As a westerner, it’s hard not to feel cheated sometimes when a book goes Eastern European, as does Sandor Marai’s A gyerty�k csonkig �gnek (Embers). The deep, abstruse contemplation on the Nature of Things is in full swing. You are following. It’s difficult but somehow, with the help of your abundantly stocked classics library, you […]
A few weeks ago I mentioned in passing newspaper reports that the president of Poland was displeased at the continued rule of a lefty in PZU, a state controlled insurance company. The incumbent was duly sacked and his successor was announced by treasury minister Wojciech Jasi?ski. The lucky man, whose appointment is still to be […]
Two old soldiers meet again after 41 years to settle – it seems from the carefully built up tension of the novel – an old score of some sort. The first half of the book is an artistically faultless evocation of the Austro-Hungarian empire and then, exactly half way through, it goes all Eastern European: […]
So goes the slogan in a cack-handed ad for a credit card. It means, roughly, “make sure you’re up to his tricks.” The ad (I can’t find a decent picture to link to) shows a dodgy looking guy in a tracksuit with a gold chain around his neck. Underneath the slogan (which is not in […]
“The jury is out on Chavez” announces the headline of Denis MacShane’s article on Venezuela in the Guardian. If only it were. Any reporter I read seems to have his mind made up to give Chavez a fair trial before execution in the court of public opinion.
Ivan Klima’s Premier a Andel (The Prime Minister and the Angel) – a note at the end of the book tells us – was written between April 2002 and January 2003 but Klima writes with such ease that it gives the impression of having been written yesterday between a late breakfast and lunch with a […]
Some months back (March 28th — it fell down the back of the couch) Polityka had a promising article on the encroachment of public space by private property (“Wspólnie nie dla wszystkich”). It would be naive to think that the Polish reader would find in such a magazine anything about Reclaim the Streets – they […]
Anhelli by Juliusz S?owacki tells of a mystic journey undertaken by the eponymous hero and his guide, a shaman, around Siberia, to which many Poles were deported after their failed revolt in 1830. It’s an unintentionally hilarious classic of nineteenth century Polish romantic literature. At one point Anhelli and the shaman meet people carrying coffins […]
There’s an interview with Bronis?aw Wildstein, new chairman of the state TV company, in today’s Rzeczpospolita. Jaros?aw Murawski asks this champion of the citizen’s right – nay, obligation – to be well-informed about democratic society’s workings if Wildstein has not sacked certain people because they are protected by Samoobrona (coalition members). Wildstein fearlessly replies: “If […]
Today’s Gazeta Wyborcza has a full-page ad for a car on its front page. Above it are the words (I’m quoting from memory as I did not buy it) “This ad makes childrens’ dreams come true.” As the sound of vomit splashing into the bottom of sickbags dies down, may I remind you that today […]
