation for my legs –a good few thousand. It all went. I had a silver watch on a chain, a keepsake from the resistance. That went. I sold a piece of land. The money went. I barely got the walls up and I didn’t have enough for the finish work."
This passage introduces a few of its plot strands nicely: something happened to his legs, somehow he was involved in the resistance, and he sold some land. Also, death, and its matter-of-fact approach. This passage also introduces Pietruszka’s colloquial, grumpy, and practical tone. It’s not that Pietruszka and his family aren’t ready for the metaphysical aspects of death; he just isn’t sure he can afford it – isn’t that the way?
Stone Upon Stone contains nine chapters, and often Pietruszka returns to talking about his tomb; this voice continues:
"People keep asking me, when are you finally going to get that tomb finished? You might at least roof it with tar paper, keep the water out. Well I would have finished it, I’d have finished it long ago, if that was all I had to worry about. But as if I didn’t have enough on my plate already, here one of my pigs went and died."
Building this tomb, stone by stone, is mirrored in how Pietruszka builds his life for us. Each chapter flits back and forth in time, people who have died are alive again as he remembers a certain Christmas or, worse, a time when an argument broke out and the family distanced itself for a while.
Throughout it all is a seemingly simple lifestyle. A poor young man harvests the field alongside the old man who has been doing it all of his life. One of the biggest worries (on the surface) is crossing the busy road that divides the town (this is also one of the funniest, tragic moments in the book). Several communal rituals are shown, such as this dance Pietruszka remembers:
"They’d forget their fathers, their mothers, their conscience. Even the Lord God’s ten commandments. Because at those dances heaven and hell mixed together. Chest squeezed against chest, belly against belly. They’d giggle and faint their way into such a paradise , you could feel it flowing out of them even through their dresses. And the band would be filled with the devil, he’d have them waving their bows like scythes cutting off nobles’ heads. He’d put a storm wind in the clarinets. He’d set the accordion spinning. And hurl rocks at the drums. And if on top of everything else it was a hot close night outside, there was nothing for it but to let some blood."
It’s very earthy and, I think the passage shows, excellently rendered into English by the great Bill Johnston, who, in a presentation for the Center for the Art of Translation describes the various methods he used to portray a colloquial, rural style without using dialect (cut out the words with roots in Romance languages, no semicolons, overcome urge to fix run-on sentences, etc).
As we learn about his life, we get to know those around him who, living or dead, provoke his emotions, be they peevish or filled with sentiment, or, often, both. For example, early in the book, his two older brothers come to visit. After an argument (“They came. But they’d barely crossed the threshold and said their hellos when they started in on me.”), they leave relatively soon, and Pietruszka stands stunned:
"Because when brothers only get together once in such a long time they ought to have something to talk about. Talk all day and all night. Even if they don’t feel like talking, because what are words for? Words lead he way of their own accord. Words bring everything out onto the surface. Words take everything that hurts and whines and they draft it all out from the deepest depths. Words let blood, and you feel better right away. And not just with outsiders, with your brothers also words can help you find each other, feel like brothers again. However far away they’ve gone, words will bring them back to the one life they came from, like from a spring. Because words are a great grace. When it comes down to it, what are you given other than words? Either way there’s a great silence waiting for us in the end, and we’ll have our fill of silence. Maybe we’ll find ourselves scratching at the walls for the sake of the least little word. And every word we didn’t say to each other in this world we’ll regret like a sin. Except it’ll be too late. And how many of those unsaid words stay in each person and die with him, and rot with him, and they aren’t any use to him either in his suffering, or in his memory? So why do we make each other be silent, on top of everything else?"
I love that passage: what it says about brothers, words, the passage of time, waste, hope. And I like the final coda: “on top of everything else.”
There’s a beauty and humor in all of the pain and love this novel explores. It’s remarkable, and I can only hope that it eventually finds its rightful place in the hearts of many readers.
