The ending of *The Buried Giant* has stayed with me since I read it almost a decade ago... now after reading your essay I need to get that Knausgård novel. It sounds like a much better entry point into his work for me than *My Struggle*. I have to sit with your insights before I can formulate any other thoghts, so for now I will just say thank you and wonder how I define the notion of "devastation" in my vocabulary for experience.
Oh, this is nice to hear, about The Buried Giant! I've never discussed that book with anyone — so few people in my world seem to have read that.
Did you find it as intense as I did?
I think that you'll find the Knausgård book interesting — I did, at least. That's the only section that's stayed with me, but the whole is unforgettable as a project, if that makes any sense. You might also find the My Struggle books interesting, in a very different way — in those, it's the writerly form that I find fascinating. I strongly recommend starting with book 2 and then circling back to book 1 later if one wants. (One can also google an extract in The New Yorker from years ago called something like ”A children's birthday party.” It's a great extract in the sense that one knows immediately if one wants more of this or not.)
Hope very much that you will share thoughts later on the devastation question. Would love to hear if this has sparked new ideas, and if you find in the end that you agree with this take or have a different one.
Years later I still find myself thinking about the final pages... They made me realize I had been in the fog with the characters, as if I, too, was letting myself unsee what the last pages made fully present.
And my thoughts are now circling around the point you made in your discussion of Knausgaard -- how we are the descendants of the survivors, obviously, and so the perspective of those left behind is the impossible one. They did not live to tell the tale, and they were unwitnessed. And yet... when I think about Polish literature, especially since 1939, the survivors who tell the tale don't position themselves as such. Guilt first, survival second, with a question mark, and the language, fractured, tries to bring the dead close, hold them in memory. Sometimes all this makes me feel like being a Polish writer is impossible, too formidable a task in the face of loss and guilt that remain present in the literature generation after generation. So I often feel like I'm holding my breath when I read my native literature and I'm not quite sure if I can think my way through it.
You make me curious to read more Polish fiction! I've hardly read any, I think, though a few essays here and there and some poetry.
But been thinking about your comment, and it seems to me that it is brilliant in underlining why I reacted so strongly to the retelling in A Time for Everything.
In the biblical story, at least in the secular contexts that I myself know it from (ie not as taught in a religious context, which might be different) there is precisely NO memory, no sense of loss. That lack of guilt and loss is more shocking than the ongoing sense of it in the contemporary literature that you describe, or so it seems —?
In the flood story, the families, friends and community of the survivors vanish, but they deserved it (as the story is presented), so there is no need to remember them.
The Noah story may be taught or told differently as parts of religious traditions, but in the general culture, it seems to me, that lack of care for those who vanished is baked into the story. It was devasting, in a good way, to suddenly notice that lack…
So now you have me wondering about the absence of loss... That will take more thinking and possibly some writing (for myself). Thank you.
Here are a few Polish novels that have appeared in English translation that engage with loss in the intense way I've tried to describe.
"The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenmann" by Andrzej Szczypiorski – I think it's fair to say it's among my most personal devastating readings. I realize many will find the writer's name alienating with "rz," "sz," and "cz" but it's a shame this novel isn't better known. Its Polish title, "Początek," means "beginning" and the story keeps asking about the origin of destructive, annihilating actions and forces as it moves through three turning points in both the characters' lives and national history: WWII, the political crisis of 1968 and the scapegoating of Polish Jews by the government, and Martial Law.
Then two novels of Gdańsk/Danzig: Stefan Chwin's “Hanemann” (in the US: “Death in Danzig”) and Paweł Huelle's “Weiser Dawidek” (“Who Was David Weiser?”). From Chwin's, I remember to this day a striking description of objects – cutlery, I think, somehow – left behind in the city. From Huelle's, unfortunately, I mostly remember that I found Wojciech Marczewski’s film adaptation more resonant (I was 18, so I would really need to revisit both!).
Finally, I think that the recent and upcoming re-editions of Tokarczuk's two novels from the 1990s are really worth reading: “House of Day, House of Night” which was re-published last year and “Primeval and Other Times,” which will return in English in December of this year. In Tokarczuk memory and loss and being devastated by dreams interweave.
Many thanks for the reading list. Much appreciated! I realize it might be a time before I am up for anything like these, but will try Tokarczuk first, I think. I heard her speak at a literary festival once (before the Nobel prize) and was intrigued, but somehow the new book as it was then wasn't quite right for me. Your mention of dreams makes the two you mention seem a better fit, somehow.
If you are looking for dreams, then "House of Day, House of Night." One of my favorite "adventures" in this constellation novel is the woman who seeks out a man whose voice called to her in her dreams.
Another Noah’s ark novel that I found devastating was Timothy Findley’s Not Wanted on the Voyage. I read it decades ago and never forgot it. I liked The Buried Giant very much.
Thank you so much! Looked up Timothy Findley novel, and it sounds harrowing. Am glad to know of it; might get up the courage to read it one day. This makes me wonder if there is a small world of modern literary reimaginings of the flood story.
Nice to hear from another who liked The Buried Giant. Would be interested to know if you also found it devastating.
I don’t think so. It hasn’t stayed with me that way, I just remember it being disturbing and also thinking it was really good. I read it around 10 years ago so it’s interesting to think about why Not Wanted on the Voyage which I read so much longer ago had a bigger impact. Stage of life? Writing? What else I’ve read since then? If I didn’t have so much else to read, I’d reread them both to see.
It may also just be a matter of what one's particular concers are at the time of reading, which makes sense. I've read a bunch of reviews and discussions of The Buried Giant, and none of them seemed to find the book devastating, so it must vary so much how one responds and why.
Beautiful storytelling, as always.
Thank you!
