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Dom dzienny, dom nocny
The English translation of the prize-winning international bestseller
Nowa Ruda is a small town in Silesia, an area that has been a part of Poland, Germany, and the former Czechoslovakia in the past. When the narrator moves into the area, she and discovers everyone-and everything-has its own story. With the help of Marta, her enigmatic neighbor, the narrator accumulates these stories, tracing the history of Nowa Ruda from the founding of the town to the lives of its saints, from the caller who wins the radio quiz every day to the tale of the man who causes international tension when he dies on the border, one leg on the Polish side, the other on the Czech side. Each of the stories represents a brick and they interlock to reveal the immense monument that is the town. What emerges is the message that the history of any place--no matter how humble--is limitless, that by describing or digging at the roots of a life, a house, or a neighborhood, one can see all the connections, not only with one's self and one's dreams but also with all of the universe.
Richly imagined, weaving in anecdote with recipes and gossip, Tokarczuk's novel is an epic of a small place. Since its original publication in 1998 it has remained a bestseller in Poland. House of Day, House of Night is the English-language debut of one of Europe's best young writers.
Nowa Ruda is a small town in Silesia, an area that has been a part of Poland, Germany, and the former Czechoslovakia in the past. When the narrator moves into the area, she and discovers everyone-and everything-has its own story. With the help of Marta, her enigmatic neighbor, the narrator accumulates these stories, tracing the history of Nowa Ruda from the founding of the town to the lives of its saints, from the caller who wins the radio quiz every day to the tale of the man who causes international tension when he dies on the border, one leg on the Polish side, the other on the Czech side. Each of the stories represents a brick and they interlock to reveal the immense monument that is the town. What emerges is the message that the history of any place--no matter how humble--is limitless, that by describing or digging at the roots of a life, a house, or a neighborhood, one can see all the connections, not only with one's self and one's dreams but also with all of the universe.
Richly imagined, weaving in anecdote with recipes and gossip, Tokarczuk's novel is an epic of a small place. Since its original publication in 1998 it has remained a bestseller in Poland. House of Day, House of Night is the English-language debut of one of Europe's best young writers.
390 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
About the author
Olga Tokarczuk
74 books6,299 followersOlga Tokarczuk is one of Poland's most celebrated and beloved authors, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Man Booker International Prize, as well as her country's highest literary honor, the Nike. She is the author of eight novels and two short story collections, and has been translated into more than thirty languages.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 602 reviews
December 11, 2018
This was the first Tokarczuk book to be translated in English, and having greatly enjoyed both Flights and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead earlier this year, and read Primeval and Other Times a couple of years earlier, I was very keen to track down a second-hand copy of this one.
It is impossible to read this book now without thinking about how it fits into her wider oeuvre, as it contains elements that are familiar from all three. Like Primeval and Plow, it is set in a largely forested location close to the Czech border in what was once Galicia and part of Germany. Like Flights it consists of many short stories and shorter fragments, some of which are in several parts with interruptions. It also has many of the folklore and religious elements of Plow - for example one of the parts tells the story of the popular unofficial saint Kummernis (Wilgefortis), which is then followed by a longer tale of the fictional transvestite monk who wrote her story.
The narrator is an anonymous female settler who has moved into the region with a male partner known simply as R, and the book feels like a conversation with her elderly neighbour Marta, who tells various stories about her neighbours while saying very little about herself, beyond her practical interest in wig-making. Other tales are more rooted in folk beliefs, and the narrator has some unusual beliefs about mushrooms, and includes recipes for various poisonous ones. Many of the stories are about dreams, and others blur the boundaries between reality and imagination. It has more of an overall narrative flow than Flights.
I found this a very interesting read, if a rather uneven one. I suspect that it was translated first because it seemed to embody most aspects of Tokarczuk's work.
As with Flights, I will include an index here, as this may be useful to readers looking for suitable breakpoints (though the longest chapters in this book are not as long and the shortest not as short).
These are the chapters (with page numbers from the Granta paperback edition):
1 The Dream
2 Marta
7 Whatsisname
10 Radio Nowa Ruda
11 Marek Marek
23 Dreams
26 The Day of Cars
27 Amos
42 Peas
44 Coelacanth
45 Guidebooks on Pietno
46 Velvet Foot
48 On Being a Mushroom
49 Ego Dormio et Cor Meum Vigilat
52 The Life of Kummernis of Schonau, written with the aid of the Holy Spirit and of the Mother Superior of the Benedictine Order at Kloster by Paschalis, monk
68 The Wig-maker
71 The Border
72 The Comet
74 Who wrote the Life of the Saint, and how he knew it all
86 Hens and Cockerels
89 Dreams
89 A Dream from the Internet
90 Things Forgotten
91 The Germans
92 Peter Dieter
98 Rhubarb
99 Cosmogonies
100 Who wrote the Life of the Saint, and how he knew it all
105 Grass Cake
111 A Dream from the Internet
111 Ephemerides
113 The Fire
114 Who wrote the Life of the Saint, and how he knew it all
120 Grass Allergy
121 Franz Frost
127 His Wife and his Child
131 The Ways Marta might Die
133 The Smell
135 The Vision of Kummernis from Hilaria
138 Corpus Christi
139 A Dream
139 The Monster
142 Rain
145 The Flood
146 Nails
147 The Clairvoyant
159 Mismancy
160 The Second-hand Man
162 Whiteness
163 July Full Moon
164 Hearing
166 Who wrote the Life of the Saint, and how he knew it all
172 A Dream
173 Lurid Boletus in Sour Cream
175 The Heatwave
176 Words
177 Ergo Sum
182 Sorrow, and the Feeling that's Worse than Sorrow
188 Two Little Dreams from the Internet
188 Cutting Hair
190 Marta Creates a Typology
192 The Mansion
201 My Mansion
204 Roofs
207 The Cutlers
209 The Forest that Comes Crashing Down
210 The Man with the Chainsaw
212 Ergo Sum
215 Half a Life Takes Place in the Dark
220 Mushrooms
223 Who wrote the Life of the Saint, and how he knew it all
227 The End
228 The Aloe
230 The Bonfire
231 To the Lord God from the Poles
238 The Pewter Plate
239 The Nanny
242 Treasure Hunting
247 Dahlias
249 A He and a She
259 Silence
260 A She and a He
276 The Eclipse
279 Marta's Awakening
283 Tidying up the Attic
284 Nowa Ruda
285 The Founder
289 The Salvation Machine
290 We're Going, I Said, Tomorrow is All Saints' Day
292 Divination from the Sky
It is impossible to read this book now without thinking about how it fits into her wider oeuvre, as it contains elements that are familiar from all three. Like Primeval and Plow, it is set in a largely forested location close to the Czech border in what was once Galicia and part of Germany. Like Flights it consists of many short stories and shorter fragments, some of which are in several parts with interruptions. It also has many of the folklore and religious elements of Plow - for example one of the parts tells the story of the popular unofficial saint Kummernis (Wilgefortis), which is then followed by a longer tale of the fictional transvestite monk who wrote her story.
The narrator is an anonymous female settler who has moved into the region with a male partner known simply as R, and the book feels like a conversation with her elderly neighbour Marta, who tells various stories about her neighbours while saying very little about herself, beyond her practical interest in wig-making. Other tales are more rooted in folk beliefs, and the narrator has some unusual beliefs about mushrooms, and includes recipes for various poisonous ones. Many of the stories are about dreams, and others blur the boundaries between reality and imagination. It has more of an overall narrative flow than Flights.
I found this a very interesting read, if a rather uneven one. I suspect that it was translated first because it seemed to embody most aspects of Tokarczuk's work.
As with Flights, I will include an index here, as this may be useful to readers looking for suitable breakpoints (though the longest chapters in this book are not as long and the shortest not as short).
These are the chapters (with page numbers from the Granta paperback edition):
1 The Dream
2 Marta
7 Whatsisname
10 Radio Nowa Ruda
11 Marek Marek
23 Dreams
26 The Day of Cars
27 Amos
42 Peas
44 Coelacanth
45 Guidebooks on Pietno
46 Velvet Foot
48 On Being a Mushroom
49 Ego Dormio et Cor Meum Vigilat
52 The Life of Kummernis of Schonau, written with the aid of the Holy Spirit and of the Mother Superior of the Benedictine Order at Kloster by Paschalis, monk
68 The Wig-maker
71 The Border
72 The Comet
74 Who wrote the Life of the Saint, and how he knew it all
86 Hens and Cockerels
89 Dreams
89 A Dream from the Internet
90 Things Forgotten
91 The Germans
92 Peter Dieter
98 Rhubarb
99 Cosmogonies
100 Who wrote the Life of the Saint, and how he knew it all
105 Grass Cake
111 A Dream from the Internet
111 Ephemerides
113 The Fire
114 Who wrote the Life of the Saint, and how he knew it all
120 Grass Allergy
121 Franz Frost
127 His Wife and his Child
131 The Ways Marta might Die
133 The Smell
135 The Vision of Kummernis from Hilaria
138 Corpus Christi
139 A Dream
139 The Monster
142 Rain
145 The Flood
146 Nails
147 The Clairvoyant
159 Mismancy
160 The Second-hand Man
162 Whiteness
163 July Full Moon
164 Hearing
166 Who wrote the Life of the Saint, and how he knew it all
172 A Dream
173 Lurid Boletus in Sour Cream
175 The Heatwave
176 Words
177 Ergo Sum
182 Sorrow, and the Feeling that's Worse than Sorrow
188 Two Little Dreams from the Internet
188 Cutting Hair
190 Marta Creates a Typology
192 The Mansion
201 My Mansion
204 Roofs
207 The Cutlers
209 The Forest that Comes Crashing Down
210 The Man with the Chainsaw
212 Ergo Sum
215 Half a Life Takes Place in the Dark
220 Mushrooms
223 Who wrote the Life of the Saint, and how he knew it all
227 The End
228 The Aloe
230 The Bonfire
231 To the Lord God from the Poles
238 The Pewter Plate
239 The Nanny
242 Treasure Hunting
247 Dahlias
249 A He and a She
259 Silence
260 A She and a He
276 The Eclipse
279 Marta's Awakening
283 Tidying up the Attic
284 Nowa Ruda
285 The Founder
289 The Salvation Machine
290 We're Going, I Said, Tomorrow is All Saints' Day
292 Divination from the Sky
September 12, 2014
One of the best works of fiction I’ve ever read. This is one of those undefinable, indescribable wonders that make most fiction look so ordinary. Most of all it a novel of place, but not in the usual sense. It’s a novel of exile, but the reasons for its characters’ exile are myriad (and the narrator’s unknown). It’s a novel consisting of stories, but in no way a story collection. It’s a novel of story-telling, but not of storytelling voices, or of stories on a theme. It’s a novel full of fantasy elements, but not in any way a fantasy novel. It is more appropriate to call it a novel where some of the metaphors take shape. And it is a very sad novel, but so wonderfully so.
How everything fits together is left open. Everything is left open. It’s a tightrope walk without a net. And over 300 pages Tokarczuk doesn’t seem to take a wrong step. This is a novel that I will certainly read again.
The translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones is also remarkable.
How everything fits together is left open. Everything is left open. It’s a tightrope walk without a net. And over 300 pages Tokarczuk doesn’t seem to take a wrong step. This is a novel that I will certainly read again.
The translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones is also remarkable.
November 8, 2021
O que me ocorre escrever sobre este livro, e uma forma de tentar, ênfase no tentar, explicá-lo, é fazer uma comparação mal amanhada com uma exposição de pintura. Este livro é um museu e tem diversos quadros nas suas salas, uns quadros em telas maiores, leia-se histórias mais extensas, e uns quadros em telas menores, quase como uma pequena Mona Lisa no Museu do Louvre. Tal como numa exposição de pintura, haverá obras que nos tocam mais e às quais ficamos agarrados e outras que acharemos mal acabadas, quase como um rascunho que teve de ir para a exposição porque não houve tempo de pintar mais uma obra-prima, e que não nos dizem nada. Esta obra da Tia Olga é assim. No entanto, no meio de tantos quadros (histórias), há algo que é inegável, o talento, leia-se escrita, da artista. Essa tem zero defeitos. Numa exposição de pintura algo que também é maravilhoso é poder partilhar a experiência com alguém, debater as obras vistas, pensar no que poderão significar, no que a pintora queria transmitir, por isso, obrigada, Cristina, por vires comigo à exposição! Influenciou bastante a nota final, já que os quadros concentrados na última ala, leia-se as últimas 60-70 páginas, foram um pouco mais estranhos do que alguns dos anteriores, quase quebrando a magia das obras vistas até ali.
November 16, 2020
Tokarczuk turns the many-sided crystal objects of her writing to reveal their every facet. She shows us the inside, the outside, underneath, and beneath—all the ‘neaths,’ even those that don’t exist—small things like mushrooms, those that may or may not cause death, and large concepts like death itself.
In one small town:
A dead body is kicked across the Polish-Czech border by guards who don’t want to deal with him. Looking down from heights reveals inhabitants on their daily trajectories—they are mechanical, uniform, wooden, wind-up toys. A monk writing about a female saint who took on characteristics of the crucified Christ becomes womanlike; the lover of an unnamed couple switches genders (a great (third-person) story that expands into the first-person narrator’s world). A former teacher realizes he is a wolf and donates copious amounts of blood, yearning for death. The narrator’s elderly neighbor disappears during the long winter; her house is in order and perhaps she hibernates in her cellar.
Tokarczuk’s houses and dreamings put me in mind of her sort-of countryman Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass where houses breathe during the night and the minds of the sleepers within reach out to those without. Both authors lived in areas that were changeable in terms of nationality, and their stories reflect this surreal reality.
