 | Wydawnictwo Znak
Kraków 2005
143×204
176 pages
paperback
ISBN 83-240-0560-9
Translation rights: Wydawnictwo Znak
Rights sold to: Germany (Deutsches Taschenbuch Verlag); France (Seuil); Russia - first serial rights (Innostrannaya Literatura) |
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Zbigniew MentzelAll the Languages in the World
Excerpt
In this entertaining novel the middle-aged narrator, Zbigniew Hintz, describes a single day in his life, with frequent flashbacks to his childhood and early adulthood, focusing on his relationship with his parents and how deeply it has affected him. The story is set against the background of life in communist Poland and also in the new Poland that has emerged since independence. However, the main themes of the novel are universal, such as the difficulties of communicating properly with our own relatives and of achieving fulfilment in life. It is essentially a comedy, but is as poignant and telling about human nature as it is funny. With a simple plot where not much actually happens, it is packed with the sort of small incidents that are the fabric of everyday life and mean something to all of us. The flashback material provides a rich diversity of amusing sub-plots and minor characters.
The main action takes place in Warsaw over a twelve-hour period on 17 January 1997, almost ten years after the collapse of communism in Poland. That day Hintz helps his widowed father to hold a farewell do at the hospital where he has worked for fifty years. As Hintz describes that day, he recalls how he failed to fulfil the hopes vested in him by his mother, who was herself artistically unfulfilled and dissatisfied with life in general – no one and nothing can please her. In flashbacks to the sad reality of communist Poland, each successive attempt he makes to achieve the career she desires for him is more ridiculous than the last. Equally tragic-comic are his wider family’s attempts to live meaningful lives in this absurd and frustrating environment.
Hintz has certain obsessions in his life, which he approaches with varying degrees of success. At the better end of his achievements he plays the stock market. Much less successful are his attempts to learn foreign languages, though he is fascinated by them and by the power of speech, both of which are thematic throughout the novel.
Beautifully written, this is an amusing novel with a profound message, moving and absorbing on every page.
Dorota Krawczyńska
Zbigniew Mentzel (born 1951) is a regular newspaper columnist and has published three books of short stories and articles on Polish culture. He is also editor of the collected papers of Poland’s leading philosopher, Leszek Kołakowski. However, he claims that most of his income comes from investing on the stock market.
Antonia Lloyd-Jones
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