I just finished a remarkable novel called Stone Upon Stone. It is by a Polish author named Wieslaw Mysliwski and is published by the estimable Archipelago Books. The author is said to be one of the best-known and most highly regarded writers in Poland, although it seems that this is the first of his novels to be translated into English (the publisher indicates that others are on the way). I don't know any Polish and can't say that I have any feel for the Polish language, but Bill Johnson's translation reads fluidly and seamlessly, and has been highly praised in the reviews.
The first-person narrator of the book, Szymek Pietruszka, lives in a small village in rural Poland; his family has always worked on the land but at the time the story is being told (I would guess this to be the late 1950's or early 1960's) his parents have died, two of his brothers have moved away and he is quite alone, with a handicapped brother.
The book is Szymek's life story but it is told in a most unusual way: each chapter has a general thematic title (e.g., "The Road", "Mother", "Bread"). Szymek circles around each theme, telling pieces of his story — also the story of his family, and perhaps the story of his country or at least his part of it — in a rambling stream-of-consciousness, from when he was a child in the 1920's or 1930's, through the Second World War in which he was a heroic fighter in the resistance, to the post-War communist era.
He was at different times a farmer, a barber, and an employee in the district office in the town (charged with, among other things, performing weddings). Although many of the stories he tells start out as harmless anecdotes — reminiscences of his youth, for example — they not infrequently assume a really awesome power. As a kind of frame story we are told at the beginning that Szymek has decided to build a tomb for himself and his family in the town cemetery, and the planning that this requires (such as permits from the authorities to acquire the cement) is a springboard to many of his memories.
We meet his neighbors,classmates, the local priest, a beautiful co-worker in the town office, fellow fighters in the resistance and many others, each generating another story.
What is wonderful is that these are all simple people and it is the author's genius never to cause them to lose their authentic voices, as though the land itself is talking to us.
I loved Stone Upon Stone, and am most grateful to Archipelago for bringing Mysliwski to the English-speaking world for the first time; I eagerly await more of his books.
The book is Szymek's life story but it is told in a most unusual way: each chapter has a general thematic title (e.g., "The Road", "Mother", "Bread"). Szymek circles around each theme, telling pieces of his story — also the story of his family, and perhaps the story of his country or at least his part of it — in a rambling stream-of-consciousness, from when he was a child in the 1920's or 1930's, through the Second World War in which he was a heroic fighter in the resistance, to the post-War communist era.
He was at different times a farmer, a barber, and an employee in the district office in the town (charged with, among other things, performing weddings). Although many of the stories he tells start out as harmless anecdotes — reminiscences of his youth, for example — they not infrequently assume a really awesome power. As a kind of frame story we are told at the beginning that Szymek has decided to build a tomb for himself and his family in the town cemetery, and the planning that this requires (such as permits from the authorities to acquire the cement) is a springboard to many of his memories.
We meet his neighbors,classmates, the local priest, a beautiful co-worker in the town office, fellow fighters in the resistance and many others, each generating another story.
What is wonderful is that these are all simple people and it is the author's genius never to cause them to lose their authentic voices, as though the land itself is talking to us.
I loved Stone Upon Stone, and am most grateful to Archipelago for bringing Mysliwski to the English-speaking world for the first time; I eagerly await more of his books.
— Jeremy Nussbaum
Stone Upon Stone is available at bookhampton.com.