April 18, 2020
There is something special about a work of art that tries to do something that seems impossible, and succeeds. The impossible doesn’t have to have a scope that’s huge. It doesn’t have to blow you away. It just has to be something I would bet the artist cannot do.
In the case of this novel, the impossible is a first-person narrative of the life of a Polish farmer apparently in a Polish-speaking part of the Ukraine (this isn’t made clear) that goes on for nearly 550 pages of rambling anecdotes that mostly involve death. And for the most part the narrator is an angry, violent jerk, who appears to stumble upon wisdom more than he attains it. This impossible novel is a masterpiece. Mysliwski and Johnston scarcely make a single misstep, however many the narrator makes. The narrator walks through time like a drunk, and yet it works. He’s not a classic unreliable narrator, but you don’t quite trust anything he says. He’s not really a storyteller, and yet I never tired of his anecdotes. When you think you’re going to tire of him, the novel is handed over (in speeches, not narration) to his father, the local priest, and others, whose stories and harangues freshen things up. I felt so strongly about this novel, I added a polish-lit bookshelf to My Books on Goodreads (which also includes the great Olga Tokarczuk).
In the case of this novel, the impossible is a first-person narrative of the life of a Polish farmer apparently in a Polish-speaking part of the Ukraine (this isn’t made clear) that goes on for nearly 550 pages of rambling anecdotes that mostly involve death. And for the most part the narrator is an angry, violent jerk, who appears to stumble upon wisdom more than he attains it. This impossible novel is a masterpiece. Mysliwski and Johnston scarcely make a single misstep, however many the narrator makes. The narrator walks through time like a drunk, and yet it works. He’s not a classic unreliable narrator, but you don’t quite trust anything he says. He’s not really a storyteller, and yet I never tired of his anecdotes. When you think you’re going to tire of him, the novel is handed over (in speeches, not narration) to his father, the local priest, and others, whose stories and harangues freshen things up. I felt so strongly about this novel, I added a polish-lit bookshelf to My Books on Goodreads (which also includes the great Olga Tokarczuk).
April 20, 2012
A true saga and probably masterpiece of rural Poland farmer describing himself, his farm, family, village, and country coming into the modern world (no so long ago). He still lives on the farm, but his 2 bothers have moved to the city for good jobs, indoor plumbing, heat, that kind of thing, his parents are dead, his town is dysfunctional and drunk and poor and generally either whiney, vindictive or both. He is a bachelor, a horndog, and perpetually lonely, thinking, and likes it that way, sorta (a typical farmer really). But man, at 500pages Mysliwski tends to go on and on and on. What does he care though, farmers don’t have a lot to do except talk to themselves in their heads anyway. Here is an excerpt page 417, chapter BREAD, and as good an example as any of the style of this book, that should be called litany up litany but anyway:
“ When we’d break the earth for the first time with the plow in springtime, we’d lay a slice of bread on the first piece of ground to be plowed. It goes without saying it wasn’t just a regular slice like you cut to eat with a glass of milk or a pickled cucumber, or on its own, without anything. It has to have been cut from a new loaf on Christmas Eve.
Mother would already have set the table for Christmas Eve dinner without meat. Father would light the lantern, take the ladder form the hallway, and go fetch a loaf from the barn, because we kept our bread on the roof beams in the barn. There was a fresh draft in there so it didn’t go moldy, and it was high up. It was hard to get to without a ladder. We tried sometimes, me and Michael, we’d attempt to shimmy up the post the middle of the beam rested on, but we never managed it, and the ladder always stood out in the hallway.
There was a zurek soup with buckwheat, noodles and poppy seed, and pierogies stuffed with cabbage, but we waited for mother to cut the bread like that was the most special dish. And dinner would start with the bread. Mother would rest the loaf against her stomach, she’d make the sign of the cross over it with the knife, she’d first cut a big slice that was going to be for the earth in the spring, then just a regular slice for each of us, according to our place in the family, first for grandfather, then grandmother while she was still alive, then father, us boys, and for herself last of all. Father would get the lantern again and put the first slice in the attic, he’s stick it way up high on a rafter beneath the thatch, usually in the darkest place. And there the slice of bread would wait for the spring like a sleeping pigeon.
