- Paperback: 152 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press; New edition edition (Aug 30 1995)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0300065035
- ISBN-13: 978-0300065039
- Product Dimensions: 20.9 x 14 x 1.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #519,485 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Gombrowicz (1904-1969) is best known in this country for the meditations on life and literature contained in his Diary , but he wrote several novels that are highly regarded for their dazzling stylistics and exploration of the Polish national character. This semi-autobiographical work, hitherto unavailable in English, is written in the narrative style of the 17th- and 18th-century and in the voice of a country squire. In it, Gombrowicz pokes fun at the insular and parochial Polish community living in Argentina just before WW II. Like the author, the eponymous narrator is a young Polish writer who is stranded abroad when the Nazis invade his homeland. (Gombrowicz himself never returned to Poland and lived in exile for the rest of his life.) Penniless, he is "adopted" by the Polish embassy staff and emigre community. A fantastical series of twists and turns follow in which the young man finds himself, after a debauched night of drinking, involved as a second in a duel. The often farcical adventures prove a real dilemma for the narrator, who is torn between his Polish identity and a new emigre status. Regarded as the author's most personal piece of fiction, this novel benefits from a scholarly introduction by Stanislaw Baranczak.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Gombrowicz (1904-69), considered by many to be the most important Polish author of the 20th century, here builds a satiric novel around a Polish writer who embarks on a small ocean cruise only to be caught in Argentina at the outbreak of World War II. Thus, the protagonist begins a series of exasperating attempts to reconcile himself as a forced expatriate to both native writers and writers of the Polish emigre community; to the ideas of exile and patriotism; and to the dialectic between Form and Chaos, that is "between total subordination of the ego to the generally accepted patterns of behavior . . . and total liberation from all that is inherited or imitated." Some of the more bizarre scene from this novel remind the reader of Bruegel paintings. Because the novel is written in the idiom of the gaw eda, an oral genre once popular among Poland's provincial nobility, the translators have chosen 17th- and 18th-century English as their linguistic medium. They consider the version that results experimental. A curious work, not easily understood; recommended for large public libraries and academic collections.
- Olivia Opello, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
- Olivia Opello, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
If made into a movie, a potential Oscar winner !,
By
This review is from: Trans-Atlantyk (Paperback)
Gombrowicz's Trans-atlantyk, a perfect novel in its pure form, still waits to be fully appreciated by the international reading community. When it is ultimately discovered by the English-speaking reader, it could be made into a movie that has never been.... It provides the best material for a 100% Oscar winner... And its sense of humor is a killer!!!
4.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant approach to the literature of exile,
By "fredfrederickson" (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Trans-Atlantyk (Hardcover)
Gombrowicz's take on the generally painful experience of exile is an artful combination of the particular and the universal. The novel's comic tone seems a historically and culturally specific attack on hackneyed Polish nationalism. Yet Trans-Atlantyk manages to raise greater questions of literature's ability to do justice to 20th-century horrors such as WWII. The translation is a work of art in itself -- for those who can't read Polish (such as myself), you will not be bothered by that fear of a mediated, second-rate experience so common to mediocre translations. To the contrary, the language of this translation is unbelievably rich. Indeed, do not let the richness scare you off -- the style becomes easier to digest as the novella moves forward. Enjoy...
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intensely Personal,
This review is from: Trans-Atlantyk (Hardcover)
Setting this book in the strange form of exile which eradicates whatever benefits Gombrowicz might have enjoyed from his own greatness in Poland, this outrageous examination of Polish insecurities is better than his strange submission to the greatness of the heroic poets in Ferdydurk, or to the frank realization that he, himself, is best described as "Up pops a clown" in his diary. He is not just any writer, but the great Gombrowicz here, because he is filled with a terror that is obviously being cooked up for the world to see. And therefore, what a vividly realized world we see. The difficulties involved in reading this book succeed in making it what it is.
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