By Marian Pankowski
Initially released 1980; Northwestern UP translation released 1996. hugely suggest whatever from the unfortunately discontinued "Writers from an Unbound Europe" series.
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This novel, set within the Seventies, tells the tale of the "author," a middle-aged Polish professor who lives overseas yet who past survived the Nazi focus camps, and Rudolf, an previous guy. instructed in circulation of recognition in addition to via a triangular correspondence between Rudolf, the writer, and the author's mom, the tale emerges as a story of subversion and liberation that echoes Gombrowicz in its exploration of transgressive hope. it will likely be of significant curiosity to these drawn to Polish literature and to readers of homosexual and lesbian literature.
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
In this novel via a brand new author from Poland, an aged gay, Rudolf, stocks his many encounters and relationships with a anonymous narrator over the process a 12 months. Rudolf believes that his lifestyles has been a major, vigorous attempt to eschew the "safe" lifestyles of the eu center classification during which the narrator seems to be firmly entrenched. the tale shifts constantly among the surfacing thoughts at the a part of either males and their informal musings and off-hand statement on every one other's lifestyles. but via his rambling, image, unrelenting bombardment of sexual encounters, Rudolf slowly chips away on the narrator's complacency, maintaining up his existence in its place version for living?a lifestyles at the facet, a lifestyles lived to its fullest, yet, extra vital, a existence lived with love. Pankowski's loosely built novel is so fluid, virtually cinematic popular, that readers strange with japanese eu writers might locate it unsatisfying or even complicated. instructed for ecu fiction collections and collections assisting japanese ecu studies.
From Kirkus Reviews
A skinny and very fairly stressful Polish novel, initially released in 1980, whose narrator indulges gay daydreams and fantasies whereas replacing stories and debating the character of the epicurean sensibility together with his counterpart, an aged German pursuer (and exploiter) of lovely boys. The political dimensions in their phlegmatic rejection of traditional habit are, right here and there, instructed, yet either the novel's energy (its Gide-like delicacy and powerful erotic candor) and its cloying hothouse tone derive nearly totally from its steadfastly maintained amorality.
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Extra resources for Rudolf (Writings from an Unbound Europe)
Example text
And I’m opening my eyes and everyone’s opened their eyes, . . and we all close them again, the better to “Mother of God, Star of the sea, Pray for the wanderer, Pray for me” . . and I only sense that Janka’s leaning on 20 me— aah! its happened. And furtively I squirm toward the door with my maculate unhappy hand in my pocket. The German goes with me. He can see that impudent hand and that flight from the sullied Maytime church. And he looks at my head, which is gradually starting to seek out colors not in oak bark but in slops.
He goes where the sort who recruit for a dangerous voyage are on the prowl . . Oh, I know what you mean, it was the time of year for that . . We both remember those leaves that tore themselves off the maples and went spiraling . . Well then, you wanted to get free o f the civilized world, too, away from a cold continent to islands that swim in warm seas . . The station helped you to push off from the every day . . When all’s said we differ, you and I, as to the price we put on this gesture, but that’s another matter .
We correspond, pretending that its “an exchange of views,” but I can see he’s trying to convert me. ” He main tains that it’s women teachers and priests who’ve instilled in us Poles that mania for washing our hands and a supersti tious fear of breasts at the backs of our bodies, from between which oozes the unending serpent of our uncleanliness, expelled from paradise. After New Year. He seemed such a tough customer— and now he’s hobbling and in a bad way because the poor old chap’s heart is giving out.