And with each of us boys, the moment we were out of the cradle and could more or less keep on our feet, father would take us with him when the spring came and he went out to plow. He’d unwrap the bread from its white cloth and tell us to put it on the ground. Then he’d put our little hands on the handles of the plow, take hold with his own hands, and we’ plow over the bread. He did this with each of us in turn, Michal, me, Antek, and Stasiek. Right away he’d start teaching us how to plow, Don’t hold it like that, keep it tight, walk in the middle of the furrow, it needs to go deeper when the earth is dry, when your hands get bigger you’ll be holding the reins in this one and the whip in the other, as well as the plow. And don’t try to scare off the crows that are following behind you, let them be, because when you’re on your own out in the field with no one but the horse the crows’ll keep you company, and whatever they eat will grow again. And each time you turn, always let the horse have a little breather. Now what’s that singing in the sky?
“A lark, daddy.”
“That’s right, a lark. Do you know where the lark came from?”
“It flew here.”
“That’s true. But one day the Lord God was walking over the fields, and there was a farmer plowing. Is the work hard, God asked the farmer. I’ll say, lord, answered the farmer. So god took a clod of earth and threw it up into the sky and said, let it sing for you, it’ll make the job easier.”
So you see, the author leaves very little out of his story. I guess perhaps only farmers would like or have the patience to like this book. It is wonderful.
“ When we’d break the earth for the first time with the plow in springtime, we’d lay a slice of bread on the first piece of ground to be plowed. It goes without saying it wasn’t just a regular slice like you cut to eat with a glass of milk or a pickled cucumber, or on its own, without anything. It has to have been cut from a new loaf on Christmas Eve.
Mother would already have set the table for Christmas Eve dinner without meat. Father would light the lantern, take the ladder form the hallway, and go fetch a loaf from the barn, because we kept our bread on the roof beams in the barn. There was a fresh draft in there so it didn’t go moldy, and it was high up. It was hard to get to without a ladder. We tried sometimes, me and Michael, we’d attempt to shimmy up the post the middle of the beam rested on, but we never managed it, and the ladder always stood out in the hallway.
There was a zurek soup with buckwheat, noodles and poppy seed, and pierogies stuffed with cabbage, but we waited for mother to cut the bread like that was the most special dish. And dinner would start with the bread. Mother would rest the loaf against her stomach, she’d make the sign of the cross over it with the knife, she’d first cut a big slice that was going to be for the earth in the spring, then just a regular slice for each of us, according to our place in the family, first for grandfather, then grandmother while she was still alive, then father, us boys, and for herself last of all. Father would get the lantern again and put the first slice in the attic, he’s stick it way up high on a rafter beneath the thatch, usually in the darkest place. And there the slice of bread would wait for the spring like a sleeping pigeon.
And with each of us boys, the moment we were out of the cradle and could more or less keep on our feet, father would take us with him when the spring came and he went out to plow. He’d unwrap the bread from its white cloth and tell us to put it on the ground. Then he’d put our little hands on the handles of the plow, take hold with his own hands, and we’ plow over the bread. He did this with each of us in turn, Michal, me, Antek, and Stasiek. Right away he’d start teaching us how to plow, Don’t hold it like that, keep it tight, walk in the middle of the furrow, it needs to go deeper when the earth is dry, when your hands get bigger you’ll be holding the reins in this one and the whip in the other, as well as the plow. And don’t try to scare off the crows that are following behind you, let them be, because when you’re on your own out in the field with no one but the horse the crows’ll keep you company, and whatever they eat will grow again. And each time you turn, always let the horse have a little breather. Now what’s that singing in the sky?
