Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Magnificent." --Susan Sontag
Review
"There were three of us; Witkiewicz, Bruno Schulz, and myself--the three muskateers of the Polish avant-garde between the wars. Only Witkiewicz remains to be discovered." --Witold Gombrowicz
Synopsis
This novel, the author's masterpiece, is one of the greatest expressions ever of the tortured intersection of political and personal destinies in Eastern Europe. Futuristic, experimental, and remarkably prophetic, Insatiability traces the adventures of a young Pole whose fate parallels the collapse of Western civilization following a Chinese communist invasion from the east. Written in 1927, Witkiewicz's anti-Utopian novel proved to be a horribly prescient vision of what would become reality for Eastern Europe in the late 1930s.
Synopsis
Witkiewicz's 1927 masterpiece, made famous in Polish dissident and Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz's The Captive Mind, is one of the most unforgettable depictions of the tensions and trade-offs between ideological loyalty and individual conscience in world literature. Futuristic, experimental, and remarkably prophetic, Insatiability traces the choices of a young Pole as his divided nation both opposes and welcomes a communitarian invasion from the east offering a narcotic that both removes anxieties and induces obedience. An anti-Utopian classic, it foretold the irresoluble and sometimes deadly choices that faced Eastern European thinkers, writers, and politicians during the years of Soviet domination.
About the Author
Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885-1939) was a Polish novelist, poet, and playwright.
Louis Iribarne is a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Toronto. He has translated several works by Polish writers such as Gombrowicz, Milosz, and Schulz.
Table of Contents
Part One: The Awakening
The Awakening
Soirée at the Princess di Ticonderoga's
A Visit with Tenzer
A Visit to Prince Basil's Retreat
Sexphyxiation
The Return, or Life and Death
Demonism
Domestic Affairs and Destiny
Part Two: Insanity
School
A Meeting and Its Consequences
A Repeat Performance
A Commander's Thoughts and the Little Theater of Quintofron Crepuscolo
Torchures and the Debut of the "Gent from Below"
A Battle and Its Consequences
The Final Metamorphosis
The Wedding Night
The Last Convulsion
Notes