Gun Before Butter by Nicolas Freeling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lucienne Englebert, a protagonist of Nicolas Freeling's "Gun Before Butter" (1963) is as unforgettable a character as the much more recent Lisbeth Salander of Stieg Larsson's famous "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Both are strong. compelling, complex, and very well written female characters. I read Mr. Freeling's book for the first time in the early 1970s, and ranked it then among masterpieces of the crime genre, along Rex Stout's "Murder by the Book" and Sjowall/Wahloo's "The Laughing Policeman". I have just finished re-reading the novel, and my opinion has not changed; it is indeed a masterpiece of the genre, and my only problem is whether to award it four or five stars.

Inspector Van der Valk, probably my most favorite of all fiction detectives, a nonconformist policeman, critical of Dutch stolidity, provincialism, and isolationism, and a "queer character" overall, often does not do his police work by the book. He meets Lucienne for the first time at the scene of an auto accident where her father dies. Van der Valk is investigating a murder that happened in Amsterdam but which also has connections to Germany and Belgium.

Mr. Freeling's observations of European cities and people are phenomenally sharp. As in all his novels, he masterfully captures the essence of Europeanness (were he alive, he would be very happy about the current state of the EU) and satirizes the stereotypes about European nations. (He also makes jokes about the French, which is always a plus in my book, just kidding...) The passage where Lucienne judges her customers based on the look in their eyes exhibits unusual psychological depth. The conversations between Lucienne and her admirers ring true and they help elevate this mystery book to a first-class literary status.

The ending is astounding, but understandable upon reflection. Unfortunately, in the so-called real life there are very few policemen of Van der Valk's caliber. Probably none.

Wonderful title, believable characters, great writing, engrossing mystery. I decided to round my rating up. Of course, "Gun Before Butter" is not exactly in the same class as Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", Coetzee's "Disgrace", or Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49", but within its genre, it would be very hard to find a better novel.

Four and a half stars.


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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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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first read James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (1916) as an adolescent, almost 50 years ago. The novel made a huge impression on me then. The sublime beauty of Joyce's prose made it clear to me that I better become an engineer or a mathematician because I obviously had no talent for writing, even if I had dearly wanted to be a writer. I have just reread the book, and I still think it is one of the greatest works of world literature. Each of the five chapters of the book contains more wisdom and beauty than the entire Internet. The conversation between Stephen and Lynch in the fifth chapter carries way more meaning than all posts on Facebook combined.

"A Portrait" is a fictionalized autobiography of James Joyce's youth; in the novel he appears as Stephen Dedalus. Thousands of reviews by much better writers than myself are available so I will just offer some loose thoughts. J.M. Coetzee's "Boyhood" ( which I review here) deals with similar issues. It is also similar in its greatness. Coetzee's manufacturing of childhood memories is on the same level as the literary, political, and religious awakenings of Stephen Dedalus. I do not know which book I like better. They are both magnificent. Coetzee's book is politically sharper, but Joyce's is psychologically deeper. And it shows how little people changed in about one hundred years, despite all the technology.

The first chapter, about Stephen's childhood, is to me the most striking. The broken sentence patterns convey the fragmentary nature of childhood memories. In the third chapter we witness Stephen's struggles with emerging sexuality ("The sootcoated packet of pictures which he had hidden in the flue of the fireplace and in the presence of whose shameless or bashful wantonness he lay for hours sinning in thought and deed."). The chapter also contains monumental Jesuit sermons on the horrors of hell and the nature of sin. The fifth chapter showcases Stephen's growing fascination with language. The famous conversation between Stephen and Lynch about arts and beauty is the focus of that chapter. As is the later conversation between Stephen and Cranly.

Here's a passage from the fifth chapter: "A soft liquid joy flowed through the words where soft long vowels hurtled noiselessly and fell away, lapping and flowing back and ever shaking the white bells of their waves in mute chime and mute peal and soft low swooning cry; and he felt that the augury he had sought in the wheeling darting birds and in the pale space of sky above him had come forth from his heart like a bird from a turret quietly and swiftly." Utterly magnificent. J.M. Coetzee writes equally beautifully, but his strength - because of his education - is the mathematical precision of the language rather than Joyce's lyricism.

Five stars.


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

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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The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another great recommendation from "The Complete Review" website. It rates Cynthia Ozick's "The Puttermesser Papers" (1997) with an A+ and while I am not sure about the plus, this book is certainly a first-class piece of literature: quite strange, a little crazy, deeply intelligent, and overall delightful.

The novel is composed of five parts or episodes that portray various periods of Ruth Puttermesser's life and afterlife. In the first story, Puttermesser (her first name is seldom used) is a 34-year-old Jewish lawyer, fired from a Wall Street firm, working for the Department of Receipts and Disbursements in the New York City. The mechanisms of bureaucracy are shown with clinical precision and wit. Puttermesser comes "to understand the recondite, dim, and secret journey of the City's money".

Puttermesser, who is 46 in the second part, has an opportunity to follow the example of the 16th-century Great Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague. Somewhat accidentally she creates a golem, a teenager girl, who wants to be called Xanthippe, and who becomes Puttermesser's daughter and is quite instrumental in furthering her creator's political career. This part is solely responsible for my rating not being the perfect five stars.

The third episode is a magnificent literary construct. Puttermesser, now fifty-plus, meets Rupert, who reproduces (reenacts, he wants to call it) famous paintings. Puttermesser introduces Rupert to 19th-century works of George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans). They read aloud her biographies, particularly interested in her friendship with George Lewes. After Lewes' death George Eliot marries Johnny Cross, and the couple reenacts George Eliot's and George Lewes' trip to Venice. Puttermesser and Rupert reenact that reenactment, with all its natural consequences. Brilliant!

