Bruno Schulz (1) (1892–1942)
Author of The Street of Crocodiles
Works by Bruno Schulz
The Complete Fiction of Bruno Schultz: The Street of Crocodiles, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (1985) 323 copies, 5 reviews
Associated Works
Regions of the Great Heresy: Bruno Schulz, A Biographical Portrait (2002) — Associated Name — 83 copies
Complicite Plays: Street of Crocodiles, The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, and Mnemonic (2003) — Contributor — 15 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1892-07-12
- Date of death
- 1942-11-19
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Poland
- Country (for map)
- Poland
- Occupations
- Auther
Painter
Members
Reviews
Personal 3 stars only because it's such a strongly visual book and I struggle with appreciating written imagery a lot of the time. The book is very dream-like: most stories are a journey from one extremely detailed surreal image of a scene to another, following a dream logic where the ending bears little relation to the start and there's very limited plot. Some of the scenes were very effective for me and stuck in my mind and the overall evocation of a particular city in a particular time is really powerful and realistic even as it's done through fantasy imagery. It's definitely an experience.
In the last story, The Comet, there was a particularly effective short scene where a relative submits to being turned into... a doorbell(?). I'll leave a little quote which struck me.
In the last story, The Comet, there was a particularly effective short scene where a relative submits to being turned into... a doorbell(?). I'll leave a little quote which struck me.
Uncle functioned excellently. There was no instance of his refusal to obey. Having discarded his complicated personality, in which at one time he had lost himself, he found at last the purity of a uniform and straightforward guiding principle to which he was subjected from now on. At the cost of his complexity, which he could manage only with difficulty, he had now achieved a simple problem-free immortality. Was he happy? One would ask that question in vain. A question like this makes sense only when applied to creatures who are rich in alternative possibilities, so that the actual truth can be contrasted with partly real probabilities and reflect itself in them. But Uncle Edward had no alternatives; the dichotomy "happy/unhappy" did not exist for him because he had been completely integrated. One had to admit to a grudging approval when one saw how punctually, how accurately he was functioning. Even his wife, Aunt Teresa, who followed him to our city, could not stop herself from pressing the button quite often, in order to hear that loud and sonorous sound in which she recognized the former timbre of her husband's voice in moments of irritation.… (more)
Bruno Schulz's prose is rich with poetic imagery. His dreamlike surreal pace of this fictional autobiography could be considered an extended prose poem as well as a collection of short stories. Moving at a languid pace with dreamlike logic, it will unexpectedly turn into a frenzy of absurd brilliance, and along the way the author drops hints that all this is not as it seems.
For example, in the story “Cockroaches,” the protagonist confronts his mother about his eccentric deceased father’s remains. It starts with a description of stuffed condor that’s a bit worse for wear. His mother is reclining, suffering from a migraine, nevertheless he confronts her with the frank question: “I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time: it is he isn’t it?” indicating the stuffed bird.
She accuses him of spreading stories and lies. Then she goes on to remind him of his father’s obsession with cockroaches that drove him into such a state that he became one and then flew apart into a swarm of them and scuttled off into the woodwork. He does remember all this.
“And yet, I say disconcerted, “I am sure that this condor is he.”
My mother looked at me from under her eyelashes.
“Don’t torture me darling; I have told you already that Father is away, traveling all over the country: he now has a job as a commercial traveler. You know that he sometimes come home at night and goes away again before dawn.”
In the following stories, his father, very much alive, is still with them, conducting experiments with electricity that apparently turns his brother-in-law into an electric bell that disintegrates just as the comet that about to destroy the world approaches Earth.… (more)
For example, in the story “Cockroaches,” the protagonist confronts his mother about his eccentric deceased father’s remains. It starts with a description of stuffed condor that’s a bit worse for wear. His mother is reclining, suffering from a migraine, nevertheless he confronts her with the frank question: “I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time: it is he isn’t it?” indicating the stuffed bird.
She accuses him of spreading stories and lies. Then she goes on to remind him of his father’s obsession with cockroaches that drove him into such a state that he became one and then flew apart into a swarm of them and scuttled off into the woodwork. He does remember all this.
“And yet, I say disconcerted, “I am sure that this condor is he.”
My mother looked at me from under her eyelashes.
“Don’t torture me darling; I have told you already that Father is away, traveling all over the country: he now has a job as a commercial traveler. You know that he sometimes come home at night and goes away again before dawn.”
In the following stories, his father, very much alive, is still with them, conducting experiments with electricity that apparently turns his brother-in-law into an electric bell that disintegrates just as the comet that about to destroy the world approaches Earth.… (more)
Lists
1930s (1)
Reading Globally (1)
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 11
- Also by
- 3
- Members
- 3,452
- Popularity
- #7,364
- Rating
- 4.2
- Reviews
- 70
- ISBNs
- 188
- Languages
- 26
- Favorited
- 2
Definitely not for me and I'm not going to read this book ever again.
… (more)