While reading this, I was reminded of Primeval and Other Times—another of her mythical small towns full of history and characters and their stories, though this work is less cohesive and more expansive in terms of themes. With its genre fluidity, it resembles Flights. All these works are kaleidoscopic, describing seen and unseen facets with ideas and stories layered and stacked upon another. Tokarczuk wants us to see them as one related piece, knowing that her words alone cannot achieve that. Our imagination must expand to see what she’s seeing.
In one small town:
A dead body is kicked across the Polish-Czech border by guards who don’t want to deal with him. Looking down from heights reveals inhabitants on their daily trajectories—they are mechanical, uniform, wooden, wind-up toys. A monk writing about a female saint who took on characteristics of the crucified Christ becomes womanlike; the lover of an unnamed couple switches genders (a great (third-person) story that expands into the first-person narrator’s world). A former teacher realizes he is a wolf and donates copious amounts of blood, yearning for death. The narrator’s elderly neighbor disappears during the long winter; her house is in order and perhaps she hibernates in her cellar.
Tokarczuk’s houses and dreamings put me in mind of her sort-of countryman Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass where houses breathe during the night and the minds of the sleepers within reach out to those without. Both authors lived in areas that were changeable in terms of nationality, and their stories reflect this surreal reality.
While reading this, I was reminded of Primeval and Other Times—another of her mythical small towns full of history and characters and their stories, though this work is less cohesive and more expansive in terms of themes. With its genre fluidity, it resembles Flights. All these works are kaleidoscopic, describing seen and unseen facets with ideas and stories layered and stacked upon another. Tokarczuk wants us to see them as one related piece, knowing that her words alone cannot achieve that. Our imagination must expand to see what she’s seeing.
November 1, 2020
Lėta ir feel good knyga. Labai džiaugiuosi, kad skaičiau jau po Bėgūnų - man reikėjo prisijaukinti Tokarczuk, nes kai kažkada pasiėmiau jos Praamžius, atrodė išvis nei šis nei tas, kažkoks mito-etno, o man tuo metu reikėjo visai kitko. Dabar, jau žinant, kokia ji ir apie ką, atrodo, galėčiau bet ką skaityt - nuo fikcinės Janinos iki pseudo-autobiografijų.
Knyga sudaryta iš fragmentėlių, juos jungia pasakotoja, gyvenanti atokiame (Silezijos?) kaime, turinti išmintingą, keistą kaimynę Martą, kiekviename fragmentėlyje pasakojanti kažką vis kito - tai iš Martos gyvenimo, tai iš savo kasdienybės, tai iš vietinių pasakojimų / nutikimų. Struktūriškai panašu į "Bėgūnus", bet sykiu nuo jų kažkaip iš esmės skiriasi: "Bėgūnuose" visi juda, keliauja, atrodo, tik ir atgyja išjudėję. O "Dienos namuose" visam kam yra svarbiausia rasti savo vietą arba joje būti. Toks "Isos slėnis", tik be visokių brandos istorijų - ir tuo man daug gražesnis. Labai tinkamas karantinuotis :)
Mylimiausios metaforos / fragmentai:
- apie girtuoklį, kurio viduje gyveno paukštis ir nedavė jam ramybės. Atrodo labai poetiška ir perspausta, kai taip parašai, bet Tokarczuk sugeba per šitą vaizdą parodyti ir nerimą, ir destrukciją, ir kančią / kankinimą. Tas žmogus, gyvenęs kaime, miršta, bet paskui visai kitoj, pusiau mitologinėj istorijoj pasakojama, kaip vietinei šventajai atvedė pagydyti girtuoklį ir ji "įkišusi jam užantin ranką, ištraukė abuoją paukštį, kuris nerangiai, kapodamas sparnais, nuskridęs" (p. 62). Šitoj vietoj net apsiverkiau - tas peršokimas nuo metaforizuoto, bet realaus skausmo prie nerealaus, pasakiško išgijimo kažkaip.. ir supurto, ir tarsi įteisina tą skausmą, padaro tikresnį.
- daugiasluoksnės vietos: ir kaimelyje, ir miestelyje pasakotojai tai vaidenasi, tai ji girdi istorijas apie atsikrausčiusius žmones, apie keistus indus ir daiktus, kuriuos tu visą gyvenimą turi spintoje, bet nežinai iš kur gavai, apie tai, kaip neprisimeni praeities arba jos neturi. Iš pradžių atrodė taip kondrotiška - kaip iš "Kaolino". Bet sulig kažkuriuo pasakojimu - gal apie tai, kaip ankstyvą vasarą pievoje pradeda rastis vokiečių, - supratau, kad čia apie tuos SSRS iškeltintuosius / atkeldintuosius miestus, kur tiesiog permetinėjo i��tisas bendruomenes tolyn į vakarus. Tada staiga dingsta visa mistika, visas tipo magiškas realizmas, kai neaišku kaip atsiranda ir dingsta daiktai, - labai aišku, iš kur jie atsiranda, kas juos paliko. Keista nepaaiškinama praeitis pasirodo labai kūniška, labai paaiškinama. Kaip Niliūno "Užgavėnių kaukėse" ar daugely kitų jo eilėraščių, kur - taip, mistika, kultūrinės nuorodos, mitologiniai siužetai - bet tai tiesiog antrinis sluoksnis, padedantis suprasti, kas su tavim darosi ar kas tau yra daroma. Kai jie taip vienas per kitą prasišviečia - grožis.
- Marta, kuri yra.. kaip Janina! Tik Arkle mes girdėjom pačią Janiną, o čia girdim Janinos kaimynę, matom Martą kaimiynės akimis - jei ir ekscentrikę, tai švelniai, jei piktą - tai su pagrindu, niekur neradikalią. Ir sykiu pilną visokios išminties, kurią galima išsirašinėt kaip aforizmus - pvz, kad kai žmonės pradeda sakinį "visada" arba "visi", iš tiesų jie nori kažką pasakyti apie save, ir panašiai. Mano mylimiausi:
[pasakotoja su Marta diskutuoja, kokius gyvūnus Dievas pamiršo sukurti]
Dievas, deja, pamiršo, bet gerai, kad yra Tove Jansson, ir ji sukūrė Morą, ir ją pažinojo Marta.
Labai gražu. Tiesiog - labai gražu, viskas ir visi savo vietoje. Labai smagu skaitant atsidurti toje vietoje, kur tuo metu kažką pasakoja, kažką mato ar prisimena Tokarczuk.
Knyga sudaryta iš fragmentėlių, juos jungia pasakotoja, gyvenanti atokiame (Silezijos?) kaime, turinti išmintingą, keistą kaimynę Martą, kiekviename fragmentėlyje pasakojanti kažką vis kito - tai iš Martos gyvenimo, tai iš savo kasdienybės, tai iš vietinių pasakojimų / nutikimų. Struktūriškai panašu į "Bėgūnus", bet sykiu nuo jų kažkaip iš esmės skiriasi: "Bėgūnuose" visi juda, keliauja, atrodo, tik ir atgyja išjudėję. O "Dienos namuose" visam kam yra svarbiausia rasti savo vietą arba joje būti. Toks "Isos slėnis", tik be visokių brandos istorijų - ir tuo man daug gražesnis. Labai tinkamas karantinuotis :)
Mylimiausios metaforos / fragmentai:
- apie girtuoklį, kurio viduje gyveno paukštis ir nedavė jam ramybės. Atrodo labai poetiška ir perspausta, kai taip parašai, bet Tokarczuk sugeba per šitą vaizdą parodyti ir nerimą, ir destrukciją, ir kančią / kankinimą. Tas žmogus, gyvenęs kaime, miršta, bet paskui visai kitoj, pusiau mitologinėj istorijoj pasakojama, kaip vietinei šventajai atvedė pagydyti girtuoklį ir ji "įkišusi jam užantin ranką, ištraukė abuoją paukštį, kuris nerangiai, kapodamas sparnais, nuskridęs" (p. 62). Šitoj vietoj net apsiverkiau - tas peršokimas nuo metaforizuoto, bet realaus skausmo prie nerealaus, pasakiško išgijimo kažkaip.. ir supurto, ir tarsi įteisina tą skausmą, padaro tikresnį.
- daugiasluoksnės vietos: ir kaimelyje, ir miestelyje pasakotojai tai vaidenasi, tai ji girdi istorijas apie atsikrausčiusius žmones, apie keistus indus ir daiktus, kuriuos tu visą gyvenimą turi spintoje, bet nežinai iš kur gavai, apie tai, kaip neprisimeni praeities arba jos neturi. Iš pradžių atrodė taip kondrotiška - kaip iš "Kaolino". Bet sulig kažkuriuo pasakojimu - gal apie tai, kaip ankstyvą vasarą pievoje pradeda rastis vokiečių, - supratau, kad čia apie tuos SSRS iškeltintuosius / atkeldintuosius miestus, kur tiesiog permetinėjo i��tisas bendruomenes tolyn į vakarus. Tada staiga dingsta visa mistika, visas tipo magiškas realizmas, kai neaišku kaip atsiranda ir dingsta daiktai, - labai aišku, iš kur jie atsiranda, kas juos paliko. Keista nepaaiškinama praeitis pasirodo labai kūniška, labai paaiškinama. Kaip Niliūno "Užgavėnių kaukėse" ar daugely kitų jo eilėraščių, kur - taip, mistika, kultūrinės nuorodos, mitologiniai siužetai - bet tai tiesiog antrinis sluoksnis, padedantis suprasti, kas su tavim darosi ar kas tau yra daroma. Kai jie taip vienas per kitą prasišviečia - grožis.
- Marta, kuri yra.. kaip Janina! Tik Arkle mes girdėjom pačią Janiną, o čia girdim Janinos kaimynę, matom Martą kaimiynės akimis - jei ir ekscentrikę, tai švelniai, jei piktą - tai su pagrindu, niekur neradikalią. Ir sykiu pilną visokios išminties, kurią galima išsirašinėt kaip aforizmus - pvz, kad kai žmonės pradeda sakinį "visada" arba "visi", iš tiesų jie nori kažką pasakyti apie save, ir panašiai. Mano mylimiausi:
[pasakotoja su Marta diskutuoja, kokius gyvūnus Dievas pamiršo sukurti]
Ir mudvi ėmėme minėti tuos gyvūnus, kurių Dievas kažkodėl nesukūrė. Praleido šitiek paukščių, šitiek žvėrių, kurie gyvena žemėje. Pabaigoje Marta pasakė, kad jai labiausiai trūksta to didelio, nerangaus padaro, kuris naktimis tupi kelių sankryžoje. Nepasakė, kaip jis vadinasi. (p. 91)
Dievas, deja, pamiršo, bet gerai, kad yra Tove Jansson, ir ji sukūrė Morą, ir ją pažinojo Marta.
Taigi dabar priėjo prie lango ir pranešė:
- Pirkau vištų.
- Suprantu, - burbtelėjau.
- Ką veiki? - paklausė įsiteikiamai.
- Dirbu.
Valandėlę tylėjo. Įrašiau failą.
- Daug laiko tam sugaišti. (p. 88)
Labai gražu. Tiesiog - labai gražu, viskas ir visi savo vietoje. Labai smagu skaitant atsidurti toje vietoje, kur tuo metu kažką pasakoja, kažką mato ar prisimena Tokarczuk.
September 7, 2019
I've been reading Tokarczuk's English translations in reverse original (Polish) publication order, and House of Day, House of Night, from this perspective, seems almost like a seed-case for Flights and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
Like Flights, House of Day, House of Night uses Tokarczuk's "constellation novel" approach of mixing vignettes and short chapters on a number of themes, which partially interlock - though where Flights is international, House of Day, House of Night is emphatically local and regional. It shares a number of motifs with Plow, including a man found dead in a kitchen; an eccentric local old lady who has a connection with a middle-aged female author who more recently bought a house in the village; wolves/werewolves; astrology; criticism of a character for appearing more sympathetic to animals than people; and the liminality of this area of Silesia which used to be German before the Second World War, is now Polish and is also very near the Czech border. I imagined a few people in this novel looking the same as characters from Plow, as if they were played by the same fictional actors. And like The Books of Jacob, forthcoming in English in 2020, it takes an interest in historical religious sects or cults in Poland.
House of Day, House of Night also has a great deal in common with Andrzej Stasiuk's Tales of Galicia (1995) - another novel composed of vignettes about locals in a village in post-communist southern Poland which the author moved to in the 90s, and has now made their home for many years. (Goodreads' recommendations are unusually accurate here in listing Tales of Galicia first in recommendations for House of Day, House of Night.) The difference of three years between publication dates (1995 - 1998) is marked by the internet's presence in House.
If you strongly disliked the "woo" elements in Plow, be warned that House has magic-realist, mystical, Romantic undertones. Quite gently magic-realist, in that I could imagine a number of the scenes directed by Wes Anderson, but it's not consistently gritty, and not strictly rationalist. This all blends with that sense of decay and nostalgia sometimes associated with works from the old Austro-Hungarian territories.
I would say that it's cosier than Plow and Flights although that doesn't mean it's devoid of melancholy. It probably helped that there are a lot of small observations and phrases that I connected with - considerably more so than in those two later books - little things like describing trainer laces as wicks, or how a sense of the boundary of home, on a regularly walked route, may extend quite some way away from actual home. (NB some of the approaches to trans/gender fluidity - a theme in two threads in the novel - may not be fully on-message nowadays, although their intention is evidently sympathetic.)
