Snow White and Russian Red by Dorota Masłowska
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just wanted to write a little in my native language this one time, just to see whether I still am able to. The English version of the review - a different one - is below the Polish version.

Miesiac temu przeczytalem "Snow White and Russian Red" Doroty Maslowskiej - angielskie tlumaczenie powiesci "Wojna polsko-ruska pod flaga bialo-czerwona" i zachwycony jej wspaniala proza ocenilem ksiazke na cztery i trzy czwarte gwiazdki. Teraz, przeczytawszy ksiazke po polsku, musze zmienic zdanie. Jest to absolutnie fantastyczna ksiazka. Wiem, ze to zabrzmi jak swietokradztwo a moze obrazoburstwo, ale powiesc Maslowskiej jest dla mnie porownywalna z "Lalka" Prusa, "Przedwiosniem" Zeromskiego, czy "Ferdydurke" Gombrowicza. Teraz calkiem sie wychyle, ale porownam te powiesc tez do "Pana Tadeusza". Podobna sila przekazu i podobnej skali talent pisarski.

"Wojna polsko-ruska" portretuje rzeczywistosc Polski 2002 roku, nowo-wolnej Polski, sytuacje ludzi kompletnie otumanionych przez telewizje i reklamy, ludzi szamoczacych sie w tej nowo-nabytej wolnosci. Dorota Maslowska ma absolutny sluch pisarski, jej wyczucie jezyka jest fenomenalne. Jezyk powiesci jest prawdziwy, dosadny, bardzo wulgarny, bo przeciez tak, kurwa, wielu Polakow mowi. A do tego jest to histerycznie smieszna ksiazka. Zasmiewalem sie nad prawie kazda stronica. Wezmy chociazby zdanie "A w miedzyczasie osraly ja wazki". Czy tez "Wiesz, mnie od urodzenia bolalo w piersiach, czulem niepokoj. Wreszcie jednego dnia zajrzalem sobie do gardla, a tam podwojne dno". Ze wszystkich ksiazek, ktore czytalem w zyciu - a bylo ich wiele - chyba tylko "Wstep do imagineskopii" Sledzia Otrembusa Podgrobelskiego wywolal u mnie wiecej smiechu.

Zamieszczam ponizej moja angielsko-jezyczna recenzje z angielskiego tlumaczenia, a tutaj jeden z moich ulubionych fragmentow oryginalnej wersji polskiej: "Cale me zycie staje mi przed oczami takie, jakie bylo. Przedszkole, gdzie dwiedzialem sie, ze wszystkim nam chodzi o pokoj na swiecie, o biale golebie z bristolu 3000 zlotych za blok, a potem raptem 3500 zlotych, mus tak zwanego lezakowania, siku w majtki, epidemia prochnicy, klub wiewiorki, brutalna fluoryzacja uzebienia. Potem przypominam sobie podstawowke, zla wychowawczynia, zle nauczycielki w kozakach kurwiszonach, szatnie, obuwie zamienne i izbe pamieci, pokoj, pokoj, golebie pokoju z bristolu frunace na nitce bawelnopodobnej przez hol, pierwsze kontakty homo w szatni wuef." Ja tez przez to wszystko przeszedlem, mimo ze pani Maslowska jest mlodsza od mojej corki.

Poza tym odszczekuje krytyke zakonczenia z "Masloska" z mojej angielskiej recenzji. Jest ono swietne; w pewnym sensie przypomina mi najlepsze utwory Stanislawa Lema. A wiec albo moj angielski nie jest wystaczajacy, albo tlumaczenie nie jest tak znowu wspaniale jak uwazalem.

Dlugopis z napisem "Zdzislaw Sztorm" przypomina mi symbol Trystero z wspanialej noweli Thomasa Pynchona, "The Crying of Lot 49". Co za klasa!

Szesc gwiazdek za genialny warsztat literacki, cztery za tresc Czyli piec gwiazdek.

For years my wife has been telling me about this young (born in 1983) Polish writer, Dorota Maslowska, and about her book "Snow White and Russian Red" (2002) (the original Polish title sounds much better: "Wojna polsko-ruska pod flaga bialo-czerwona", which roughly means "A Polish-Russian war, under the white and red flag"). I have been reluctant to read it; after all what can one expect from a nineteen year old author? While it is obvious that at nineteen one can be a great mathematician, poet, chess player, and the like, it seems impossible to write a great novel at that age. At nineteen one can have the knowledge of structures, but not the structure of knowledge, which takes years and years of living to emerge. For example, I myself at nineteen was a total idiot (like almost all of my friends and acquaintances, boys much more than girls, sorry for the sexist stereotyping); of course I knew about music, games, sports, films, TV, etc., but I knew nothing about the matters that count, I knew nothing about life.

Now that I have read the book (in English translation, because someone has borrowed the Polish original from us and never bothered to return it), I am totally blown away by it. There is much depth in the novel, and the writing is utterly magnificent. The entire ending is a literary tour de force; it is poetic, hypnotic, brilliant. Like, wow, man.

The novel, which some critics rightly compare to "Catcher in the Rye", "Trainspotting", "Naked Lunch", is about gray, depressing, small-town life of young people, the author's contemporaries, in the times of systemic change in Poland, from the so-called Communism to free-market economy. The narrator is a young man, called Nails (Silny, in the Polish original), who has just been dumped by his girlfriend. Nails and everybody else in the novel are constantly on speed. They live from day to day, without any aim, in a country where, as they say, there is no future. They look up to the West and down on the "Russkies".

When I was 19, life was so much easier. We knew who the bad guys were: the government, the press, radio, and TV. They were always lying to us, the good Polish people. In 2002 Poland things are not so easy; it is hard to know who the bad people are. Nails claims to be a leftist-anarchist, but he really does not know what it means and is mainly interested in satisfying the needs of this one special part of his body.

"Snow White and Russian Red" is a biting satire on xenophobia and fake patriotism: "Either you are a Pole or you're not a Pole. Either you are Polish or you're Russki. And to put it more bluntly, either you're a person or you're a prick." Patriotism is measured by respect of the flag.

It is a very funny novel as well. I burst out laughing about every other page. The translation by Benjamin Paloff is totally wonderful. I will soon read the original and amend this review, if need be, but I cannot believe the original Polish version could be any better. The quarter of a star that I am taking off is for the author's failed device (in my opinion) of putting herself, "Dorota Masloska", in the final parts of the book.

Here's a passage that reminds me of some of the great works in world literature; it could have been written by William Faulkner or James Joyce, but it was written by 19-year-old Dorota Maslowska, barely out of high school in Wejherowo, Poland:

"Indeed, we're girls talking about death, swinging a leg, eating nuts, though there's no talk of those who are absent. They're scarcely bruises and scratches that we did to ourselves, riding on a bike, but they look like floodwaters on our legs, like purple seas, and we're talking fiercely about death. And we imagine our funeral, at which we're present, we stand there with flowers, eavesdrop on the conversations, and cry more than everybody, we keep our moms at hand, we throw earth at the empty casket, because that way death doesn't really concern us, we are different, we'll die some other day or won't die at all. We're dead serious, we smoke cigarettes, taking drags in such a way that an echo resounds in the whole house, and we flick the ash into an empty watercolor box."

Four and three quarter stars (five stars for the translation).


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