Puttermesser is in her sixties in the fourth part. These are the times of perestroika in the Soviet Union. Puttermesser cousin comes from Moscow, as a refugee, and a funny culture clash occurs when the capitalist Americans are interested in ideas while the socialist-raised Lidia is only interested in money. The Shekhina fundraiser story is hilarious. Alas, in the exquisitely written fifth part, we learn that Paradise, the place where we go after we die, is not really quite what we expect.

Wonderful book about life, death, philosophy, and literature, touching so many important topics. I am particularly interested in the "wrong generation, after your time" issue. Puttermesser does not believe in generations. Culture is obviously generational, yet human nature is not. The anger of an ancient Greek does not differ from the anger expressed on Twitter today.

Four and a half star, rounded up.


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The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I used to be a voracious reader when I was a teenager. Each July and August, while on vacations from high school, I spent most of my time reading. I must have been 13, 14 or 15 when I read L.P. Hartley's "The Go-Between" for the first time (in translation into my native language). It was about 48 years ago. It is an amazing coincidence because "The Go-Between" is about a 60-year old man who remembers events that happened 48 years earlier. In 1966 or so the novel did not make much impression on me. No wonder, how could this particular novel impress a teenager? Today, 48 years later, as I have finished reading the English original, I am stunned by the greatness of Mr. Hartley's work. Not only is it flawlessly structured and beautifully written, but it is also full of wisdom about people, the nature of relationships between them, and it presents a brilliant, vivid portrayal of the time.

It is 1900. Leo Colston is almost 13 years old. The mother of his friend from school invites Leo to spend some time in the imposing Georgian mansion in Norfolk, which belongs to the ninth Viscount Trimingham. Leo arrives there on July 8th (another coincidence - this is my birthday) and serves as a go-between who carries messages, mainly between his friend's adult sister and a young farmer who lives nearby. Leo does not know what the messages are about. The pace of the story is leisurely but steady and the plot that moves to the inevitable dramatic resolution is more captivating than in 99% of mystery novels.

So much has been written over the years about this 1953 book that any attempts of mine to analyze it would be ridiculous. Obviously, the loss of innocence and the coming of age are some of the main themes. Leo makes his transition from a child's world to the grown-up world. Yet it is amazing how much more one can find in "The Go-Between"; the author is a gifted observer of human psychology, his portrayal of the rigid English class system is superb, and the richness of details in description of everyday behaviors of, mostly, the upper class has made me feel that I was actually there, that I participated in the cricket game and in the post-game party. Even the Second Boer War casts its shadow onto the plot.

Being a perfect novel, "The Go-Between" is not devoid of humor: Leo's skill of casting spells to further his goals, his adroit analysis of a love triangle while not really knowing what "love" is, and, of course, the wicked business of "spooning" are so funny. But to me, the most hilarious is one of his guesses about what the letters he carries might contain.

The unforgettable first sentence of the novel is one of the most famous in the entire world literature: "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." I find the first clause a stunning metaphor, yet it is the second one that delivers the punch. Note the word "they": we are different people in different times. Because of that, 48 years ago, he (Lukasz Pruski in 1966) read a different book.

Five enthusiastic stars.


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The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ernesto Sabato's "The Tunnel" (1948) is an intense, dark, psychological novella that portrays, with clinical accuracy, one man's obsessive love for a woman (I am not using the term 'obsessive love' just as a characterization but rather as a psychological syndrome). The obsession leads the man to killing the woman, which we learn in the very first sentence.

During an exhibition of his paintings in Buenos Aires, Juan Pablo Castel, a highly respected artist, notices that a woman looking at one of his works focuses on a small fragment of the picture, which he himself, unlike critics and other people, considers most important. Juan Castel's overactive mind instantaneously manufactures a strong bond between himself and the woman. He is shattered when the woman disappears, and for several months he only thinks about her. When he sees her again on the street, he begins stalking her. Then, in an unforgettable scene, he manages to engage the woman, named Maria, in a conversation.

Juan Castel is utterly selfish; he despises other people and he frequently despises Maria, even if he thinks she is the only person in the world who can understand him. He constantly analyzes events, words, moods, and facial expressions, interpreting them in a way that suits him the best at the given moment. He thinks his reasoning is logical, but most of the time the volatile train of his thoughts deludes him into alternating between feeling happiness and despair.

Juan wants to possess Maria completely and totally. Even more than the physical relationship, he desires to control her mind, to make sure that she deeply loves him, and that her manifestations of love are authentic. He will not be happy until she becomes exactly like the vision of Maria that he has created. When he eventually realizes that while he lives inside a dark and lonely tunnel where he has spent his entire life, Maria lives in the freedom of the outside world and will not focus solely on him, he has no choice other than punishing her for his loneliness.

Mr. Sabato's writing is taut, economical, and precise (I have read the book in a good, non-English translation). It reminds me a little of J.M. Coetzee's style, which may be due to their similar backgrounds (Sabato had a Ph.D. in physics and Coetzee has a B.A. in mathematics and also a Ph.D. in linguistics). I am not sure what I love more about "The Tunnel" - the insightful observations of human psychology or the wonderfully tight writing. I find one passage jarring though; the author has included a superfluous six-page conversation about mystery books, which in my view breaks the precise rhythm of the narration.

Four and a half stars.


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