Stone Upon Stone
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the PEN Translation Prize
A “sweeping . . . irreverent” masterpiece of postwar Polish literature that “chronicles the modernization of Poland and celebrates the persistence of desire” (The New Yorker)
Hailed as one of the best ever books in translation, Stone Upon Stone is Wieslaw Mysliwski’s grand epic in the rural tradition—a profound and irreverent stream of memory cutting through the rich and varied terrain of one man’s connection to the land, to his family and community, to women, to tradition, to God, to death, and to what it means to be alive. Wise and impetuous, plainspoken and compassionate, Szymek recalls his youth in their village, his time as a guerrilla soldier, as a wedding official, barber, policeman, lover, drinker, and caretaker for his invalid brother.
Filled with interwoven stories and voices, by turns hilarious and moving, Szymek’s narrative exudes the profound wisdom of one who has suffered, yet who loves life to the very core.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like a more agrarian Beckett, a less gothic Faulkner, a slightly warmer Laxness, Mysliwski masterfully renders in Johnston's gorgeous translation (Mysliwski's first into English) life in a Polish farming village before and after WWII through the eyes of Szymus Pietruszka, a seven-times wounded member of the Polish resistance and a fun-loving, hard-drinking dandy in mourning over the long-lost peace of prewar village life. Having recently returned to the farm from a lengthy hospitalization following an accident that mangled his legs, Szymus sifts through memories of his family dead mother and father, three brothers and the many girls he has known, plans a family tomb, and struggles to preserve the land in the face of rapid change. Richly textured and wonderfully evocative, the novel renders Szymus as a distinctly memorable character, whose humor and hard-earned wisdom lend beauty to a bleak vision of a land destroyed by war and ravaged by history, and whose voice sometimes warm, sometimes ornery, always elegiac is undeniably original, his digressions and ruminations forming a story that reminds us that "words are a great grace. When it comes down to it, what are you given other than words?"
