 | | Wydawnictwo Tytuł
Gdańsk 2002
© Stefan Chwin
135 x 202
272 pages
hardcover
ISBN 83-911617-9-X
rights available |
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Stefan ChwinThe Golden Pelican
About the author
Excerpt
Although he has set the action of this novel in Gdańsk, in the first years of this century, Stefan Chwin does not adhere to reality or trouble himself with verisimilitude. The Golden Pelican could easily be mistaken for a realistic novel of manners about how a certain serious law-school lecturer becomes a beggar and experiences the darkest sides of reality. In fact, Chwin's ambitions are much greater. He has created a contemporary tale, a kind of legend modelled on the medieval fable of St. Alexey. Thus it is that Jakub, the main protagonist of the parable, becomes convinced that, as a result of a mistake he made during the entrance examinations, a female student failed and committed suicide. Although this event is only a supposition by the oversensitive Jakub, it torments him and changes his life into a nightmare. The downfall of the noble-minded professor is only a narrative device, since everything that is most important in this book is of a discursive and reflective nature. The moral condition of contemporary man is what truly interests Chwin. He asks what has become of the soul of man today—his religiousness, sense of responsibility, and conscience. A voice of protest, impossible to ignore, rings out from the book—a protest against a world without God, love, or sensitivity. Not for a long time has there been such a "hot" novel in Polish literature. The sharp edge of the sword is aimed at a reality—hardly an exclusively Polish one!—in which "Three Kings by the name of Guerlain, Kenzo, and Lagerfeld" come to us bearing glad tidings.
Dariusz Nowacki
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