Synopses & Reviews
Bołeslaw Prus
is often compared to Chekhov, and Prus’s masterpiece might be described as an intimate epic, a beautifully detailed, utterly absorbing exploration of life in late-nineteenth-century Warsaw, which is also a prophetic reckoning with some of the social forces—imperialism, nationalism, anti-Semitism among them—that would soon convulse Europe as never before. But
The Doll is above all a brilliant novel of character, dramatizing conflicting ideas through the various convictions, ambitions, confusions, and frustrations of an extensive and varied cast. At the center of the book are three men from three different generations. Prus’s fatally flawed hero is Wokulski, a successful businessman who yearns for recognition from Poland’s decadent aristocracy and falls desperately in love with the highborn, glacially beautiful Izabela.
Wokulski’s story is intertwined with those of the incorrigibly romantic old clerk Rzecki, nostalgic for the revolutions of 1848, and of the bright young scientist Ochocki, who dreams of a future full of flying machines and other marvels, making for a book of great scope and richness that is, as Stanisław Barańczak writes in his introduction, at once “an old-fashioned yet still fascinating love story . . . , a still topical diagnosis of society’s ills, and a forceful yet subtle portrayal of a tragically doomed man
."Synopsis
The Doll is a classic of Polish literature, a novel that takes in the whole nineteenth century and looks ahead to modern questions of empire, revolution, anti-Semitism, and socialism. Yet it is less a novel of ideas than a novel of people who have ideas, characters as vivid and memorable as any in Dickens. As the novel opens in Warsaw in 1878, our hero, Wokulski, having risen from rags to riches now seeks the respect of the aristocracy and, in particular, the love of the cold and scheming Izabela Lecka. The rich cast includes the old clerk Rzecki, nostalgic for the revolutions of 1848; the young scientist Ochocki, dreaming of flying machines; the deranged and manipulative Baroness Krzeszowska; the angelic widow Stawska; the wise dowager duchess; and many more. Each is constrained by his or her social status in this story of money, love, and class at the end of the age of duels and the beginning of the age of electricity. Boles_aw Prus's great gift is to see this panorama on an intimate human scale, in the details of what people wear, what they eat, and, above all, what they say. We hear Wokulski's story through all of Warsaw's gossip, in the drawing rooms of the elite, in the restaurants and taverns of the middle class, at the races and the theater, and in the streets.
About the Author
BOLESŁAW PRUS (1847–1912) was born Aleksander Głowacki in the provincial town of Hrubieszów, Poland. His mother died in 1850; his father, an estate steward of noble birth (the author’s pen name is a reference to the family’s origin near the Prussian border), died six years later, leaving him in the care of relatives in Puławy and Lublin. In 1862, he moved to Kielce with his older brother Leon, a Polish patriot. The next year, the teenaged Aleksander joined in the January 1863 uprising against Russian rule. Wounded in battle, he was imprisoned in Lublin Castle, but released when he was discovered to be underage. He then finished high school and enrolled in university, but lacked the funds to graduate. Instead, he worked several odd jobs, including a stint in a metallurgical factory, before taking up journalism. Prus eventually made a name for himself as a writer of feuilletons, publishing his much-admired
Kroniki in the
Kurier Warszawski between 1875 and 1887 and also achieving some success with his short stories.
The Outpost, published in 1885, was the first of four novels that secured his literary reputation. It was followed by
The Doll (1890),
Emancipated Women (1894), and
The Pharaoh (1897). A respected but no longer fashionable writer, Prus dedicated his last years to social reform and philanthropic work.
STANISŁAW BARAŃCZAK is a poet, translator, and literary critic. He won the 2007 Nike Award for the best work of Polish literature published in the previous year and the 2009 Silesius Poetry Award for lifetime achievement. He is a professor of Polish language and literature at Harvard University.
DAVID WELSH'S translations include A Dreambook for Our Time by Tadeusz Konwicki, Cloak of Illusion by Stanislaw Dygat, and Black Torrent by Leopold Buczkowski.