I can't understand why Granta don't reissue House of Day, House of Night following Tokarczuk's recent success in English. If you actively disliked both of her more recent novels, you shouldn't expect anything radically different here in terms of structure and don't need to bother tracking down a copy. (I'm thinking particularly of those people - on GR, mostly in the US that I've noticed - who've been disappointed by media copy describing Tokarczuk as an innovative writer rather than merely literary fiction.) I would in that instance only recommend it if you have a specific interest in Polish culture. However, the characters seem less forceful here, and it is a book of mood and atmosphere and place more than anything - both of which were points in its favour as far as I'm concerned, and at times I considered 4.5 stars. I can imagine wanting to re-read bits of it, as I wouldn't with the other two novels. If you do like her other work, then this may be a nice book to curl up with in winter and to foreground Books of Jacob.
Read for Women in Translation month, August 2019.
Like Flights, House of Day, House of Night uses Tokarczuk's "constellation novel" approach of mixing vignettes and short chapters on a number of themes, which partially interlock - though where Flights is international, House of Day, House of Night is emphatically local and regional. It shares a number of motifs with Plow, including a man found dead in a kitchen; an eccentric local old lady who has a connection with a middle-aged female author who more recently bought a house in the village; wolves/werewolves; astrology; criticism of a character for appearing more sympathetic to animals than people; and the liminality of this area of Silesia which used to be German before the Second World War, is now Polish and is also very near the Czech border. I imagined a few people in this novel looking the same as characters from Plow, as if they were played by the same fictional actors. And like The Books of Jacob, forthcoming in English in 2020, it takes an interest in historical religious sects or cults in Poland.
House of Day, House of Night also has a great deal in common with Andrzej Stasiuk's Tales of Galicia (1995) - another novel composed of vignettes about locals in a village in post-communist southern Poland which the author moved to in the 90s, and has now made their home for many years. (Goodreads' recommendations are unusually accurate here in listing Tales of Galicia first in recommendations for House of Day, House of Night.) The difference of three years between publication dates (1995 - 1998) is marked by the internet's presence in House.
If you strongly disliked the "woo" elements in Plow, be warned that House has magic-realist, mystical, Romantic undertones. Quite gently magic-realist, in that I could imagine a number of the scenes directed by Wes Anderson, but it's not consistently gritty, and not strictly rationalist. This all blends with that sense of decay and nostalgia sometimes associated with works from the old Austro-Hungarian territories.
I would say that it's cosier than Plow and Flights although that doesn't mean it's devoid of melancholy. It probably helped that there are a lot of small observations and phrases that I connected with - considerably more so than in those two later books - little things like describing trainer laces as wicks, or how a sense of the boundary of home, on a regularly walked route, may extend quite some way away from actual home. (NB some of the approaches to trans/gender fluidity - a theme in two threads in the novel - may not be fully on-message nowadays, although their intention is evidently sympathetic.)
I can't understand why Granta don't reissue House of Day, House of Night following Tokarczuk's recent success in English. If you actively disliked both of her more recent novels, you shouldn't expect anything radically different here in terms of structure and don't need to bother tracking down a copy. (I'm thinking particularly of those people - on GR, mostly in the US that I've noticed - who've been disappointed by media copy describing Tokarczuk as an innovative writer rather than merely literary fiction.) I would in that instance only recommend it if you have a specific interest in Polish culture. However, the characters seem less forceful here, and it is a book of mood and atmosphere and place more than anything - both of which were points in its favour as far as I'm concerned, and at times I considered 4.5 stars. I can imagine wanting to re-read bits of it, as I wouldn't with the other two novels. If you do like her other work, then this may be a nice book to curl up with in winter and to foreground Books of Jacob.
Read for Women in Translation month, August 2019.
February 10, 2020
Z każdą kolejną książką Tokarczuk coraz lepiej rozumiem, dlaczego opresyjna władza jest tak jej twórczością przerażona.
Kiedyś, dawno temu, gdy zachwycałem się iberoamerykańskim realizmem magicznym, myślałem, że nie da się stworzyć czegoś takiego po polsku. Że polskie nazwy i polska rzeczywistość zawsze będą zbyt szare i przaśne; że nie da się stworzyć czegoś tak barwnego w naszych warunkach, bo to zawsze będzie silenie się na oryginalność, której po prostu nie ma. Że będzie to ziało sztucznością a próby, z którymi się stykałem potwierdzały tę tezę.
A ona potrafi. Umie wycisnąć z dolnośląskich gór i wiosek piękno i magię używając między innymi tych elementów rzeczywistości, które wg mnie uniemożliwiały takie pisanie w Polsce i o Polsce. Taki paradoks.
Oczywiście - to się udaje, bo Tokarczuk czerpie z rzeczywistości pełnymi garściami nie oglądając się na to, co nasze a co obce i tworzy z tego fantastyczne obrazy i historie od których nie można się oderwać.
"DD, DN" to historia (chyba) jednego lata (wiosny i jesieni też) spędzonego w górskim domku. Błache codzienne wydarzenia są pretekstem do opowiadania niezwykłych historii pełnych ludzkich dramatów, miłości, przewalających się wojen, wędrówek ludów i różnorakich narodowości. Jest w nich magia, sąsiad wilkołak i sąsiadka zapadająca w zimowy sen. Są zwykłe, smutne ale piękne ludzkie historie. Jest nawet transseksualny mnich opisujący dzieje transgenerowej świętej, co jest chyba wystarczającym powodem, żeby obecny MinKul brzydził się wziąć coś takiego do ręki.
Ta powieść, chyba podobnie jak "Bieguni", to książka po którą można po prostu sięgać, otwierać byle gdzie i delektować się słowami.
Z każdą kolejną książką Tokarczuk żałuję, że musiała dostać Nobla, żebym zaczął ją czytać...
Kiedyś, dawno temu, gdy zachwycałem się iberoamerykańskim realizmem magicznym, myślałem, że nie da się stworzyć czegoś takiego po polsku. Że polskie nazwy i polska rzeczywistość zawsze będą zbyt szare i przaśne; że nie da się stworzyć czegoś tak barwnego w naszych warunkach, bo to zawsze będzie silenie się na oryginalność, której po prostu nie ma. Że będzie to ziało sztucznością a próby, z którymi się stykałem potwierdzały tę tezę.
A ona potrafi. Umie wycisnąć z dolnośląskich gór i wiosek piękno i magię używając między innymi tych elementów rzeczywistości, które wg mnie uniemożliwiały takie pisanie w Polsce i o Polsce. Taki paradoks.
Oczywiście - to się udaje, bo Tokarczuk czerpie z rzeczywistości pełnymi garściami nie oglądając się na to, co nasze a co obce i tworzy z tego fantastyczne obrazy i historie od których nie można się oderwać.
"DD, DN" to historia (chyba) jednego lata (wiosny i jesieni też) spędzonego w górskim domku. Błache codzienne wydarzenia są pretekstem do opowiadania niezwykłych historii pełnych ludzkich dramatów, miłości, przewalających się wojen, wędrówek ludów i różnorakich narodowości. Jest w nich magia, sąsiad wilkołak i sąsiadka zapadająca w zimowy sen. Są zwykłe, smutne ale piękne ludzkie historie. Jest nawet transseksualny mnich opisujący dzieje transgenerowej świętej, co jest chyba wystarczającym powodem, żeby obecny MinKul brzydził się wziąć coś takiego do ręki.
Ta powieść, chyba podobnie jak "Bieguni", to książka po którą można po prostu sięgać, otwierać byle gdzie i delektować się słowami.
Z każdą kolejną książką Tokarczuk żałuję, że musiała dostać Nobla, żebym zaczął ją czytać...
June 27, 2024
Kunsztowne, literackie imaginarium o przesuwaniu granic, społecznych konwenansów. Jest to również oda do pogranicza, z jego skomplikowaną strukturą, uwarunkowaniami i historią. Jawa przeplata się ze snem, a lekturze towarzyszy melancholijny smutek.
Przeplatające się historie bohaterów Domu, momentami są urzekające, choć momentami wprowadzają lekki dysonans.
Dom dzienny, dom nocny to właściwie studium społeczno-geograficzno-historyczne, wieloaspektowe i balansujące na pograniczu prawdy i fikcji. Warto czytać go zarówno w dzień, jak i w nocy.
Przeplatające się historie bohaterów Domu, momentami są urzekające, choć momentami wprowadzają lekki dysonans.
Dom dzienny, dom nocny to właściwie studium społeczno-geograficzno-historyczne, wieloaspektowe i balansujące na pograniczu prawdy i fikcji. Warto czytać go zarówno w dzień, jak i w nocy.
August 4, 2021
Olga Tokarczuk escreveu uma obra singular e tocante, misturando sem parcimónia a natureza agreste de Nowa Ruda, pedaços das vidas dos seus habitantes, polacos e alemães, descrições de sonhos da Internet, receitas de cogumelos venenosos, questões fronteiriças e lendas de encantar.
A narradora é recente na cidade estabelece uma relação especial com Marta, uma vizinha idosa que faz perucas e parece hibernar durante o inverno.
As histórias são muitas e não têm necessariamente ligação entre si, exetuando a coincidência geográfica.
Fiquei particularmente encantada com Paschalis, o monge que escreveu sobre a lenda da santa Vilgeforte ou Kummernis de Schonau.
"Ali, ajoelhado na capela com os olhos fixos na imagem de Nossa Senhora, parecia dolorosamente belo, insuportavelmente belo. Assim o viu o Irmão Celestyn (...)."
Outra história maravilhosa é a de Ergo Sum, que comeu carne humana e passou a transformar-se em lobo de quando em vez.
No livro, conhecemos também famílias polacas e alemãs que, no pós-guerra, vivem provisoriamente sob o mesmo teto e somos apresentados aos Cutileiros, povo que fazia facas e cantava estranhos salmos, como este:
"(...) Sagrada seja a decomposição e o declínio desejado
maravilhosa é a infrutuosidade do inverno
e as cascas vazias das nozes (...)
E poderia referir ainda tantas histórias que me marcaram, como a do casal que, sem saber, partilha o mesmo amante, ou a de Krysia, que partiu atrás do amado cuja voz ouvia apenas dentro da sua cabeça.
Raras vezes um livro me envolveu e me impressionou tanto como este. Recomendo muito, sobretudo a leitores sem pressas.
A narradora é recente na cidade estabelece uma relação especial com Marta, uma vizinha idosa que faz perucas e parece hibernar durante o inverno.
As histórias são muitas e não têm necessariamente ligação entre si, exetuando a coincidência geográfica.
Fiquei particularmente encantada com Paschalis, o monge que escreveu sobre a lenda da santa Vilgeforte ou Kummernis de Schonau.
"Ali, ajoelhado na capela com os olhos fixos na imagem de Nossa Senhora, parecia dolorosamente belo, insuportavelmente belo. Assim o viu o Irmão Celestyn (...)."
Outra história maravilhosa é a de Ergo Sum, que comeu carne humana e passou a transformar-se em lobo de quando em vez.
No livro, conhecemos também famílias polacas e alemãs que, no pós-guerra, vivem provisoriamente sob o mesmo teto e somos apresentados aos Cutileiros, povo que fazia facas e cantava estranhos salmos, como este:
"(...) Sagrada seja a decomposição e o declínio desejado
maravilhosa é a infrutuosidade do inverno
e as cascas vazias das nozes (...)
E poderia referir ainda tantas histórias que me marcaram, como a do casal que, sem saber, partilha o mesmo amante, ou a de Krysia, que partiu atrás do amado cuja voz ouvia apenas dentro da sua cabeça.
Raras vezes um livro me envolveu e me impressionou tanto como este. Recomendo muito, sobretudo a leitores sem pressas.
March 28, 2019
Be warned that there are books that I really, really like but that I might not fully understand, resulting in a review that is fundamentally jibberish.
This book could serve as the structural template for Olga Tokarczuk's more recent and award-winning Flights. There are various storylines, clearly identified and shuffled together along with, well, stuff, things noticed and stored by the author, and then inserted, perhaps as clues, perhaps as jokes, perhaps just something akin to a cellphone alert.
In Flights, Tokarczuk wove travel with human anatomy, merging finally when Chopin's heart was transported back to Poland. Here, dreams are told along with a clawing notion of place. Like the man who died on a mountain ridge, half his body in Poland and half his body in Czechoslovakia. Border guards from each country kept dragging him to the opposite side, so he'd be someone else's concern.
Which, it should now be obvious, is how life is like a mushroom.
If I weren't a person, I'd be a mushroom. An indifferent, insensitive mushroom with a cold, slimy skin, hard and soft at the same time. I would grow on fallen trees; I'd be murky and sinister, ever silent, and with my creeping mushroomy fingers I would suck the last drop of sunlight out of them. . . . I would have the same capacity as all mushrooms to hide myself from humans by confusing their timid minds.
I mean, who could argue with that?
Words are like mushrooms too. Really.
But then words and things do form a symbiotic relationship like mushrooms and birch trees. Words grow on things, and only then are they ripe in meaning, ready to be spoken aloud. . . . People are like words in this way too -- they cannot live without being attached to a place, because only then do they become real. Maybe this is what Marta meant when she said something that struck me as odd at the time: 'If you find your place you'll be immortal.'
Marta. Marta is an older woman, kind of mystical. Our narrator turns to her often for wisdom, perspective. She made me think a bit of the character Emerence in Magda Szabo's The Door. In fact, I thought it might be worthwhile to read the two books simultaneously, but who would do something as silly as that?
It takes to the very end before we are confronted with what, not who, Marta is. Now I think I know where Marta came from and why she is never part of our lives in the winter, but first appeared in early spring, when we had just arrived and were turning the key in the damp-rusted lock. Sounds kind of mushroomy, no?