“A lark, daddy.”
“That’s right, a lark. Do you know where the lark came from?”
“It flew here.”
“That’s true. But one day the Lord God was walking over the fields, and there was a farmer plowing. Is the work hard, God asked the farmer. I’ll say, lord, answered the farmer. So god took a clod of earth and threw it up into the sky and said, let it sing for you, it’ll make the job easier.”
So you see, the author leaves very little out of his story. I guess perhaps only farmers would like or have the patience to like this book. It is wonderful.
January 7, 2014
Mysliwski builds dual portraits of the protagonist Szymek Pietruszka and his village just as Szymek is building the tomb for himself and his brothers, a bit at a time as materials come his way. Time loops around. We get a bit of an introduction to someone with a comment that foreshadows their eventual relationship with Szymek, or a casual aside about an event or an outcome, told in the course of a different story. Eventually the mason comes back and builds up that wall, filling in but maybe not not completing it that day.
The book takes the form of monologues told by people in Szymek’s life, with Szymek filling in the interstices with bits of his own current life and his history as a farmer, office worker, WWII resistance fighter, hell-raiser, barber, and so on. Some stories are gradually revealed to us, other enigmas--his brother Michal and his almost fiancée--remain as mysterious to us as they are to him.
I found the portrayal of the peasant and the land one of the most interesting aspects of this novel. As a young man, Szymek fully intends to leave the backbreaking work; his brothers all take off. But the rebellious son is up against a cagy old peasant father and fate. That is the surface story. Underneath is Mysliwski’s portrayal of the love-hate relationship between farmer and land: the endless backbreaking, uncertain cycle of preparing the land, nurturing the crop and reaping what God and nature grant you. Szymek hates every minute of it, so what keeps him there? That is the novel.
The novel is also the loving portrayal of the strong peasant emotions that run counter to the monotony of farming and a life bounded by foot and horse transportation. It is almost as if people have to do outrageous things to balance out their everyday lives. Impulsive actions are routine, and often violent. Drunkeness is endemic. People are full of contradictions. Neighbors might help you during an illness, or steal everything you own.
Much of the language is meditative and moves the reader to ask himself the same questions. Szymek ponders the core issues of life: God, love and sex, life and death, family, work. And this is where I just couldn’t quite love the book. It’s possible a peasant sitting by himself day after day in old age would think these things, in this language, but I just couldn’t picture the hard-living Szymek doing it. This disconnect between the narrative language, supposedly written by Szymek, and his education and history, just seemed too unlikely and kept me at arm’s length.
However, it is a fine book and it is well worth the read as a novel, or to understand how the German occupation and WWII affected rural Poland. In contrast, Mysliwski seems to say that Communism altered the core of everday peasant life in Poland relatively little. Religion continues to permeate ritual and attitude, even if it has to be kept out of official offices. Szymek and his family are still living the life of 1875 at the end of the book. However, if I knew more about Polish policies under Communism I might see that the book is rife with the effects of those policies.
That is why I think the reader would benefit from a forward or note available at the end to explain the Communist policy toward farming and landholding in Poland. It appears that they did not create communes, but that there was some redistribution. Since there are repeated references to landholdings throughout the book, before and after WWII, some explanation would help.
The book takes the form of monologues told by people in Szymek’s life, with Szymek filling in the interstices with bits of his own current life and his history as a farmer, office worker, WWII resistance fighter, hell-raiser, barber, and so on. Some stories are gradually revealed to us, other enigmas--his brother Michal and his almost fiancée--remain as mysterious to us as they are to him.
I found the portrayal of the peasant and the land one of the most interesting aspects of this novel. As a young man, Szymek fully intends to leave the backbreaking work; his brothers all take off. But the rebellious son is up against a cagy old peasant father and fate. That is the surface story. Underneath is Mysliwski’s portrayal of the love-hate relationship between farmer and land: the endless backbreaking, uncertain cycle of preparing the land, nurturing the crop and reaping what God and nature grant you. Szymek hates every minute of it, so what keeps him there? That is the novel.
