Novel
Żywe kamienie
Not translated into English
Wacław Berent · 1918
Opening lines
Na schodach świątyni sprawowało się nabożeństwo wtóre w ciszy i słońcu. Pod żebraków litanie i śpiewne turkanie gołębi przyklękiwało tu chłopstwo na korne ucałowanie kościelnego podmurza.
On the temple steps the second service was being held in silence and sunshine. To the litanies of the beggars and the singsong cooing of the pigeons, the peasants knelt here to bestow a humble kiss on the church's foundations.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from pl.wikisource.org
Synopsis
At the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a troupe of jugglers and wandering players arrives in a European town numbed by torpor and fear. Their arrival, their songs and their games unsettle the burghers, clerics and monks, awaken desires and angers, and make the town the stage for a question that runs through the whole book: what art can do, and what those who carry it from square to square are worth.
Context
The book was published in 1918; part of it had been written before the First World War. It is composed of four parts and of a stylised, rhythmic and archaising prose, which has made it a book reputed to be difficult. The work was included in the Bibliothèque nationale, the Polish classical series, then reissued by Ossolineum in 1992 with an introduction by Magdalena Popiel.
Who it is for
A demanding novel, which calls for slow reading. No French or English translation.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the principal work and the best-known of its author's novels; Czesław Miłosz saw in it a medieval ballad in the form of a novel.
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