There is another story within that only appears near the end. It's called: A he and a she. I mention it here not because I can use it to explain anything - I think I've demonstrated that I can't - but because it is a wonderful piece of writing, a tale of a childless, loving couple who separately find adultery. The illicit lover of each has the same name, Agni; and the narrator's own husband, R, makes an unexpected, single comment during the tale. Stuff, maybe.
Some mushrooms are poisonous, remember. The author happily gives detailed recipes for how to cook them.
This book could serve as the structural template for Olga Tokarczuk's more recent and award-winning Flights. There are various storylines, clearly identified and shuffled together along with, well, stuff, things noticed and stored by the author, and then inserted, perhaps as clues, perhaps as jokes, perhaps just something akin to a cellphone alert.
In Flights, Tokarczuk wove travel with human anatomy, merging finally when Chopin's heart was transported back to Poland. Here, dreams are told along with a clawing notion of place. Like the man who died on a mountain ridge, half his body in Poland and half his body in Czechoslovakia. Border guards from each country kept dragging him to the opposite side, so he'd be someone else's concern.
Which, it should now be obvious, is how life is like a mushroom.
If I weren't a person, I'd be a mushroom. An indifferent, insensitive mushroom with a cold, slimy skin, hard and soft at the same time. I would grow on fallen trees; I'd be murky and sinister, ever silent, and with my creeping mushroomy fingers I would suck the last drop of sunlight out of them. . . . I would have the same capacity as all mushrooms to hide myself from humans by confusing their timid minds.
I mean, who could argue with that?
Words are like mushrooms too. Really.
But then words and things do form a symbiotic relationship like mushrooms and birch trees. Words grow on things, and only then are they ripe in meaning, ready to be spoken aloud. . . . People are like words in this way too -- they cannot live without being attached to a place, because only then do they become real. Maybe this is what Marta meant when she said something that struck me as odd at the time: 'If you find your place you'll be immortal.'
Marta. Marta is an older woman, kind of mystical. Our narrator turns to her often for wisdom, perspective. She made me think a bit of the character Emerence in Magda Szabo's The Door. In fact, I thought it might be worthwhile to read the two books simultaneously, but who would do something as silly as that?
It takes to the very end before we are confronted with what, not who, Marta is. Now I think I know where Marta came from and why she is never part of our lives in the winter, but first appeared in early spring, when we had just arrived and were turning the key in the damp-rusted lock. Sounds kind of mushroomy, no?
There is another story within that only appears near the end. It's called: A he and a she. I mention it here not because I can use it to explain anything - I think I've demonstrated that I can't - but because it is a wonderful piece of writing, a tale of a childless, loving couple who separately find adultery. The illicit lover of each has the same name, Agni; and the narrator's own husband, R, makes an unexpected, single comment during the tale. Stuff, maybe.
Some mushrooms are poisonous, remember. The author happily gives detailed recipes for how to cook them.
April 7, 2024
How does the world look when your life is filled with longing? It looks artificial, it crumbles and falls apart in your hands. Every single movement, every thought is watching itself, each emotion starts but never finishes, and finally even the object of your longing becomes artificial and unreal. Only the longing is real, imposing conditions on you - that you must be somewhere else, that you must have something you don't possess, or touch someone who doesn't exist. This state of being is self-contradictory - it is the quintessence of life, and at the same time it is opposed to life. It sinks through the skin into the muscles and bones, which have a painful existence from then on. It's not that they hurt, but that the basis of their existence is pain. And there is no escape from such longing. You would have to escape from your own body, from yourself even - by getting drunk perhaps? Or by sleeping for weeks on end? By losing yourself in your work to a point of frenzy? Or by praying incessantly? [...] The years change everything, except for that sense of longing.
November 30, 2021
Siamo in un paesino della Slesia, un angolo di terra in cui ai tedeschi subentrarono i polacchi in un interessante e doloroso avvicendarsi di lingue e di culture.
L’io narrante è una donna che colleziona sogni e storie, osservando l’alternarsi delle stagioni con estati brevissime e lunghi inverni.
In questo luogo di confine, apparentemente sperduto, si snodano e a volte si intrecciano le vite sgangherate di personaggi indimenticabili.
A cominciare da Marta, l’anziana vicina che sembra cada in letargo d’inverno per risvegliarsi in primavera. Donna di poche parole, perché parlare è “deleterio, seminava scompiglio e minava le cose evidenti”.
Sono tanti i silenzi che ci vengono incontro dalle pagine del libro: “il silenzio di R. è liscio come la sua pelle. È naturale e innocente”, quello della voce narrante è cupo, trascina e risucchia.
C’è il silenzio di una coppia che si è persa, per cui ognuno dei due vive nel ricordo di un amore diverso, forse sognato.
C’è il silenzio della morte, mentre le immagini soffocate per una vita crescono, si affollano e iniziano “a spandersi come brina su un vetro umido”.
Si vive tra illusioni, perché non si deve mai prendere sul serio quello che si vede.
Tal dei Tali parla sempre dell’inverno, perché solo raccontandolo si può sperare che passi; c’è Ergo Sum, professore di filosofia, la cui vita cambia radicalmente per una frase della Repubblica di Platone; c’è il monaco che, sedotto dall’immagine di una santa, ne racconta la vita. Della sua fine ci sono due versioni, una delle quali non dice nulla della sua morte, perché “chi racconta è sempre vivo, in un certo senso è immortale. È al di là del tempo”.
C’è la nostalgia, che scompone il mondo e lo trasforma in briciole.
Ci sono le case, spazi sicuri in un mondo incerto. “Ognuno di noi ha due case - una concreta, collocata nel tempo e nello spazio; l’altra infinita, senza indirizzo … [noi] viviamo contemporaneamente in entrambe”.
C’è il tempo di Marta, un presente infinito; il tempo delle storie, che l’inverno congela; il tempo della Storia che cambia gli uomini e quello di Olga Tokarczuc, magico, concreto, sospeso, che si dilata e si restringe come le ombre durante il giorno, in attesa che il buio le renda tutte uguali.
L’io narrante è una donna che colleziona sogni e storie, osservando l’alternarsi delle stagioni con estati brevissime e lunghi inverni.
In questo luogo di confine, apparentemente sperduto, si snodano e a volte si intrecciano le vite sgangherate di personaggi indimenticabili.
A cominciare da Marta, l’anziana vicina che sembra cada in letargo d’inverno per risvegliarsi in primavera. Donna di poche parole, perché parlare è “deleterio, seminava scompiglio e minava le cose evidenti”.
Sono tanti i silenzi che ci vengono incontro dalle pagine del libro: “il silenzio di R. è liscio come la sua pelle. È naturale e innocente”, quello della voce narrante è cupo, trascina e risucchia.
C’è il silenzio di una coppia che si è persa, per cui ognuno dei due vive nel ricordo di un amore diverso, forse sognato.
C’è il silenzio della morte, mentre le immagini soffocate per una vita crescono, si affollano e iniziano “a spandersi come brina su un vetro umido”.
Si vive tra illusioni, perché non si deve mai prendere sul serio quello che si vede.
Tal dei Tali parla sempre dell’inverno, perché solo raccontandolo si può sperare che passi; c’è Ergo Sum, professore di filosofia, la cui vita cambia radicalmente per una frase della Repubblica di Platone; c’è il monaco che, sedotto dall’immagine di una santa, ne racconta la vita. Della sua fine ci sono due versioni, una delle quali non dice nulla della sua morte, perché “chi racconta è sempre vivo, in un certo senso è immortale. È al di là del tempo”.
C’è la nostalgia, che scompone il mondo e lo trasforma in briciole.
Ci sono le case, spazi sicuri in un mondo incerto. “Ognuno di noi ha due case - una concreta, collocata nel tempo e nello spazio; l’altra infinita, senza indirizzo … [noi] viviamo contemporaneamente in entrambe”.
C’è il tempo di Marta, un presente infinito; il tempo delle storie, che l’inverno congela; il tempo della Storia che cambia gli uomini e quello di Olga Tokarczuc, magico, concreto, sospeso, che si dilata e si restringe come le ombre durante il giorno, in attesa che il buio le renda tutte uguali.
October 12, 2014
Oh boy--you know how you dig into a book, not knowing what to expect, and you come across big, glorious ideas about the world, just scattered in among the holey underwear and the bus ride to work? This 1988 Polish novel is one of those books. I love a book that cannot be summarized at all--there's no "elevator pitch". And why should there be? The language is simple, the actions are simple, but the story, the conglomeration of effects, is anything but. It's almost like a short story collection, made up of small chunks, titled rather notationally--like "Velvet Foot" (a kind of mushroom), and, several times, "a dream" rather than chapters. (Dreams figure largely in this book, in a wonderful way, both symbolically and very mundanely). It's the kind of five-star book that makes you want to demote a lot of other books one notch simply because they can't stand the comparison. Yet it is still an Eastern European book where the story itself is of modest people, living very simple lives--all but mentally, and there is a tinge of magical realism, in a very Eastern European way, a certain flavor of folktale, though there is the Internet, a certain matter-of-fact view of the strange, and a Kundera-ish tone of, 'well, alright then. So this is what human life is made of.'
What I particularly admire is that she moves to a bigger thought, a bigger idea, as poets do, and so many contemporary Western writers fail to do. It's something you don't notice you're missing until you you read a book like this. A drunk's irresistible urge and pain here becomes a bird, a big restless bird which lives inside him. Is this metaphor or real? The metaphor IS real. Do not miss this. I'm not done yet but I can tell this will be one of those books like Dovlatov's The Suitcase which I will be pressing on everyone.
What I particularly admire is that she moves to a bigger thought, a bigger idea, as poets do, and so many contemporary Western writers fail to do. It's something you don't notice you're missing until you you read a book like this. A drunk's irresistible urge and pain here becomes a bird, a big restless bird which lives inside him. Is this metaphor or real? The metaphor IS real. Do not miss this. I'm not done yet but I can tell this will be one of those books like Dovlatov's The Suitcase which I will be pressing on everyone.
August 25, 2018
L’unica cosa che posso dire di me stessa è che mi lascio vivere, scorro attraverso un luogo nello spazio e nel tempo e sono la somma delle proprietà di questo luogo e di questo tempo, niente di più.
Si, si può fare buona letteratura senza squilli di tromba o trovate sensazionalistiche e questo libro ne è la limpida dimostrazione. Con Casa di giorno, casa di notte, Olga Tokarczuk confeziona un ottimo piatto fatto con ingredienti poveri. Poveri ma genuini, veri, non sofisticati.
L’autrice ci porta a spasso per le strade di Nowa Ruda, una cittadina al confine tra Polonia, Germania e Repubblica Ceca e ci presenta le storie sgangherate di un’umanità variegata, composta da personaggi di paese, uomini e donne che sembrano trascinare a spasso le loro esistenze senza vedere oltre il proprio naso. Attenzione però a non trarre conclusioni affrettate, perché questa è solo l’apparenza. Come avverte la voce narrante all’inizio del libro: “l’immobilità di quanto vedo è apparente. Basta che lo voglia e posso penetrare l’apparenza”.
Pensieri, parole ed opere di una piccola comunità persa nella campagna polacca dunque, per un progetto narrativo che, mutatis mutandis, sembra avere parecchie analogie con quello di Jón Kalman Stefánsson: scrivere per non dimenticare, raccontare per continuare a far vivere un mondo che altrimenti sarebbe destinato all’oblio (che poi è la conclusione alla quale giunge anche Paschalis, l’incaricato di scrivere la vita della santa: “lo scopo della sua opera era conciliare tutti i tempi possibili, tutti i luoghi e i paesaggi in un’unica immagine, che sarebbe stata immobile e non sarebbe mai invecchiata né cambiata”).
Impossibile dar conto dei mille personaggi che incontreremo lungo il corso di questo viaggio stralunato: c’è Marta, la vecchia fabbricante di parrucche, convinta che i capelli crescendo assorbano i pensieri degli uomini, che parla solo degli altri e mai di se stessa e che immagina gli animali che Dio si è dimenticato di inventare. C’è Tal dei Tali, che “raccontava l’inverno” e che riusciva a vedere gli spiriti e c’è Marek Marek, un tipo la cui “sofferenza non veniva dall’esterno ma dall’interno” e che “nasceva per la stessa ragione per cui la mattina sorgeva il sole e la notte le stelle”, un’anima in pena che a causa del dolore che portava dentro di sé “non poteva portare a conclusione nessun pensiero, doveva cancellarli e scacciarli, così che smettessero di significare qualcosa”. Ci sono, intrecciate, la storie di Kummernis di Schonau, la santa barbuta e quella di Paschalis, che ne scrisse la biografia. Seguendo la voce narrante capiterà di imbatterci in ricette culinarie a base di funghi velenosi e turisti tedeschi che fotografano spazi vuoti e tra questi turisti Peter Dieter, venuto per rivedere il villaggio nel quale aveva vissuto e destinato a morire proprio sulla metà del confine. Incontreremo Agnieszka con le sue profezie e Franz Frost che vive di certezze, convinto che tutto ciò che è stato e che sarà esiste già ma che sarà messo in crisi dalla scoperta di un nuovo pianeta, al punto da diventare pazzo. Se riusciremo ad entrare in sintonia con la trama, non ci stupiranno certo la comparsa di un mostro nello stagno e neppure le profezie di Lew il veggente. Sarà bello lasciarsi affascinare dalle storie dell’uomo di seconda mano (convinto di essere la copia di qualcun altro), da quelle di Ergo Sum (anche nella sua seconda vita come Bronek), dei Von Goetzen e dei Coltellinai, senza trascurare quelle dell’uomo con la sega, di Gertrude Nietsche, di Lui e Lei e anche quella del misterioso R….