The novel is also the loving portrayal of the strong peasant emotions that run counter to the monotony of farming and a life bounded by foot and horse transportation. It is almost as if people have to do outrageous things to balance out their everyday lives. Impulsive actions are routine, and often violent. Drunkeness is endemic. People are full of contradictions. Neighbors might help you during an illness, or steal everything you own.
Much of the language is meditative and moves the reader to ask himself the same questions. Szymek ponders the core issues of life: God, love and sex, life and death, family, work. And this is where I just couldn’t quite love the book. It’s possible a peasant sitting by himself day after day in old age would think these things, in this language, but I just couldn’t picture the hard-living Szymek doing it. This disconnect between the narrative language, supposedly written by Szymek, and his education and history, just seemed too unlikely and kept me at arm’s length.
However, it is a fine book and it is well worth the read as a novel, or to understand how the German occupation and WWII affected rural Poland. In contrast, Mysliwski seems to say that Communism altered the core of everday peasant life in Poland relatively little. Religion continues to permeate ritual and attitude, even if it has to be kept out of official offices. Szymek and his family are still living the life of 1875 at the end of the book. However, if I knew more about Polish policies under Communism I might see that the book is rife with the effects of those policies.
That is why I think the reader would benefit from a forward or note available at the end to explain the Communist policy toward farming and landholding in Poland. It appears that they did not create communes, but that there was some redistribution. Since there are repeated references to landholdings throughout the book, before and after WWII, some explanation would help.
March 21, 2022
Just like its narrator and main character, this novel is violent and tender, fun and melancholy, reflective and heartbreaking. War, family, resistance, farming, superstition, past traditions, communism, loneliness, lost love, decay: we can follow an ever-changing world through the eyes of Szymek, a charismatic jack of all trades who faces life and death with the humorous, courageous ways of Eastern Europeans. A literary feast superbly translated by Bill Johnston.
Is this the best Polish novel I have ever read? Probably.
Is this the best Polish novel I have ever read? Probably.
September 4, 2019
"Stone upon stone
On stone a stone
And on that stone
Another stone"
-from a folk song
This book was my translated novel for the month. It has sat on my shelves for almost a decade and I kept putting off reading it because it is so long. It turned out to be a mixed blessing.
First of all, it took me 10 days to read, during which I got several wonderful naps. The title comes from the folk song quoted above. Polish peasants, people who have farmed grain and raised animals for centuries upon centuries, are now dealing with rapid change after WWII has left their ancient country under communist rule.
The pace of life went at the speed evoked in the song. A peasant son narrates his life story. I don't know if it is a Polish thing but he and everyone else in the book go on and on, so many words. Like a cow chewing cud, they ruminate about their thoughts, tell tales, and give each other advice.
Gradually I became immersed in a world that only moves as fast as a day from sunrise to sunset, a year from planting to harvest to cold long winter to spring planting again. I moved into the head and heart of a man who rebelled and fought against the tyranny of his father, the monotony of peasant life, the oppression of military invasion, but never lost his sense of himself or became beaten down.
The translation is wonderful. It sings, it sounds modern and almost serves as a metaphor for the wrenching changes these people were put through. The underlying wisdom of such simple folk, derived from their intimate connection with the land and its cycles of life, comes rising up out of all those words.
Like the overwhelming majority of reviews I read, I too ended up loving the book, feeling a transcendence as regards the extremes of which human life is composed. I do not regret one second of the time I spent reading what is a masterpiece of an epic. Life is a mixed blessing.
"Stone upon stone
On stone a stone
And on that stone
Another stone"
On stone a stone
And on that stone
Another stone"
-from a folk song
This book was my translated novel for the month. It has sat on my shelves for almost a decade and I kept putting off reading it because it is so long. It turned out to be a mixed blessing.
