The Graveyard by Marek Hlasko.
Marek Hlasko was not a favorite of the Communist Polish government in his final years but that hadn’t always been the case. He was a pre-teen during the Warsaw Uprising and subsequent Soviet offensive. These experiences marked him as a man. He became a truck driver and then a journalist. The Communist Party that would later be the bane of his existence initially opened the door for him to become a writer. Taking a truck driver and making him a writer/worker was right in the party’s wheelhouse. He became popular and well-known, both as an interviewer and short story writer. His life was not a happy one and he died in Germany at the age of 35.
Hlasko's books are brief, reflecting his early days as a short story writer. He manages to pack a lot into his novels, whether they be written in his ex-patriot years or while still in his native Poland. Reading The Graveyard is bound to conjure images of Kafka but, at the same time it dispels these images with a wildly different writing style. There is a wry, painful humor underneath Hlasko's indictment of the system. You might even say he is indicting all systems because the travails of his protagonist here, while more pronounced in communist Poland are not unheard of in the West.
The Graveyard was written in 1956 and is complete with references to Uncle Joe Stalin and echoes of World War II that are already growing fainter barely ten years later. His cynicism and tendency to point out the flaws and frailties of the system is poetic and often heartbreaking.
Strangely, I kept thinking of South Florida condominium boards while I read this. That is how he paints the apparatchiks of the party--mindless automatons upholding rules with a tired, bored sort of malevolence. From the police on the street to factory managers to a feared party boss, none seem actually concerned with communism's aim to reform society and humanity, with creating a "new man." They mouth the words, usually the exact same words, but there is nothing behind them. The fervor of revolution is long gone. There is no purpose except to keep one's head down. It is a book about a man who doesn’t want to compromise, believes he fought in the war for something and believes in the system until it demonstrates to him that it doesn’t deserve belief.
It may be that Beautiful Twentysomethings (a memoir) or his book set in Israel, Killing the Second Dog are better, more realized, efforts but if that is true it is a near thing. Hlasko is a writer who deserves more acknowledgement, especially given the state of the world.
Marek Hlasko was not a favorite of the Communist Polish government in his final years but that hadn’t always been the case. He was a pre-teen during the Warsaw Uprising and subsequent Soviet offensive. These experiences marked him as a man. He became a truck driver and then a journalist. The Communist Party that would later be the bane of his existence initially opened the door for him to become a writer. Taking a truck driver and making him a writer/worker was right in the party’s wheelhouse. He became popular and well-known, both as an interviewer and short story writer. His life was not a happy one and he died in Germany at the age of 35.
Hlasko's books are brief, reflecting his early days as a short story writer. He manages to pack a lot into his novels, whether they be written in his ex-patriot years or while still in his native Poland. Reading The Graveyard is bound to conjure images of Kafka but, at the same time it dispels these images with a wildly different writing style. There is a wry, painful humor underneath Hlasko's indictment of the system. You might even say he is indicting all systems because the travails of his protagonist here, while more pronounced in communist Poland are not unheard of in the West.
The Graveyard was written in 1956 and is complete with references to Uncle Joe Stalin and echoes of World War II that are already growing fainter barely ten years later. His cynicism and tendency to point out the flaws and frailties of the system is poetic and often heartbreaking.
Strangely, I kept thinking of South Florida condominium boards while I read this. That is how he paints the apparatchiks of the party--mindless automatons upholding rules with a tired, bored sort of malevolence. From the police on the street to factory managers to a feared party boss, none seem actually concerned with communism's aim to reform society and humanity, with creating a "new man." They mouth the words, usually the exact same words, but there is nothing behind them. The fervor of revolution is long gone. There is no purpose except to keep one's head down. It is a book about a man who doesn’t want to compromise, believes he fought in the war for something and believes in the system until it demonstrates to him that it doesn’t deserve belief.
It may be that Beautiful Twentysomethings (a memoir) or his book set in Israel, Killing the Second Dog are better, more realized, efforts but if that is true it is a near thing. Hlasko is a writer who deserves more acknowledgement, especially given the state of the world.
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