Insomma: storie, tante storie cui star dietro, tante vite da rincorrere con il rischio di perdere l’orientamento. Sarebbe un peccato però, perché questo libro ha un’architettura che poggia su architravi solide: una sono i sogni, quei sogni che ricorrono costantemente e che secondo la voce narrante costituirebbero la parte più vera della vita, l’unica davvero autentica mentre la nostra realtà di esseri umani sarebbe una specie di stato di sospensione dal nostro vero ruolo. L’altro pilastro è la ricerca di un punto di equilibrio perfetto, aspirazione che sembra rintracciabile all’interno di molti degli episodi narrati, una specie di armonia superiore, uno stato quasi di immobilità, fuori dal tempo e dalle passioni, un distacco quasi atarassico dalle cose del mondo.
Casa di giorno, casa di notte è un libro che consiglio, soprattutto a quei lettori che non si sono ancora stancati di cercare storie curiose.
Si, si può fare buona letteratura senza squilli di tromba o trovate sensazionalistiche e questo libro ne è la limpida dimostrazione. Con Casa di giorno, casa di notte, Olga Tokarczuk confeziona un ottimo piatto fatto con ingredienti poveri. Poveri ma genuini, veri, non sofisticati.
L’autrice ci porta a spasso per le strade di Nowa Ruda, una cittadina al confine tra Polonia, Germania e Repubblica Ceca e ci presenta le storie sgangherate di un’umanità variegata, composta da personaggi di paese, uomini e donne che sembrano trascinare a spasso le loro esistenze senza vedere oltre il proprio naso. Attenzione però a non trarre conclusioni affrettate, perché questa è solo l’apparenza. Come avverte la voce narrante all’inizio del libro: “l’immobilità di quanto vedo è apparente. Basta che lo voglia e posso penetrare l’apparenza”.
Pensieri, parole ed opere di una piccola comunità persa nella campagna polacca dunque, per un progetto narrativo che, mutatis mutandis, sembra avere parecchie analogie con quello di Jón Kalman Stefánsson: scrivere per non dimenticare, raccontare per continuare a far vivere un mondo che altrimenti sarebbe destinato all’oblio (che poi è la conclusione alla quale giunge anche Paschalis, l’incaricato di scrivere la vita della santa: “lo scopo della sua opera era conciliare tutti i tempi possibili, tutti i luoghi e i paesaggi in un’unica immagine, che sarebbe stata immobile e non sarebbe mai invecchiata né cambiata”).
Impossibile dar conto dei mille personaggi che incontreremo lungo il corso di questo viaggio stralunato: c’è Marta, la vecchia fabbricante di parrucche, convinta che i capelli crescendo assorbano i pensieri degli uomini, che parla solo degli altri e mai di se stessa e che immagina gli animali che Dio si è dimenticato di inventare. C’è Tal dei Tali, che “raccontava l’inverno” e che riusciva a vedere gli spiriti e c’è Marek Marek, un tipo la cui “sofferenza non veniva dall’esterno ma dall’interno” e che “nasceva per la stessa ragione per cui la mattina sorgeva il sole e la notte le stelle”, un’anima in pena che a causa del dolore che portava dentro di sé “non poteva portare a conclusione nessun pensiero, doveva cancellarli e scacciarli, così che smettessero di significare qualcosa”. Ci sono, intrecciate, la storie di Kummernis di Schonau, la santa barbuta e quella di Paschalis, che ne scrisse la biografia. Seguendo la voce narrante capiterà di imbatterci in ricette culinarie a base di funghi velenosi e turisti tedeschi che fotografano spazi vuoti e tra questi turisti Peter Dieter, venuto per rivedere il villaggio nel quale aveva vissuto e destinato a morire proprio sulla metà del confine. Incontreremo Agnieszka con le sue profezie e Franz Frost che vive di certezze, convinto che tutto ciò che è stato e che sarà esiste già ma che sarà messo in crisi dalla scoperta di un nuovo pianeta, al punto da diventare pazzo. Se riusciremo ad entrare in sintonia con la trama, non ci stupiranno certo la comparsa di un mostro nello stagno e neppure le profezie di Lew il veggente. Sarà bello lasciarsi affascinare dalle storie dell’uomo di seconda mano (convinto di essere la copia di qualcun altro), da quelle di Ergo Sum (anche nella sua seconda vita come Bronek), dei Von Goetzen e dei Coltellinai, senza trascurare quelle dell’uomo con la sega, di Gertrude Nietsche, di Lui e Lei e anche quella del misterioso R….
Insomma: storie, tante storie cui star dietro, tante vite da rincorrere con il rischio di perdere l’orientamento. Sarebbe un peccato però, perché questo libro ha un’architettura che poggia su architravi solide: una sono i sogni, quei sogni che ricorrono costantemente e che secondo la voce narrante costituirebbero la parte più vera della vita, l’unica davvero autentica mentre la nostra realtà di esseri umani sarebbe una specie di stato di sospensione dal nostro vero ruolo. L’altro pilastro è la ricerca di un punto di equilibrio perfetto, aspirazione che sembra rintracciabile all’interno di molti degli episodi narrati, una specie di armonia superiore, uno stato quasi di immobilità, fuori dal tempo e dalle passioni, un distacco quasi atarassico dalle cose del mondo.
Casa di giorno, casa di notte è un libro che consiglio, soprattutto a quei lettori che non si sono ancora stancati di cercare storie curiose.
March 23, 2021
Egy borús kora tavaszi hajnalon Gabriel García Marquez hirtelen felriadt.
- Mi baj van, Gabo, rémálom gyötör? - kérdezte felesége.
(Ők már csak ilyen választékosan beszélgettek, még kora reggel is. „Rémálom gyötör”, nem „rosszat álmodtál”. Hiába, az irodalmi közeg.)
- Ne is kérdezd, mi corazón. Azt álmodtam, hogy lengyel író vagyok.
- Lengyel? De honnan tudtad, hogy nem bantu vagy irokéz?
- A vodkából, a katolicizmusból, meg az indokolatlanul sok mássalhangzóból a szereplőim nevében.
- Értem.
- Gombától illatos erdőkben jártam, galócák és tinóruk között, és áradó meséket fogalmaztam piciny, pusztuló falvakról, különös szektáktól, elfeledett vagy sosem volt szentekről, történelmi ballépésekről, kitelepítettekről, öngyilkosokról, szeretőkről, történeteim pedig összekeveredtek egymással, egymásba kulcsolódtak, besűrűsödtek, mint a jó szilvalekvár, és a végén olyanok lettek, akár az álom. Az én álmom.
- De nem a te álmod, Gabo. Csak az álmodban a te álmod. Különben meg valaki más álma.
- Igazad van, mi media naranja. Pedig jó sztori volt. Nobel-szagú. Vállalnám.
- Neked van már Nobeled, mi vida, ne légy telhetetlen. Hagyj egyet ennek a tehetséges lengyelnek is.
- Tudom, tudom... na mindegy, főzök egy kávét.
- Rummal?
- Nem is tudom. Most valahogy inkább vodkával.
- Mi baj van, Gabo, rémálom gyötör? - kérdezte felesége.
(Ők már csak ilyen választékosan beszélgettek, még kora reggel is. „Rémálom gyötör”, nem „rosszat álmodtál”. Hiába, az irodalmi közeg.)
- Ne is kérdezd, mi corazón. Azt álmodtam, hogy lengyel író vagyok.
- Lengyel? De honnan tudtad, hogy nem bantu vagy irokéz?
- A vodkából, a katolicizmusból, meg az indokolatlanul sok mássalhangzóból a szereplőim nevében.
- Értem.
- Gombától illatos erdőkben jártam, galócák és tinóruk között, és áradó meséket fogalmaztam piciny, pusztuló falvakról, különös szektáktól, elfeledett vagy sosem volt szentekről, történelmi ballépésekről, kitelepítettekről, öngyilkosokról, szeretőkről, történeteim pedig összekeveredtek egymással, egymásba kulcsolódtak, besűrűsödtek, mint a jó szilvalekvár, és a végén olyanok lettek, akár az álom. Az én álmom.
- De nem a te álmod, Gabo. Csak az álmodban a te álmod. Különben meg valaki más álma.
- Igazad van, mi media naranja. Pedig jó sztori volt. Nobel-szagú. Vállalnám.
- Neked van már Nobeled, mi vida, ne légy telhetetlen. Hagyj egyet ennek a tehetséges lengyelnek is.
- Tudom, tudom... na mindegy, főzök egy kávét.
- Rummal?
- Nem is tudom. Most valahogy inkább vodkával.
May 29, 2021
This novel definitely needs far more attention than it currently gets when it comes to Olga's work. It is an extremely original example of magic realism set in a Polish town of Nowa Ruda. Pages of this novel are filled with recipes, short stories, hagiographies, things usual and not so usual. There are various moments here when sacrum meets profanum, when things very ordinary in some unexpected way turn into extraordinary. Olga here reaches the very highs of her writing capabilities, creating sentences and full paragraphs that one wants to read and then reread multiple times. The structure is also very interesting, as in 'Flights' short pieces of text are intertwined with longer forms, some characters are introduced and then reintroduced to us throughout this scattered novel. Sometimes one feels while reading this book as if time had stopped and the only object that exists is the mentioned in the title house, place which consumes but also which creates.
Read
October 10, 2019What Solingen brought to Nowa Ruda
Knives to core apples
Knives to trim cabbage
Knives to slice mushrooms
Knives as scissors to shape wigs
Knives as razors to shave beards
Knives as swords to slash enemies
Knives as buried treasure
Knives as tools for divining
Knives as tenets of religion
Knives to cut clearings in forests
Knives to saw wood into coffins
Knives to carve flesh out of snow
Knives arming wolves for the fight
Knives scoring dark into bright
Knives cleaving day out of night
Knives to core apples
Knives to trim cabbage
Knives to slice mushrooms
Knives as scissors to shape wigs
Knives as razors to shave beards
Knives as swords to slash enemies
Knives as buried treasure
Knives as tools for divining
Knives as tenets of religion
Knives to cut clearings in forests
Knives to saw wood into coffins
Knives to carve flesh out of snow
Knives arming wolves for the fight
Knives scoring dark into bright
Knives cleaving day out of night
February 13, 2022
"Casa de dia, casa de noite" é um livro único, sem deter uma narrativa linear mas com poderosas reflexões sobre o tempo, a fragmentação da existência humana, o isolamento, os sonhos e a natureza. Correspondem um conjunto de historias interligadas entre si, habitantes isolados numa pequena localidade que vivem a espera de se encontrar no meio do caos causado pela guerra.
A sua leitura foi uma verdadeira experiência esotérica, em que nos sentimos verdadeiramente conectados com o cosmos. Através de uma linguagem poética somos verdadeiramente "empurrados" para aquela floresta e convivemos com o seus habitantes. Olga Tokarczuk prova a qualidade dos prémios Nobel, e demonstra existirem livros capazes de se tornarem imortais e não permitirem o fim da literatura.
A sua leitura foi uma verdadeira experiência esotérica, em que nos sentimos verdadeiramente conectados com o cosmos. Através de uma linguagem poética somos verdadeiramente "empurrados" para aquela floresta e convivemos com o seus habitantes. Olga Tokarczuk prova a qualidade dos prémios Nobel, e demonstra existirem livros capazes de se tornarem imortais e não permitirem o fim da literatura.
July 9, 2023
[COMENTÁRIO]
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Casa de Dia, Casa de Noite
Olga Tokarczuk
Tradução de Teresa Fernandes Swiatkiewicz
"Casa de Dia, Casa de Noite" é uma obra envolvente e reflexiva escrita por Olga Tokarczuk. A autora polaca é uma das minhas autoras favoritas contemporâneas
Em maia este livro Tokarczuk apresenta uma narrativa complexa que aborda temas como identidade, memória e busca pelo sentido da vida.
A história se desenrola através da perspectiva de um narrador difuso e complexo, que oscila entre a realidade e a imaginação. Isso cria uma atmosfera intrigante que cativa o leitor. Por outro lado essa ambiguidade contribui para a profundidade da obra, permitindo-nos questionar a natureza e os limites da realidade e da percepção.
Um dos pontos fortes do livro é a maneira como a autora explora a relação entre territorialidades e sentidoa. A casa, que serve como cenário principal, será uma metáfora para a mente humana e seus labirintos? Através de descrições detalhadas e vívidas, Tokarczuk cria uma imagem nítida da atmosfera e das sensações experimentadas pelos personagens.
Além disso, a autora apresenta uma crítica social e política subjacente ao longo do livro. Ela faz isso através de personagens que representam diferentes estratos sociais e experiências de vida, revelando as desigualdades e injustiças presentes na sociedade contemporânea.
Por tudo isto "Casa de Dia, Casa de Noite" me parece ser uma obra literária poderosa que desafia o leitor a questionar suas percepções e a refletir sobre a complexidade da existência humana. Olga Tokarczuk demonstra mais uma vez uma maestria na habilidade em construir uma narrativa profunda e atmosférica, embora possa exigir um esforço maior do leitor para apreciar completamente sua mensagem.
(li de 20/03/2022 a 29/03/2022)
#livro #literatura #leitor #leitores #leitura #literaturapolaca #nobeldaliteratura #nobel #lerosnobel
#book #bookstagram #bookclub #bookstagramportugal #bookworm #booknerd #booklover
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Casa de Dia, Casa de Noite
Olga Tokarczuk
Tradução de Teresa Fernandes Swiatkiewicz
"Casa de Dia, Casa de Noite" é uma obra envolvente e reflexiva escrita por Olga Tokarczuk. A autora polaca é uma das minhas autoras favoritas contemporâneas
Em maia este livro Tokarczuk apresenta uma narrativa complexa que aborda temas como identidade, memória e busca pelo sentido da vida.
