Deluge 2 Vol. Set [Hardcover]

But beg or borrow if you can, and steal if you must, the translation by W.S. Kuniczak that was published in the early 1990s. Discover what happens when a novelist translates. Kuniczak is true not just to the sentences, but to the spirit of the work. He blows the dust out of the century-old writing and lets it shine. And for readers not on intimate terms with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th Century (admit it), he effortlessly drops in helpful hints.

Here's how Curtin starts:

There was in Jmud a powerful family, the Billeviches, descended from Mendog, connected with many, and respected, beyond all, in the district of Rossyeni. ... Their native nest, existing to this day, was called Billeviche; ... In later times they branched out into a number of houses, the members of which lost sight of one another. They all assembled only when there was a census at Rossyeni of the general militia of Jmud on the plain of the invited Estates.

And Kuniczak:

In the part of the old Grand Duchy of Lithuania that was known as Zmudya, and which antedated the times of recorded history, there lived an ancient family named Billevitch, widely connected with many other houses of Lithuanian gentry, and respected more than any other in the Rosyen region. ... Their family seat, known as Billevitche ... so that in time they split into several branches that seldom saw each other. Some of them got together now and then when the Zmudyan gentry gathered for the annual military census near Rosyen on a plain called Stany...

Honestly, which version would you rather spend 1700 pages with? The native nest or the family seat?

(And just by the by, when will a smart publisher sell the Sienkiewicz Trilogy alongside Tolkien? Why do they squirrel it away with the Serious Literature in Translation that mostly gathers dust? There's millions and millions of dollars in these books, lying around, waiting for someone to market them properly.)

The story foreshadows two issues that emerged during the Second World War: the Germans who were "only following orders" and the Vichy French who collaborated with the Germans. What is one supposed to do when his superior orders him to do something that is obviously wrong? At what point does acquiescence to a victorious invader for the purpose of avoiding further harm to one's country become collaboration with an enemy? Can someone collaborate with the enemy for the purpose, as Janusz Radziwill claimed, of turning on him and overthrowing him at a more opportune moment? (The few colonels who went along with Radziwill were in a semi-feudal system in which a retainer obeyed his lord and the lord was supposed to obey the King. Radziwill's foreign mercenaries had no such dilemma because they owed their loyalty only to their paymaster.)

During the 1970s, the United States began to lose the manufacturing capability that led to victory in the Second World War. Our Congress has its own Opalinskis and Radziwills, people whose first priority is their own political success as opposed to service to the country. They are unwilling or unable to understand that wealth must be created through agriculture, mining, and manufacturing, and that it cannot be legislated into existence. The Senatorial filibuster is now used to block judicial appointments, as the Liberum Veto was once used to break up the Sejm. The jester Ostrozka showed how the handwriting was on the wall for the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth's ideological successor and heir, the United States, needs to take the same warning very seriously lest it suffer the same fate.

Andrei is a wild knight whose thoughtless, self-absorption mirrors the attitudes of the ruling class in Poland at the time. His attitude leads him down a terrible road and then forces him to make the hard, arduous climb back from nothing once he realizes his error. The skill with which Sienkiewicz intertwines Andrei's descent and redemption with the greater struggle of Poland against Sweden is brilliant! On the other hand, there's Olenka who is loved by Andrei. She seems to represent Poland itself and the ethics which are required to preserve something worth fighting for. She is the moral center of the novel even when she's not in the foreground of the action.

Their love story plays out in the midst of a tale of war that involves the invasion of Poland from three countries at the same time (the 'deluge' of the title). We meet the Kings of two countries, the nobles under them with their own agendas, and the soldiers fighting on as power shifts from one side to the other in an international game where the winners get crowns and the losers lose everything.

Just a sample of a few threads in the story: the siege of a holy shrine, a knight leading a small band of raiders against an army, a woman taken captive by a warlord and makes him regret iit, a country defeated not by the army of its enemies but by something more deadly from within, the plots of a noble family to rip apart an entire nation solely to rule a part of it themselves, the attempt to return an exiled King to his country through wild mountains full of enemy soldiers. This is just a sample! The scope of this novel is absolutely unsurpassed and, best of all, Sienkiewicz has the imagination, characters and events to keep it interesting for over 1,700 pages! You really do feel as though you've lived the two years that are encompassed by this novel. So much happens.

In less capable hands, "The Deluge" could have been just a boring history lesson. Sienkiewicz weaves all the history and political figures of the time with his own characters to crystallize a crucial point in a nation's history. In addition, he crafts a story that is unbelievably complex and yet thouroughly entertaining from first page to last.

And hats off to the translator! How many people would have the talent and stamina to translate something this long and do such a consistent and beautiful job? Not many, I imagine.