First of all, it took me 10 days to read, during which I got several wonderful naps. The title comes from the folk song quoted above. Polish peasants, people who have farmed grain and raised animals for centuries upon centuries, are now dealing with rapid change after WWII has left their ancient country under communist rule.
The pace of life went at the speed evoked in the song. A peasant son narrates his life story. I don't know if it is a Polish thing but he and everyone else in the book go on and on, so many words. Like a cow chewing cud, they ruminate about their thoughts, tell tales, and give each other advice.
Gradually I became immersed in a world that only moves as fast as a day from sunrise to sunset, a year from planting to harvest to cold long winter to spring planting again. I moved into the head and heart of a man who rebelled and fought against the tyranny of his father, the monotony of peasant life, the oppression of military invasion, but never lost his sense of himself or became beaten down.
The translation is wonderful. It sings, it sounds modern and almost serves as a metaphor for the wrenching changes these people were put through. The underlying wisdom of such simple folk, derived from their intimate connection with the land and its cycles of life, comes rising up out of all those words.
Like the overwhelming majority of reviews I read, I too ended up loving the book, feeling a transcendence as regards the extremes of which human life is composed. I do not regret one second of the time I spent reading what is a masterpiece of an epic. Life is a mixed blessing.
"Stone upon stone
On stone a stone
And on that stone
Another stone"
November 26, 2022
Czytając "Kamień na kamieniu" miałem wrażenie, jakbym słuchał historii starszego wujka na rodzinnej posiadówie o tym, jak to kiedyś były czasy, a teraz to nie ma czasów. I, mimo że z częścią rzeczy nie będziecie się zgadzali, czasem wręcz bulwersowali, to jednak nie możecie przestać słuchać, bo wujek tak wspaniale opowiada.
Książka mówi o czasach słusznie minionych, a jednocześnie wywołuje za nimi nostalgię, nawet jeśli samemu się ich nie doświadczyło. Aż ma człowiek ochotę pojechać do rodziców na wieś, pójść na spacer na pola, zmarznąć, a potem wrócić do domu, napić się z ojcem wódki i zagryźć swojską kiełbasą.
Książka mówi o czasach słusznie minionych, a jednocześnie wywołuje za nimi nostalgię, nawet jeśli samemu się ich nie doświadczyło. Aż ma człowiek ochotę pojechać do rodziców na wieś, pójść na spacer na pola, zmarznąć, a potem wrócić do domu, napić się z ojcem wódki i zagryźć swojską kiełbasą.
February 13, 2017
I read an English translation from the original Polish. I kept thinking of the stream of consciousness narrator as one of Tolstoy's happy serfs despite his fight against the Germans and a debilitating injury he suffers all the while concerned with building a family tomb.
November 14, 2019
Recenzja jak najbardziej nieobiektywna.
Wiesław Myśliwski jest jednym z moich ulubionych pisarzy. Najtrafniejsze, choć niezby poetyckie porównanie jaki przychodzi mi na myśl, to że z czytaniem literatury Myśliwskiego jest jak z pieczeniem chleba - niezbędny jest czas i cierpliwość.
W moim przekonaniu "Kamień na kamieniu" różni się dość znacznie od ostatnich powieści tego pisarza. Tutaj autor koncentruje się bardziej na przedstawieniu obrazu polskiej wsi, relacji międzyludzkich, obyczajów. Przekaz głębszych wartości i prawd odbywa się jakby na drugim planie, "niechcący". W swoich 2-3 ostatnich powieściach Myśliwski jakby czuł, że ma niewiele czasu i chce przekazać swoje życiowe spostrzeżenia i doświadczenia w bardziej skondensowany sposób.
Jest to z pewnością książka warta przeczytania, autor zna polską wieś bardzo dobrze i potrafi opisać ją bardzo trafnie. Nie była to jednak moja ulubiona książka Myśliwskiego i na pewno przeczytanie jej zajęło mi najdłużej ze wszystkich dotychczasowych. Czas i cierpliwość.