A história se desenrola através da perspectiva de um narrador difuso e complexo, que oscila entre a realidade e a imaginação. Isso cria uma atmosfera intrigante que cativa o leitor. Por outro lado essa ambiguidade contribui para a profundidade da obra, permitindo-nos questionar a natureza e os limites da realidade e da percepção.
Um dos pontos fortes do livro é a maneira como a autora explora a relação entre territorialidades e sentidoa. A casa, que serve como cenário principal, será uma metáfora para a mente humana e seus labirintos? Através de descrições detalhadas e vívidas, Tokarczuk cria uma imagem nítida da atmosfera e das sensações experimentadas pelos personagens.
Além disso, a autora apresenta uma crítica social e política subjacente ao longo do livro. Ela faz isso através de personagens que representam diferentes estratos sociais e experiências de vida, revelando as desigualdades e injustiças presentes na sociedade contemporânea.
Por tudo isto "Casa de Dia, Casa de Noite" me parece ser uma obra literária poderosa que desafia o leitor a questionar suas percepções e a refletir sobre a complexidade da existência humana. Olga Tokarczuk demonstra mais uma vez uma maestria na habilidade em construir uma narrativa profunda e atmosférica, embora possa exigir um esforço maior do leitor para apreciar completamente sua mensagem.
(li de 20/03/2022 a 29/03/2022)
#livro #literatura #leitor #leitores #leitura #literaturapolaca #nobeldaliteratura #nobel #lerosnobel
#book #bookstagram #bookclub #bookstagramportugal #bookworm #booknerd #booklover
January 25, 2021
Czasem trafiają się nam takie książki, które udowadniają, że jakiekolwiek szufladkowanie literatury czy szufladkowanie własnych preferencji w odniesieniu do niej są zupełnie bezpodstawne. I "Dom dzienny, dom nocny" jest dla mnie dokładnie taką książką, która w teorii nie do końca powinna mi się spodobać, a jednak w praktyce okazała się przecudowną książką, którą będę długo przytulać.
"Dom dzienny..." to oniryczna opowieść o pewnym miasteczku na Dolnym Śląsku i jej mieszkańcach. Zbudowana z rozdziałów o różnej długości, które pozornie przypominają osobne odcinki, a jednak finalnie scalają się w jedną magiczną opowieść. I jest to opowieść o ludziach, o granicach, o miejscach i o naszych ludzkich ich interpretacjach. To taka książka, której nie trzeba czytać w całości, choć oczywiście dopiero mając pełen ogląd na konstrukcję i filozofię tej powieści możemy ją stuprocentowo docenić. Natomiast wydaje mi się, że "Dom dzienny..." jest taką książką, po którą można by sięgnąć na krótszą bądź dłuższą chwilę, by po prostu złapać oddech.
"Dom dzienny..." to książka, przy której się wyciszałam, uspokajałam; przy której odpoczywałam w podstawowym tego słowa znaczeniu. Mimo że wiem, że czytając tę książkę nie dotarłam do wszystkich jej warstw to wyciągnęłam z niej tyle, ile w tym momencie potrzebowałam. To piękna książka - wyjątkowo urokliwa językowo, Olga Tokarczuk ma absolutny dar do snucia opowieści, używając przy tym języka, który zachwyca lirycznością, ale nie odstręcza górnolotnością. Uwielbiam ten senny nastrój, jaki pojawia się w opowieściach Olgi Tokarczuk - to zacieranie się granic między snem a jawą, między nocą a dniem, między myślą a czynem, między przeszłością a teraźniejszością. Ten mistycyzm połączony z przyziemnością tworzy kombinację swoistą dla prozy Noblistki. I jestem w stanie to ocenić na podstawie tylko kilku przeczytanych książek. Dobrze mi jest w tych światach wykreowanych przez Olgę Tokarczuk, choć generalnie nie jestem fanką tak "uduchowionych" książek. Jestem za to bezsprzecznie fanką prozy Olgi Tokarczuk, i z każdą kolejną książką czuję się coraz bardziej "u siebie".
"Dom dzienny..." to oniryczna opowieść o pewnym miasteczku na Dolnym Śląsku i jej mieszkańcach. Zbudowana z rozdziałów o różnej długości, które pozornie przypominają osobne odcinki, a jednak finalnie scalają się w jedną magiczną opowieść. I jest to opowieść o ludziach, o granicach, o miejscach i o naszych ludzkich ich interpretacjach. To taka książka, której nie trzeba czytać w całości, choć oczywiście dopiero mając pełen ogląd na konstrukcję i filozofię tej powieści możemy ją stuprocentowo docenić. Natomiast wydaje mi się, że "Dom dzienny..." jest taką książką, po którą można by sięgnąć na krótszą bądź dłuższą chwilę, by po prostu złapać oddech.
"Dom dzienny..." to książka, przy której się wyciszałam, uspokajałam; przy której odpoczywałam w podstawowym tego słowa znaczeniu. Mimo że wiem, że czytając tę książkę nie dotarłam do wszystkich jej warstw to wyciągnęłam z niej tyle, ile w tym momencie potrzebowałam. To piękna książka - wyjątkowo urokliwa językowo, Olga Tokarczuk ma absolutny dar do snucia opowieści, używając przy tym języka, który zachwyca lirycznością, ale nie odstręcza górnolotnością. Uwielbiam ten senny nastrój, jaki pojawia się w opowieściach Olgi Tokarczuk - to zacieranie się granic między snem a jawą, między nocą a dniem, między myślą a czynem, między przeszłością a teraźniejszością. Ten mistycyzm połączony z przyziemnością tworzy kombinację swoistą dla prozy Noblistki. I jestem w stanie to ocenić na podstawie tylko kilku przeczytanych książek. Dobrze mi jest w tych światach wykreowanych przez Olgę Tokarczuk, choć generalnie nie jestem fanką tak "uduchowionych" książek. Jestem za to bezsprzecznie fanką prozy Olgi Tokarczuk, i z każdą kolejną książką czuję się coraz bardziej "u siebie".
Read
March 28, 2019People see what they want to see, and in the end they get what they want - clear, but false divisions.
"The Paxillus involutus, before being labelled in the modern guides as poisonous, was a tasty mushroom. Whole generations have eaten it, because it grows everywhere. When I was a child it was gathered in a separate basket so that it could be cooked for a long time and the liquid poured off. Now they say it kills you slowly, attacking the kidneys, accumulating somewhere in the intestine to do its harm. So by eating these mushrooms you will end up both alive and dead simultaneously, a certain percentage alive and a certain percentage dead. It is hard to say at what point one passes into the other. For some reason people attach great weight to this one, brief moment of either-or."
Not either-or.
Both.
Both.
Night and day.
Man and woman. Beast and man. You and me. "I am never sure if there is a borderline between what Marta says and what I hear."
Twins, torn open because the Nazis thought they shared a soul.
German, Czech, Polish, Silesian.
Dream and reality: Krysia. Oh Krysia, who dreams a voice speaking into her left ear, a man who seems kind, who seems to know her, who sees she is an unusual person, who loves her. His name is Amos and he is in Mariand. She finds A Mos. Almost. Almost.
Only dreams are real.
"The Paxillus involutus, before being labelled in the modern guides as poisonous, was a tasty mushroom. Whole generations have eaten it, because it grows everywhere. When I was a child it was gathered in a separate basket so that it could be cooked for a long time and the liquid poured off. Now they say it kills you slowly, attacking the kidneys, accumulating somewhere in the intestine to do its harm. So by eating these mushrooms you will end up both alive and dead simultaneously, a certain percentage alive and a certain percentage dead. It is hard to say at what point one passes into the other. For some reason people attach great weight to this one, brief moment of either-or."
Not either-or.
Both.
Both.
Night and day.
Man and woman. Beast and man. You and me. "I am never sure if there is a borderline between what Marta says and what I hear."
Twins, torn open because the Nazis thought they shared a soul.
German, Czech, Polish, Silesian.
Dream and reality: Krysia. Oh Krysia, who dreams a voice speaking into her left ear, a man who seems kind, who seems to know her, who sees she is an unusual person, who loves her. His name is Amos and he is in Mariand. She finds A Mos. Almost. Almost.
Only dreams are real.
September 7, 2022
3,9 🌟 “Casa de dia, Casa de Noite” é, de todos os livros de Olga Tokarczuk traduzidos para português, o mais complexo. Inicialmente parece uma história desorganizada, sem nexo espacial nem temporal, como uma hebefrenia em papel.
Mas ao longo da história entendemos que todas as histórias têm em comum algo: o local. A região de Nowa Ruda, previamente da Silesia, depois da Prussia, seguida da Checoslováquia, depois alemã e por fim Polaca, concentra em si várias histórias anacrónicas que têm um sentido transcendente.
Um livro que nos faz recordar que o agora é como um ponto matemático, adimensional. Tudo é perene, tudo está em metamorfose numa constante transmutação. Esse é o verdadeiro sentido de “Casa de dia, Casa da Noite”. Nowa Ruda é exatamente o que o título promete: um lugar de histórias claras como a luz do dia e de outras mais saturnas como a noite. Restam ainda aquelas que não são nem noturnas nem diurnas mas sim crepusculares.
Merece ainda destaque a brilhante tradução do Polaco que manteve a expressividade e o realismo mágico que mereceu a Tokarczuk o prémio Nobel da Literatura.
Mas ao longo da história entendemos que todas as histórias têm em comum algo: o local. A região de Nowa Ruda, previamente da Silesia, depois da Prussia, seguida da Checoslováquia, depois alemã e por fim Polaca, concentra em si várias histórias anacrónicas que têm um sentido transcendente.
Um livro que nos faz recordar que o agora é como um ponto matemático, adimensional. Tudo é perene, tudo está em metamorfose numa constante transmutação. Esse é o verdadeiro sentido de “Casa de dia, Casa da Noite”. Nowa Ruda é exatamente o que o título promete: um lugar de histórias claras como a luz do dia e de outras mais saturnas como a noite. Restam ainda aquelas que não são nem noturnas nem diurnas mas sim crepusculares.
Merece ainda destaque a brilhante tradução do Polaco que manteve a expressividade e o realismo mágico que mereceu a Tokarczuk o prémio Nobel da Literatura.
February 25, 2023
Gelesen, weil ich "Der Gesang der Fledermäuse" sehr mochte. Es hat viele schöne Stellen, aber insgesamt ist es halt eine Notizensammlung aus dem Dorfleben, über lange Strecken ist es, als hörte man einer alten Frau beim Herumreden zu. Es geht viel um Pilze und Pilzrezepte, neuerdings ist ja alles angeblich giftig in den neuen Pilzbüchern, also ich esse ja immer alles und es hat mir noch nicht geschadet, die dummen anderen Leute ernten immer nur zwei Pilzsorten, aber ich, und so weiter. Ich war froh, als es vorbei war (knapp 400 Seiten, fühlte sich länger an).
Gegenwartskompatibilität: Die eine längere Geschichte, die sich durchs Buch zieht, über das Leben der Heiligen Kümmernis, kommt mir dubios vor. Die Hauptfigur möchte gern als Frau leben, es passiert so dies und das, gegen Ende braucht Paschalis aber nur Frauenkleider anzuziehen, um sogleich eine Prostituierte "in den Boden zu hämmern". Kann schon sein, dass das passiert, aber es kommt mir wie eine grobe und unergiebige literarische Benutzung eines Themas vor, von dem die Autorin irgendwie mal irgendwas gehört hat.
Gegenwartskompatibilität: Die eine längere Geschichte, die sich durchs Buch zieht, über das Leben der Heiligen Kümmernis, kommt mir dubios vor. Die Hauptfigur möchte gern als Frau leben, es passiert so dies und das, gegen Ende braucht Paschalis aber nur Frauenkleider anzuziehen, um sogleich eine Prostituierte "in den Boden zu hämmern". Kann schon sein, dass das passiert, aber es kommt mir wie eine grobe und unergiebige literarische Benutzung eines Themas vor, von dem die Autorin irgendwie mal irgendwas gehört hat.
October 12, 2017
Finally I found a book set in Poland by a Polish author that isn’t 500+ pages long. This is apparently an award-winner, but to me it often seemed bizarre; perhaps something is lost in translation. The book is divided into many short segments, moving between a nameless narrator and embedded short stories, a few of which the book revisits in multiple sections. The thread binding it all together is the setting of Nowa Ruda, a town on the Czech border that was transferred from Germany to Poland after WWII. The German residents were forced to leave, to be replaced by Poles transferred from land that went to Russia, an upheaval that still echoes in the 1990s when the narrator and her husband buy a farm there.
The short stories are fairly good, though melancholy. They are set in the area of Nowa Ruda throughout its history, from the life of a medieval saint to a late-medieval genderqueer monk who wrote about her, from a man who turns into a werewolf after eating human flesh during the war to the narrator’s neighbor who goes searching for a man who professed love to her in a dream. Magic realism characterizes many but not all of these stories, which are generally interesting in their own right.
Unfortunately, the stories comprise only around half of the book. The rest of it occurs in the narrator’s head, which is taken up by lengthy descriptions of dreams (her own and other people’s, culled from the Internet), flights of fancy, housekeeping minutiae, and mushroom recipes. It is hard for me to fathom the narrator’s purpose, as the author tells no particular story about her: she faces no challenges and experiences no change. Only at the end does she make a startling, though unexplored, discovery about her elderly German neighbor, whose daily habits are also tediously described throughout the book. In the meanwhile she occupies herself with detailed fantasies about being a mushroom or containing a house.