The ending of *The Buried Giant* has stayed with me since I read it almost a decade ago... now after reading your essay I need to get that Knausgård novel. It sounds like a much better entry point into his work for me than *My Struggle*. I have to sit with your insights before I can formulate any other thoghts, so for now I will just say thank you and wonder how I define the notion of "devastation" in my vocabulary for experience.
Oh, this is nice to hear, about The Buried Giant! I've never discussed that book with anyone — so few people in my world seem to have read that.
Did you find it as intense as I did?
I think that you'll find the Knausgård book interesting — I did, at least. That's the only section that's stayed with me, but the whole is unforgettable as a project, if that makes any sense. You might also find the My Struggle books interesting, in a very different way — in those, it's the writerly form that I find fascinating. I strongly recommend starting with book 2 and then circling back to book 1 later if one wants. (One can also google an extract in The New Yorker from years ago called something like ”A children's birthday party.” It's a great extract in the sense that one knows immediately if one wants more of this or not.)
Hope very much that you will share thoughts later on the devastation question. Would love to hear if this has sparked new ideas, and if you find in the end that you agree with this take or have a different one.
Years later I still find myself thinking about the final pages... They made me realize I had been in the fog with the characters, as if I, too, was letting myself unsee what the last pages made fully present.
And my thoughts are now circling around the point you made in your discussion of Knausgaard -- how we are the descendants of the survivors, obviously, and so the perspective of those left behind is the impossible one. They did not live to tell the tale, and they were unwitnessed. And yet... when I think about Polish literature, especially since 1939, the survivors who tell the tale don't position themselves as such. Guilt first, survival second, with a question mark, and the language, fractured, tries to bring the dead close, hold them in memory. Sometimes all this makes me feel like being a Polish writer is impossible, too formidable a task in the face of loss and guilt that remain present in the literature generation after generation. So I often feel like I'm holding my breath when I read my native literature and I'm not quite sure if I can think my way through it.
You make me curious to read more Polish fiction! I've hardly read any, I think, though a few essays here and there and some poetry.
But been thinking about your comment, and it seems to me that it is brilliant in underlining why I reacted so strongly to the retelling in A Time for Everything.
In the biblical story, at least in the secular contexts that I myself know it from (ie not as taught in a religious context, which might be different) there is precisely NO memory, no sense of loss. That lack of guilt and loss is more shocking than the ongoing sense of it in the contemporary literature that you describe, or so it seems —?
In the flood story, the families, friends and community of the survivors vanish, but they deserved it (as the story is presented), so there is no need to remember them.
The Noah story may be taught or told differently as parts of religious traditions, but in the general culture, it seems to me, that lack of care for those who vanished is baked into the story. It was devasting, in a good way, to suddenly notice that lack…
So now you have me wondering about the absence of loss... That will take more thinking and possibly some writing (for myself). Thank you.
Here are a few Polish novels that have appeared in English translation that engage with loss in the intense way I've tried to describe.
"The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenmann" by Andrzej Szczypiorski – I think it's fair to say it's among my most personal devastating readings. I realize many will find the writer's name alienating with "rz," "sz," and "cz" but it's a shame this novel isn't better known. Its Polish title, "Początek," means "beginning" and the story keeps asking about the origin of destructive, annihilating actions and forces as it moves through three turning points in both the characters' lives and national history: WWII, the political crisis of 1968 and the scapegoating of Polish Jews by the government, and Martial Law.
Then two novels of Gdańsk/Danzig: Stefan Chwin's “Hanemann” (in the US: “Death in Danzig”) and Paweł Huelle's “Weiser Dawidek” (“Who Was David Weiser?”). From Chwin's, I remember to this day a striking description of objects – cutlery, I think, somehow – left behind in the city. From Huelle's, unfortunately, I mostly remember that I found Wojciech Marczewski’s film adaptation more resonant (I was 18, so I would really need to revisit both!).
Finally, I think that the recent and upcoming re-editions of Tokarczuk's two novels from the 1990s are really worth reading: “House of Day, House of Night” which was re-published last year and “Primeval and Other Times,” which will return in English in December of this year. In Tokarczuk memory and loss and being devastated by dreams interweave.
Will be happy if this sparks new writing!
Many thanks for the reading list. Much appreciated! I realize it might be a time before I am up for anything like these, but will try Tokarczuk first, I think. I heard her speak at a literary festival once (before the Nobel prize) and was intrigued, but somehow the new book as it was then wasn't quite right for me. Your mention of dreams makes the two you mention seem a better fit, somehow.
If you are looking for dreams, then "House of Day, House of Night." One of my favorite "adventures" in this constellation novel is the woman who seeks out a man whose voice called to her in her dreams.
Definitely intriguing, thanks so much. Will check it out.
Another Noah’s ark novel that I found devastating was Timothy Findley’s Not Wanted on the Voyage. I read it decades ago and never forgot it. I liked The Buried Giant very much.
Thank you so much! Looked up Timothy Findley novel, and it sounds harrowing. Am glad to know of it; might get up the courage to read it one day. This makes me wonder if there is a small world of modern literary reimaginings of the flood story.
Nice to hear from another who liked The Buried Giant. Would be interested to know if you also found it devastating.
I don’t think so. It hasn’t stayed with me that way, I just remember it being disturbing and also thinking it was really good. I read it around 10 years ago so it’s interesting to think about why Not Wanted on the Voyage which I read so much longer ago had a bigger impact. Stage of life? Writing? What else I’ve read since then? If I didn’t have so much else to read, I’d reread them both to see.
It may also just be a matter of what one's particular concers are at the time of reading, which makes sense. I've read a bunch of reviews and discussions of The Buried Giant, and none of them seemed to find the book devastating, so it must vary so much how one responds and why.