Sigismund Krzyżanowski (1887–1950)

Only read the first two stories so far but I'm really not convinced on this. They're both really heavy handedly "philosophical" but the whole story doesn't connect together well, thematically or plot wise. I'm probably missing a lot of important stuff (my standard disclaimer when I read "literary" fiction I don't like - I know i'm not as good a reader as I should be) but I just wasn't enjoying myself. He introduces surreal stuff but doesn't really do anything with them - for example "0.6 of a man" in the first story doesn't actually connect to the story and I really couldn't connect it to the other themes (the first story has a lot of strange stuff none of which seems to actually connect to each other). The second story has the somewhat interesting/semi funny concept of a miniature you entering another person's eye when you fall in love but it doesn't do much with it - it's just used again as a basis for some heavy handed but not very interesting philosophising on love. I dunno. Just felt flimsy. I can see how these might have been much more interesting if he'd had the benefit of an editor or simply more chances to be publicly criticised, learn from past experience, get better, etc but because all this stuff was never published while he still wrote it doesn't have that benefit. It's a shame.… (mais)

As usual, I don't have a deep enough knowledge of Russian literature to understand the nuances to these short stories. I found them delightful, however, and list this as "didn't finish" only because I skipped two of the stories due to my own ignorance. His stories are delightfully bizarre, though, and told with such a unique voice that I will hopefully pull this back off the shelf when I have more time to sit the more heavily allusive stories down with Wikipedia.

He draws heavily from themes of space, distance, solitude, and the love affair one can have with one's city. Light wit and equally light use of despair makes his prose, even in translation, delicious and dry and surreal.… (mais)