This book has a definite ambiance, and I do like the way it unfolds the history of a place. If it had been a collection of short stories alone, I’d probably have given 3.5 stars. The stories suffer no lack of plot and are often evocative. But as is I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you are the sort of reader who actually enjoys dream sequences.
The short stories are fairly good, though melancholy. They are set in the area of Nowa Ruda throughout its history, from the life of a medieval saint to a late-medieval genderqueer monk who wrote about her, from a man who turns into a werewolf after eating human flesh during the war to the narrator’s neighbor who goes searching for a man who professed love to her in a dream. Magic realism characterizes many but not all of these stories, which are generally interesting in their own right.
Unfortunately, the stories comprise only around half of the book. The rest of it occurs in the narrator’s head, which is taken up by lengthy descriptions of dreams (her own and other people’s, culled from the Internet), flights of fancy, housekeeping minutiae, and mushroom recipes. It is hard for me to fathom the narrator’s purpose, as the author tells no particular story about her: she faces no challenges and experiences no change. Only at the end does she make a startling, though unexplored, discovery about her elderly German neighbor, whose daily habits are also tediously described throughout the book. In the meanwhile she occupies herself with detailed fantasies about being a mushroom or containing a house.
This book has a definite ambiance, and I do like the way it unfolds the history of a place. If it had been a collection of short stories alone, I’d probably have given 3.5 stars. The stories suffer no lack of plot and are often evocative. But as is I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you are the sort of reader who actually enjoys dream sequences.
November 28, 2011
I have noticed, over the years, that many Post-War Polish writers tend to write in short chapters, even short stories, that appear (often) unrelated yet acquire a relationship as the book progresses because of the interrelationships and accidental coincidences that occur. This appears to be largely true with “House of Day, House of Night”. It becomes quite obvious, very quickly, that the book consists of a series of short stories (sometimes VERY short) that remind one of random(ish) notes one might make when researching a topic; recipes, descriptions of places and flora, conversations one has had. Dysfunctional characters appear; an alcoholic who watches his world disintegrate, a bank clerk who falls in love with the man in her dreams only to find reality harsh and disappointing, a survivor of the Gulags who finds himself condemned in a chance statement he reads in Plato.
My early impression of the book was of a portrait being painted with dabs of colour and shade here and there. In fact it began to remind me very much of a Swiss cheese full of holes except that it is the holes that are solid and the cheese that is empty space. The solid holes, at times, exude a sort of energy, an electricity that charges the empty space between them and begins to create something shadowy but still unreal.
There were times I found the book too disjointed. It is well-written and quite interesting at times but it didn’t always grip my attention wholeheartedly. I would go off and do other things (draw, write, walk) so that my reading experience became even more disjointed. When I used to work I used to read a chapter of a book before I set off... this book would have been ideal for those days. Now, in my retirement, I don’t enjoy “clever” books, I yearn for a gripping read, an interesting story.
And yet I do not feel I am doing the book justice. It IS well-written, some of the stories ARE interesting, poignant, even tragic. Every now and then some fascinating thread is developed or some character pulls at you... I feel there was a really good book here but it was left among the notes and jottings and never got written.
My early impression of the book was of a portrait being painted with dabs of colour and shade here and there. In fact it began to remind me very much of a Swiss cheese full of holes except that it is the holes that are solid and the cheese that is empty space. The solid holes, at times, exude a sort of energy, an electricity that charges the empty space between them and begins to create something shadowy but still unreal.
There were times I found the book too disjointed. It is well-written and quite interesting at times but it didn’t always grip my attention wholeheartedly. I would go off and do other things (draw, write, walk) so that my reading experience became even more disjointed. When I used to work I used to read a chapter of a book before I set off... this book would have been ideal for those days. Now, in my retirement, I don’t enjoy “clever” books, I yearn for a gripping read, an interesting story.
And yet I do not feel I am doing the book justice. It IS well-written, some of the stories ARE interesting, poignant, even tragic. Every now and then some fascinating thread is developed or some character pulls at you... I feel there was a really good book here but it was left among the notes and jottings and never got written.
May 13, 2022
.”..storie inverosimili e assolutamente comuni.”
odori
silenzi
sogni
Storie, al contempo, legate e slegate
Un libro che non può certamente definirsi romanzo ma neppure raccolta di racconti.
Difficilissimo per me commentare questo libro.
(Mi chiedo se sia solo mio questo bisogno di trovare un nesso, qualcosa che riesca ad impacchettare tutto, un filo che conduca da una storia all’altra...)
Difficilissimo far capire a chi non ha letto il libro e vorrebbe leggerlo di cosa stiamo parlando.
Ci provo.
Uno: dove
Il grande contenitore è il territorio della Slesia nella zona dove la Polonia confina con la Germania e la Repubblica Ceca.
Boschi, fiumi e soprattutto quella linea immaginaria che solo gli uomini vedono.
In alcuni casi la natura si adatta, gli alberi ad esempio ma non gli animali:
” Il confine è molto vecchio, separa da secoli uno stato dall’altro. Non si è fatto modificare tanto facilmente. Gli alberi si sono abituati a crescere lungo il confine, come gli animali. Mentre gli alberi, però, tenevano conto del confine e non lasciavano il loro posto, gli animali nella loro stupidità se ne infischiavano.”
I confini, però, in queste storie sono anche baluardi metaforici delle donne e degli uomini che attraversano queste pagine.
Due: chi
Una pletora di personaggi che ruota attorno alla cittadina polacca di Nowa Ruda (vicino alla quale l’autrice realmente risiede e che si trova, per l’appunto al confine).
”E se esistessero persone senza biografia, senza passato e senza futuro, che si manifestano al prossimo sotto forma di un eterno adesso?”
R. Marta, Tal dei Tali, Marek Marek, Kummernis di Schonau, il monaco Paschalis, Peter Dieter, Agnieszka, Franz Frost, Lew il veggente...
Ognuno offre una storia.
Ad esempio c’è Marta , la vicina di casa che appare solo in primavera, riempie i silenzi con storie di altri non raccontando mai di sé
Oppure; l’altro vicino, Tal dei Tali, che ripete sempre lo stesso racconto, quello della morte suicida di Marek Marek un uomo che già dal nome ripete i suoi sbagli e perde la sua battaglia contro l’alcolismo.
C’è poi una narrazione parallela che trasporta in un passato remoto.
Si tratta di un'agiografia (“La vita di Kummernis di Schonau, redatta con l’aiuto dello Spirito Santo e della superiora dell’ordine delle benedettine a Kloster dal monaco Paschalis”) di una donna con il volto di Cristo e venerata come martire.
Leggenda che Olga Tokarczuk rielabora (https://it.churchpop.com/santa-vilgef...) aggiungendo la figura del monaco Paschalis che vuole essere riconosciuto come donna.
Tre: come
Il libro è suddiviso in paragrafi di diversa lunghezza e titolati in modo da rintracciarne il contenuto.
La voce narrante non ha nome.
A volte sono storie a sé, a volte non si concludono per poi essere riprese più avanti.
Quattro: Sognare
I sogni sono ricorrenti e centrali come si intuisce già dall’incipit:
” La prima notte feci un sogno immoto.
Sognai di essere pura vista, puro sguardo, e di non avere né corpo né nome.
Ero sospesa in aria al di sopra della valle, in un punto indefinito dal quale vedevo tutto, o quasi. All’interno di questa visione mi spostavo, ma senza muovermi da dov’ero.
O meglio, era il mondo che mi si sottometteva via via che il mio sguardo lo inquadrava, avvicinandosi e allontanandosi così da farmi vedere tutto o soltanto i dettagli più minuti.”
I sogni sono spesso un'occasione per dare un significato al nostro presente.
Infine: ricompongo. Riflessioni sul titolo
Qual é il luogo in cui ci sentiamo più sicuri se non la propria casa?
Se anche la intendiamo come metafora, la casa è il nostro Io, lo spazio dove abbassiamo le difese:
"A casa propria ci si limita a esistere, non bisogna lottare con nulla né conquistare nulla. Non bisogna controllare le coincidenze ferroviarie, gli orari dei treni, non c’è bisogno di entusiasmi e disillusioni. Ci si può mettere da parte, ed è allora che si vedono più cose."
Alla fine della lettura mi accorgo di avere tra le mani i pezzi di un puzzle che sta al lettore ricomporre facendo attenzione alla sfumature.
Sfumature chiare come il giorno e sfumature scure come la notte: bifronte come l’esistenza stessa.
”Solo il sonno chiude una realtà vecchia e ne apre una nuova, un uomo muore e se ne sveglia un altro.
È quell’indistinto spazio nero tra un giorno e l’altro il vero viaggio.”
------
Concludo condividendo due passaggi che mi hanno commossa perché questa Signori e Signore è Letteratura!
(nascondo con lo spoiler solo per questioni di spazio)
Essere un fungo
La cometa
odori
silenzi
sogni
Storie, al contempo, legate e slegate
Un libro che non può certamente definirsi romanzo ma neppure raccolta di racconti.
Difficilissimo per me commentare questo libro.
(Mi chiedo se sia solo mio questo bisogno di trovare un nesso, qualcosa che riesca ad impacchettare tutto, un filo che conduca da una storia all’altra...)
Difficilissimo far capire a chi non ha letto il libro e vorrebbe leggerlo di cosa stiamo parlando.
Ci provo.
Uno: dove
Il grande contenitore è il territorio della Slesia nella zona dove la Polonia confina con la Germania e la Repubblica Ceca.
Boschi, fiumi e soprattutto quella linea immaginaria che solo gli uomini vedono.
In alcuni casi la natura si adatta, gli alberi ad esempio ma non gli animali:
” Il confine è molto vecchio, separa da secoli uno stato dall’altro. Non si è fatto modificare tanto facilmente. Gli alberi si sono abituati a crescere lungo il confine, come gli animali. Mentre gli alberi, però, tenevano conto del confine e non lasciavano il loro posto, gli animali nella loro stupidità se ne infischiavano.”
I confini, però, in queste storie sono anche baluardi metaforici delle donne e degli uomini che attraversano queste pagine.
Due: chi
Una pletora di personaggi che ruota attorno alla cittadina polacca di Nowa Ruda (vicino alla quale l’autrice realmente risiede e che si trova, per l’appunto al confine).
”E se esistessero persone senza biografia, senza passato e senza futuro, che si manifestano al prossimo sotto forma di un eterno adesso?”
R. Marta, Tal dei Tali, Marek Marek, Kummernis di Schonau, il monaco Paschalis, Peter Dieter, Agnieszka, Franz Frost, Lew il veggente...
Ognuno offre una storia.
Ad esempio c’è Marta , la vicina di casa che appare solo in primavera, riempie i silenzi con storie di altri non raccontando mai di sé
Oppure; l’altro vicino, Tal dei Tali, che ripete sempre lo stesso racconto, quello della morte suicida di Marek Marek un uomo che già dal nome ripete i suoi sbagli e perde la sua battaglia contro l’alcolismo.
C’è poi una narrazione parallela che trasporta in un passato remoto.
Si tratta di un'agiografia (“La vita di Kummernis di Schonau, redatta con l’aiuto dello Spirito Santo e della superiora dell’ordine delle benedettine a Kloster dal monaco Paschalis”) di una donna con il volto di Cristo e venerata come martire.
Leggenda che Olga Tokarczuk rielabora (https://it.churchpop.com/santa-vilgef...) aggiungendo la figura del monaco Paschalis che vuole essere riconosciuto come donna.
Tre: come
Il libro è suddiviso in paragrafi di diversa lunghezza e titolati in modo da rintracciarne il contenuto.
La voce narrante non ha nome.
A volte sono storie a sé, a volte non si concludono per poi essere riprese più avanti.
Quattro: Sognare
I sogni sono ricorrenti e centrali come si intuisce già dall’incipit:
” La prima notte feci un sogno immoto.
Sognai di essere pura vista, puro sguardo, e di non avere né corpo né nome.
Ero sospesa in aria al di sopra della valle, in un punto indefinito dal quale vedevo tutto, o quasi. All’interno di questa visione mi spostavo, ma senza muovermi da dov’ero.
O meglio, era il mondo che mi si sottometteva via via che il mio sguardo lo inquadrava, avvicinandosi e allontanandosi così da farmi vedere tutto o soltanto i dettagli più minuti.”
I sogni sono spesso un'occasione per dare un significato al nostro presente.
Infine: ricompongo. Riflessioni sul titolo
Qual é il luogo in cui ci sentiamo più sicuri se non la propria casa?
Se anche la intendiamo come metafora, la casa è il nostro Io, lo spazio dove abbassiamo le difese:
"A casa propria ci si limita a esistere, non bisogna lottare con nulla né conquistare nulla. Non bisogna controllare le coincidenze ferroviarie, gli orari dei treni, non c’è bisogno di entusiasmi e disillusioni. Ci si può mettere da parte, ed è allora che si vedono più cose."
Alla fine della lettura mi accorgo di avere tra le mani i pezzi di un puzzle che sta al lettore ricomporre facendo attenzione alla sfumature.
Sfumature chiare come il giorno e sfumature scure come la notte: bifronte come l’esistenza stessa.
”Solo il sonno chiude una realtà vecchia e ne apre una nuova, un uomo muore e se ne sveglia un altro.
È quell’indistinto spazio nero tra un giorno e l’altro il vero viaggio.”
------
Concludo condividendo due passaggi che mi hanno commossa perché questa Signori e Signore è Letteratura!