Wiesław Myśliwski jest jednym z moich ulubionych pisarzy. Najtrafniejsze, choć niezby poetyckie porównanie jaki przychodzi mi na myśl, to że z czytaniem literatury Myśliwskiego jest jak z pieczeniem chleba - niezbędny jest czas i cierpliwość.
W moim przekonaniu "Kamień na kamieniu" różni się dość znacznie od ostatnich powieści tego pisarza. Tutaj autor koncentruje się bardziej na przedstawieniu obrazu polskiej wsi, relacji międzyludzkich, obyczajów. Przekaz głębszych wartości i prawd odbywa się jakby na drugim planie, "niechcący". W swoich 2-3 ostatnich powieściach Myśliwski jakby czuł, że ma niewiele czasu i chce przekazać swoje życiowe spostrzeżenia i doświadczenia w bardziej skondensowany sposób.
Jest to z pewnością książka warta przeczytania, autor zna polską wieś bardzo dobrze i potrafi opisać ją bardzo trafnie. Nie była to jednak moja ulubiona książka Myśliwskiego i na pewno przeczytanie jej zajęło mi najdłużej ze wszystkich dotychczasowych. Czas i cierpliwość.
January 7, 2018
M-am apucat de aceasta carte după ce am citit un review care conținea o singura fraza și care parafrazat suna cam așa: am terminat aceasta minunata carte și parca as vrea sa mă reapuc de ea și sa nu se mai termine poate niciodată. Nu am știut la ce sa mă aștept după o recomandare așa de călduroasă. Pot sa spun cu mâna pe inima ca exista maculatura, exista cărți bune și exista masterpiece-uri. Aceasta carte mi-a intrat la suflet și în top 10 cărți citite de mine in toată viața. Nu exista un titlu mai nimerit. Naratiunea curge ca un râu care in clipocitul ei povesteste viața omului. Nu pot decât sa va spun ca dacă vă veți apuca de aceasta carte( deși poate greoaie prin stilul ei cu monologuri lungi de 4-5 pagini) vă v-a prinde în mrejele ei și nu o veți putea lasă deoparte pentru că veți simți că aveti în mână o comoară.
February 9, 2012
Myśliwski to najlepszy współczesny polski prozaik. I tu to potwierdza. Ciężko właściwie mi to ująć w słowa. Zwłaszcza, że Myśliwski robi to tak dobrze. Potrafi pisać o sprawach ważnych i o sprawach drobnych w taki sposób, że jego słowa wnikają w czytelnika. Czasem wnikają delikatnie i płynnie, a czasem mogę czynić spustoszenie niczym szrapnel. Szymek to świetny bohater, choć do bohaterstwa mu daleko. Pełen sprzeczności, porywczy, na swój sposób i mądry. W rzeczywistości pewnie nie zbliżyłbym się do takiego raptusa i pijaka, ale tu odczułem dziwną bliskość. A nad wszystkim góruje polska wieś, a wszystkiemu przygląda się ziemia...
March 4, 2011
Mysliwski has created a masterpiece. And Johnston's translation makes this great work accessible to all English readers. Farmer Szymek Pietruszka muses on his life and we are allowed to enter into this fascinating, complex man's views, tall-tales, tragedies, and wild nights at dances. It's cleverly written, and by the end of the long (534 pages) novel the reader longs to spend more time with the fascinating narrator.
I'm from Polish agrarian ancestry, and I wish to thank Mr. Mysliwski for giving me a glimpse into my forebears’ lives.
I'm from Polish agrarian ancestry, and I wish to thank Mr. Mysliwski for giving me a glimpse into my forebears’ lives.
March 18, 2021
What can I say? My second time through and still I don't know. This is my favorite novel. My favorite book. Breathtakingly good. Unassuming and generous on every single page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym4hm...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym4hm...
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