Świat Książki Warsaw 2007 130 × 210 240 pages hardcover ISBN: 978-83-247-0558-0 Translation rights: Bertelsmann Media
For some time now we have known that the strength and beauty of Rylski’s writing lie in the main heroes he creates (nor are his incidental characters at all inadequate either). Each of the four stories in "The Island" features this sort of impeccable composition. These characters are ordinary and unique by turns: the wretched accountant; then (in "The Smell of the Court") the great, dying émigré writer, made to look like Gombrowicz in general outline; the provincial ninny who is the victim of a holiday romance ("Like Granite"); the eminent, rebel playboy-prince on the threshold – at least until a certain moment – of a career in the Vatican (the title story). Regardless of their social origin or moral and intellectual qualifications, each of these characters is, to use the title of one of Rylski’s novels, “a man in the shade”, a flawed person, gloomy and disillusioned, having well and truly lost. I do not mean to say that Rylski always uses one and the same character stencil or relies purely on a formula. That is clearly not the case. The book’s careful, well-considered structure is notable. And so the action of all four stories takes place by the sea: the first and third on the Baltic, the second and fourth on the Mediterranean (the south of France and the title island, off the north African coast). In the first and third stories the main characters contend with creatures of their own imagination, while in the second and fourth we find the classic set-up, a duel between two opponents. The heroes of two stories die in highly meaningful circumstances expressed in metaphors, and in the other two the denouement is a mysterious exchange of roles. There is more of this sort of symmetry and counterpoint in "The Island", and all the stories confirm something we have always known – that Rylski’s craftsmanship is incredible; here it makes itself felt not just within each individual story, but in the way the whole set is composed. While beguiling us with meaty plots full of surprises, adding drops of tension and working perfect story-telling bluffs, Rylski also sets up absorbing, confrontational debates. He wants us to admire his fiction-writing flair as well as his playwriting talent, if I can call it that (his brilliant, impressive dialogues). Naturally, in the stories that rely on dialogue there is no question of neglecting the plot. Eustachy Rylski’s latest book is a success on all fronts.
- Dariusz Nowacki
Eustachy Rylski (born 1944) writes fiction, stage plays and screenplays. After many years of silence, in 2004 he made a successful come-back as a novelist.
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