(nascondo con lo spoiler solo per questioni di spazio)
Essere un fungo
La cometa
December 18, 2015
R. ...will set up a camera on the east-facing terrace...Each day he will take one photograph [of the sky, where he saw answers to arithmetic and other puzzles as a child], even when the sky is uniformly grey. R is certain that in autumn we’ll have a set of stills showing a rational sequence of skies, which is sure to mean something. It’ll be possible to put all the pictures together like a jigsaw puzzle, or to load them one on top of another in the computer, or to make one single sky out of them with the help of a software programme. And then we’ll know.
This last paragraph in the book both summarizes its structure and illuminates the power of literature. Her vignettes of life in small town Poland have been the catalyst the reader's brain used to create a deep understanding of this small community that no super computer, no photograph, no painting, could ever reach.
Takarczuk presents a wide range of stories, from first person interactions with her neighbors to many interspersed omniscient third person tales about characters from neighboring villages or even medieval Silesia. There is no plot, and very little about the narrator or her husband, who move into the village at the beginning of the book. The main character is her elderly neighbor Marta, an otherworldly being who we gradually perceive as not a primitive simpleton, but a creature so close to earth and fundamental being that we think she will be the only one left when the repeated vision of a desolate and depopulated landscape finally comes to pass. We come to love Marta but not in a sentimental way at all. She is beyond our capacity to know.
There is also a lengthy tale about compulsion, youth, and gender mutability in the interspersed chapters about the life of a local young noblewoman and the monk who is assigned to make the case for her sainthood. This is from perhaps 14th century Silesia.
There are local drunks and crazies, including one who has become a clairavoyant following a horrible entrapment in a mine accident. I liked two of his reflections after consultations with two clients:
”Please keep this a secret” he requested. [the married, middle-aged man asking the wherabouts of the girlfriend of his youth, who Leo sees as a monster]
There was no need to say that, thought Leo afterwards. You should never talk about such things. Who would believe it anyway? That you can see something that isn’t there, and that a person may not necessarily be human through and through, that every decision you make is just an illusion. Thank God people have the capacity for disbelief--it is a truly bountiful gift from God....
[and, in a parallel with the just-read Lolly Willowes]
However, he found the women’s lives touching. Sitting opposite him, gazing expectantly at his face, they were like timid creatures, deer, or hares in spring--gentle and shy, and at the same time extremely clever at dodging, escaping and hiding. Sometimes he thought of a woman’s existence as a sort of mask she puts on as soon as she’s born, enabling her to go through life in camouflage, never fuly revealing herself to anyone. He reckoned they didn’t ask tthe questions they ought to ask.
I didn’t realize until I sat down to write the review that I had just read another book of scenes from life on the southern border of Poland, Dukla by Andrzej Stasiuk. The two books do have a certain sharp clarity of description and lack of plot in common, but the differences kept me from noticing the coincidence until I was thinking about her geography. His Dukla is toward the east, on the border with Slovakia, while her Nowa Ruda is in the west, on the border with the Czech Republic. So there is the heavy sense of Russia and the east in his book, while Germany suffuses hers. Several of the pieces make reference to the forced repatriation of Germans from Silesia after WWII. In both cases, though, the church is a fundamental presence, as is the land and history--the history of passing from scepter to scepter while day to day life remains rooted in earth, water, and the seasons. And in hers, rain, so much rain, so much mud, so much dampness that one never gets dry.
April 13, 2020
Istorijos apie kasdienybę ir keistumus, apie grybus ir sapnus, apie perukų gamintoją ir šventosios gyvenimą, apie nykią provinciją ir pasaulį anapus tikrovės ribų. Olgos Tokarczuk gerbėjams negali nepatikti. Įdomu pastebėti teksto struktūrą, mintis, elementus, motyvus, kurie vėliau kur kas plačiau išvystomi „Bėgūnuose“ ar „Varyk savo arklą per mirusiųjų kaulus“. Tai atviras kūrinys, kurį skaitytojas kviečiamas pripildyti savo prasmių. Man ši knyga nepranoksta vėlesnių Tokarczuk kūrinių, bet suteikia galimybę stebėti, kaip auga ir keičiasi jos kūryba.
4,5*
“Kelionėse, kad nepražūtum, turi rūpintis savimi, turi stebėti save ir tai, kaip prisitaikai prie pasaulio. Dėmesys, mintys, pastangos – būna nukreiptos į save. Kelionėse visada galiausiai susiduri su savimi, tarsi būtum jų tikslas. O namie tu paprasčiausiai esi, nereikia nei su kuo nors, nei dėl ko nors kovoti. Nereikia galvoti apie traukinius, eismo tvarkaraščius, nereikia žavėtis nei nusivilti. Galima atidėti save į šalį, o tuomet pamatai daugiausia.” (52 p.)
4,5*
“Kelionėse, kad nepražūtum, turi rūpintis savimi, turi stebėti save ir tai, kaip prisitaikai prie pasaulio. Dėmesys, mintys, pastangos – būna nukreiptos į save. Kelionėse visada galiausiai susiduri su savimi, tarsi būtum jų tikslas. O namie tu paprasčiausiai esi, nereikia nei su kuo nors, nei dėl ko nors kovoti. Nereikia galvoti apie traukinius, eismo tvarkaraščius, nereikia žavėtis nei nusivilti. Galima atidėti save į šalį, o tuomet pamatai daugiausia.” (52 p.)
August 29, 2023
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2023...
“Half of life takes place in the dark.
It’s true, whether we’re aware of it or not, whether we like or not.”
Olga Tokarczuk es otra de esas escritoras únicas a las que cuando lo pienso, no se parece a nadie, o nadie puede realmente acercarse a lo que hace ella, la manera en la que encadena una historia tras otra, casi sin un argumento definido. En esta "House of day, House of night" se vuelven a repetir algunas de la situaciones parecidas de ”Sobre los huesos de los muertos”, novela que he leído muy recientemente, similares sobre todo en cuanto al lugar se refiere, porque es muy importante el concepto de frontera con el que juega Olga Tokarczuk, casi que se podría decir que aboga por su abolición por la forma en la que confluyen y se mimetizan los personajes en torno a ellas, ya que realmente polacos, alemanes, checos…, todos provienen del mismo lugar, todos han habitado la misma tierra, expulsados, retornados, buscando refugio…
“Nowa Ruda is a town full of hairdressers, second-hand clothes shops and men whose eyelids are coated in coal dust. It’s a town built in valleys, on slopes and hilltops, a town of small bridges slung casually across a little river that appears and disappears, always different, more fashionable colour.
[…]
It’s a town dreaming that it’s in the Pyrenees, that the sun never sets on it, that all the people who’ve left will be back one day, and that there are underground tunnels from the German era leading to Prague, Wroclaw and Dresden. It’s a fragment town, a Silesian, Prussian, Czech-Austro-Hungarian and Polish town, a town on the outskirts.”
En "House of day, House of night", Olga Tokarczuk sitúa la historia en una ciudad polaca cerca de la frontera checa. La ciudad es Nowa Ruda (Neurode, cuando era alemana) situada en Silesia, una región al suroeste de Polonia, con secciones en la República Checa y Alemania. Esta ciudad perteneció a Alemania hasta justo después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial cuando la mayor parte de aquella región se devolvió a Polonia. Es un lugar ideal como punto de encrucijada de personajes en continuo movimiento cruzando fronteras... y la autora hace continuamente referencia a estas migraciones o incluso está incidiendo muchísimo en el concepto de “hogar”: “Maybe this is what Marta meant when she said something that struck me as odd at the time: If you find your place you’ll be immortal.”
“When you’re travelling you have to take care of yourself in order to get by, you have to keep an eye on yourself and your place in the world. It means concentrating on yourself, thinking about yourself and looking after yourself. So when travelling all you really encounter is yourself, as if that were the whole point of it. When you are at home you simply are, you don’t have to struggle with anything or achieve anything. You don’t have to worry about railway connections and timetables, you dont need to experience any thrills or disappointments.
You can put yourself to one side and thats when you see the most.”
Se puede decir una vez más que la ciudad de Nowa Ruda es el personaje central y en torno a ella Olga Tokarczuk conforma todo un microcosmos de personajes "People are built like houses, inside they have stairwells, spacious halls, vestibules that are always to weakly lit to count the doors into the rooms", aquí no hay un argumento definido porque son estos personajes en continuo movimiento, los que conforman una historia que se va desplegando, enlazando e incluso levitando más allá de lo que estemos leyendo, porque la imaginación aquí es esencial. Un realismo mágico que más que mágico puede parecer onírico, "realismo onírico", un concepto que acabo de darme cuenta que me encanta para definir lo que ocurre en esta novela. Si que puede ser una novela porque los personajes son los mismos que aparecen y desaparecen hasta el final, pero en cuanto a argumento se podría decir que son una colección de relatos enlazados en una mezcla de historias biográficas, sueños, aventuras, y de recetas relacionadas con las setas sobre todo “I would have the same capactity as all mushrooms to hide myself from humans by confusing their timid minds.”, sin una linea temporal cronológica, las historias avanzan y retroceden en el tiempo e incluso, algunos títulos de estos capitulos están directamente relacionados con los sueños de los personajes. Los sueños son aquí uno de los temas principales.
“The group of people I joined on the Internet have shown me that nothing connects us in the same way as dreams. We all dream the same things in a peculiarly similiar, muddled way.”
La novela está poblada de personajes entre las que destaca la narradora, casada con un tal R. y que vive en una granja pero no todas las historias están contadas por ella. La narradora colecciona y analiza sueños y visita una página de internet donde la gente cuenta sus sueños y los comparte. A partir de aquí, toda la novela realmente está aderezada aquí y allá con el concepto de los sueños. Pero hay otros personajes esenciales como es la anciana Marta, Krysia, Marek Marek o Whatsname hasta llegar incluso a contarnos sobre el personaje de la santa medieval Kummernis y más adelante, conoceremos al monje Paschialis que escribirá sobre ella…, en esta novela todos los personajes hayan vivido siglos antes o estén en el presente están directamente conectados por lazos que la misma Olga Tokarczuk maneja con exquisita delicadeza para que igual cuando lleguemos al final, podamos volver a repasar algunas de las historias y así terminar de encontrar esa pieza perdida, que no estaba perdida pero si que estaba escondida en la historia.
"I told Marta that each of us has two homes, one actual home with a fixed location in time and space, and a second that is infinite, with no adress and no chance of being inmortalized in architectural plans, and that we live in both of them simultaneously."
Ya digo que igual es necesaria más de una lectura para establecer todas las conexiones que va dejando ver aquí esta inmensa autora, pero sus temas esenciales, los que venía de leer en “Sobre los huesos de los muertos” están aquí más presentes que nunca, aunque sea una obra de 1988: la identidad de las personas, el concepto de hogar y hasta qué punto está fijado en un lugar determinado o es un estado mental, la naturaleza, la muerte y hasta dónde podrá llegar el ser humano para esclarecer el misterio o el propósito de nuestra existencia. Olga Tokarczuk es una autora interesantísima en los temas que plantea y en cómo los aborda. Ese realismo onírico mezclado con una prosa tan accesible que resulta hasta misteriosa se reafirma en el personaje de Marta, un personaje casi atemporal que tiene las claves de la historia de Nowa Ruda. Una delicia de libro.
“That is why there are more and more people in the world, for it is populated by the sleeping dead who keep growing in number, while the real people living for the first time are few. In all this confusion, none of us knows or can posibly know if he is someone who is only deaming life, or really living it.”
February 20, 2020
Nie wiem o czym jest ta książka, ale podobała mi się.
serio.
Olga Tokarczuk to bardzo specyficzna pisarka, myślę, że jedyna w swoim rodzaju, jeśli chodzi o polskich autorów. Do Nobla nie czytałam nic, a więc postanowiłam, że w kocu nadrobię. Przeczytałam "Prawiek..." i mi się ta powieść podobała, nawet bardzo. Przeczytałam "Biegunów", a raczej ich zmęczyłam, i była to książka bardzo nie dla mnie. Jakaś taka badzo wzniosła i przemądrzaluchowata, a przede wszystkim mnie tematycznie nieinteresująca (ja to chyba nie lubię książek - zlepków).
Co prawda "Dom dzienny..." też jest książką - zlepkiem i w połowie się trochę podłamałam, bo miałam wrażenie, że nadal czytam "Biegunów", tylko w innej okładce. Jakoś jednak tematyka "zlepków" z tej ostatniej książki bardziej mi podeszła, więcej było fragmentów, na których się z przyjemnością zatrzymywałam. No i gdzieś tam spójność wszystkiego była dla mnie bardziej widoczna, część historii się splotła.
Pewnie marudzę i pewnie się nie znam, no ale cóż poradzić.
serio.
Olga Tokarczuk to bardzo specyficzna pisarka, myślę, że jedyna w swoim rodzaju, jeśli chodzi o polskich autorów. Do Nobla nie czytałam nic, a więc postanowiłam, że w kocu nadrobię. Przeczytałam "Prawiek..." i mi się ta powieść podobała, nawet bardzo. Przeczytałam "Biegunów", a raczej ich zmęczyłam, i była to książka bardzo nie dla mnie. Jakaś taka badzo wzniosła i przemądrzaluchowata, a przede wszystkim mnie tematycznie nieinteresująca (ja to chyba nie lubię książek - zlepków).
Co prawda "Dom dzienny..." też jest książką - zlepkiem i w połowie się trochę podłamałam, bo miałam wrażenie, że nadal czytam "Biegunów", tylko w innej okładce. Jakoś jednak tematyka "zlepków" z tej ostatniej książki bardziej mi podeszła, więcej było fragmentów, na których się z przyjemnością zatrzymywałam. No i gdzieś tam spójność wszystkiego była dla mnie bardziej widoczna, część historii się splotła.
Pewnie marudzę i pewnie się nie znam, no ale cóż poradzić.
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