[ExI] authors, italian and otherwise

[Tomasz Rola]

On Mon, 17 May 2010, Damien Broderick wrote:

> On 5/17/2010 10:50 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote:
> <lots of good stuff>
> 
> In my ignorance of all those writers and books, I am tempted to suggest 
> as well Stanislaw Lem's HOSPITAL OF THE TRANSFIGURATION. Here's my 
> comments on the book from my study TRANSREALIST FICTION:
> 
> <In his first published novel, Hospital of the Transfiguration,
> Lem's beautifully observed vignettes fold together, with exquisite 
> placement,
> like the elements of a ritual, perhaps an exorcism, holding the past
> even as it purges its unbearable grief. This is territory trodden more
> recently, of course, by such writers as D. M. Thomas and Martin Amis,
> using much the same transgressive apparatus.

Thanks for mentioning Lem, that was very interesting. I've decided to not 
include him in the list, mainly because the list was to be about writers 
(and books) that could help with understanding Poland. So, I went with 
writers, who wrote about specifically Polish subjects. Sometimes, they 
also wrote about bigger things, like Prus' "Faraon" ("Pharaoh") or 
Sienkiewicz' "Quo vadis". But generally, they were doing their work in 
some connection to Poland. Lem, on the contrary, AFAIR only wrote two 
books that can be described as dealing with Poland, that is "Hospital of 
transfiguration" and "High castle", his autobiography. Also, his works put 
him in a class of his own, as kind of citizen of the Universe. Of course, 
he is (was, sadly) a great Polish writer, just not very suitable for this 
time.

Besides, I've alreade written about him, so my feeling was, I would do him 
a disservice by bringing this out again and again.

This is a good moment to add an English-speaking writer and historian, 
Norman Davies. I think he is doing a good job describing problems of this 
region's past (sure, there is also some criticism, but I was never 
interested enough to investigate). I've been able to lay my hands on two 
of his books:

- Mikrokosmos (??- "Microcosm") - it's about history of 
Wroclaw/Breslau/Vratislavia, quite complicated subject somewhat similar to 
this of Gdansk/Danzig one. I've made it through the foreword.

- Powstanie '44 ("Rise 44") - about Warsaw Uprising in 1944 (not to be 
mistaken with Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 - yes, there were two 
uprisings). I am on page 30 of this 959-page work and so far, so good :-). 
Only I fret a little about English edition - I've heard it was cut a bit 
to make it easier for western readers. So I have somewhat mixed feelings, 
being not sure if I should give it here as worth reading, or something 
else.

There was also Polish historian, Pawel Jasienica, who wrote a lot of 
popular books on our history and has been translated to English too. I am 
still in search of time to read him, but from what I've heard the books 
were good.

Well, the subject is really broad. One other writer I've decided to omit 
was Stanislaw Grzesiuk. He was a colorful figure, in a manner similar to 
Sergiusz Piasecki. His books deal with life of pre-war Warsaw outlaws as 
well as his stay in concentration camps (quite a surprise when I read 
them, they were not what I expected). Only, in contrast to Piasecki, he 
was rather supporting of communism. Or maybe, he expected/hoped it would
help finish the poverty.

And I didn't mention books written by our numerous minorities members - to 
be frank, I can only suspect they've been written but I had no time to 
prove it.

BTW, Grzesiuk was also singing "outlaw folklore" songs as well as playing 
banjola (kind of banjo) and mandolin. Some of it can be found on youtube. 
In Polish. Well... I like his songs, but I am Pole so I am able to grasp 
the words. I am not sure how about other folks :-).

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **