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drewsstuff's review against another edition
4.0
This was less a collection of short stories, more an amalgam of fevered dreams. The tales are packed with vivid and disturbing imagery and a palpable sense of claustrophobic trepidation, where the grotesque is normal but nonetheless frightening. The prose is beautiful, strange and demanding, but for all that, these are real stories about real people.
Not (probably) for everyone, but the dark delight of Schulz should not be missed.
Not (probably) for everyone, but the dark delight of Schulz should not be missed.
myliminality's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
matthewn's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This is as good as writing gets.
stanl's review against another edition
5.0
This is an extraordinary exercise in language-- and I can only read it in translation. Compared by I. B. Singer to both Proust and Kafka, it is, at times, luminous. What exactly the writing reveals-- I don't know, but it is well worth the ride. It's as if Schulz took the effluence of mysticism and hammered out something to dazzle us yokels. Mesmerizing.
celeryradishpun's review against another edition
2.0
I apologize for not loving this book--liking it, even. I wish I could have read it in its original text, alas, I don't know a word of Polish. I read a review on here that you should read this book for its prose and not for the plot. While I can agree that the plot is not the high note of this book, I can't say the prose is either. It's overwrought with adjectives. Again, it may be better in its original text. I'm sorry, but I cannot enjoy reading a page that is 3/4 adjectives. I read this book because Jonathan Safran Foer loves it and paid homage to it with Tree of Codes. Unlike Foer, who sucks me in with his writing, I felt like I was floating along Schulz's words. Hovering above them. Bored. There were some great lines, great quotes I pulled from reading this, and the story I enjoyed most was about a little puppy named Nimrod (I also enjoyed The Book story).
"Coming through the garden to visit her, we passed numerous colored glass balls stuck on flimsy poles. In these pink, green, and violet balls were enclosed bright shining words, like the ideally happy pictures contained in the peerless perfection of soap bubbles."
"In the rapid process of blossoming, enormous white and pink flowers opened among the leaves, bursting from bud under your very eyes, displaying their pink pulp and spilling over to shed their petals and fall apart in quick decay."
"When you lay in the grass you were under the azure map of clouds and sailing continents, you inhaled the whole geography of the sky."
"Probably one by one those jesters sank into the cracks and folds of the terrain, like children tired of playing who disappear during a party in to the corners and back rooms of the festive house."
"For, under the imaginary table that separates me from my readers, don't we secretly clasp each other's hands?" (Renee, I think you'll like this one. Non?)
"I spent my days alone with my father in our room, which at that time was as large as the world."
"He was one of those men on whose head God lays His hand while they are asleep so that they get to know what they don't know, so that they are filled with intuitions and conjectures, while the reflections of distant worlds pass across their closed eyelids."
It's taken me forever to read, and I'm happy to be done with it. It's a relief.
"Coming through the garden to visit her, we passed numerous colored glass balls stuck on flimsy poles. In these pink, green, and violet balls were enclosed bright shining words, like the ideally happy pictures contained in the peerless perfection of soap bubbles."
"In the rapid process of blossoming, enormous white and pink flowers opened among the leaves, bursting from bud under your very eyes, displaying their pink pulp and spilling over to shed their petals and fall apart in quick decay."
"When you lay in the grass you were under the azure map of clouds and sailing continents, you inhaled the whole geography of the sky."
"Probably one by one those jesters sank into the cracks and folds of the terrain, like children tired of playing who disappear during a party in to the corners and back rooms of the festive house."
"For, under the imaginary table that separates me from my readers, don't we secretly clasp each other's hands?" (Renee, I think you'll like this one. Non?)
"I spent my days alone with my father in our room, which at that time was as large as the world."
"He was one of those men on whose head God lays His hand while they are asleep so that they get to know what they don't know, so that they are filled with intuitions and conjectures, while the reflections of distant worlds pass across their closed eyelids."
It's taken me forever to read, and I'm happy to be done with it. It's a relief.
timshel's review against another edition
3.0
Admittedly, I only read the title story, about 1/3 of the entire collection, but I figured this counted as something. The language is lovely, especially at the beginning where it hit me like a sudden downpour. Schulz was an undisputed master of language. Despite the story's richness, it was a struggle to read. Each chapter was a vignette without story; the whole added up to a bunch of nonsense. The only way I could make it through was to treat it like poetry, reading one piece at a time, slowly, focusing mostly on the language.
jaxcatx's review against another edition
I got half way through and realized that i didn't know what was going on...if anything was going on. I figure that if you're halfway through a book and you still don't know then what's the point of finishing it?
It wasn't a bad book, i'm probably just too dumb to 'get' it.
It wasn't a bad book, i'm probably just too dumb to 'get' it.
joceraptor's review against another edition
this is going to be one of those books that i can't rate because i don't think i understood much of it at all. the last two chapters (stories?) finally clicked for me in terms of writing, but i was lost for the other 98%.
acorn's review against another edition
5.0
I just finished Tree of Codes, and whilst not as enamored with it as with Jonathan Safran Foer's other work, I was struck by the unusual turns of phrase. It seemed like a novel by deletion had worked for Foer, because he managed to place evocative but ultimately distant words next to each other, and the effect was beautiful.
Little did I know, they're all there in the original, only richer and more satisfying. If I had been carrying around post-it flags and a pen while I read this book, I think every other page would have exuberant underlinings and exclamation marks and asterisks and "THIS!!!" hastily scrawled in the margins, with little pink and orange squares jutting out haphazardly from the corners. It's a stunning book, bizarrely and yet beautifully written.
I wish, I wish, I wish that the rest of Schultz's work hadn't been lost. This is one of my absolute favorites and the thought that there is more out there of this that I can't read just kills me.
Little did I know, they're all there in the original, only richer and more satisfying. If I had been carrying around post-it flags and a pen while I read this book, I think every other page would have exuberant underlinings and exclamation marks and asterisks and "THIS!!!" hastily scrawled in the margins, with little pink and orange squares jutting out haphazardly from the corners. It's a stunning book, bizarrely and yet beautifully written.
I wish, I wish, I wish that the rest of Schultz's work hadn't been lost. This is one of my absolute favorites and the thought that there is more out there of this that I can't read just kills me.
daneekasghost's review against another edition
4.0
Schulz's surrealism works really well and all his stories feel interconnected so this feels like one big work instead of fragments. I loved most the stories about his father (and his ongoing battle with the cleaning lady) culminating with "Father's Last Escape" as the final story in Sanatorium. Like Kafka, but less pessimistic.
Street of Crocodiles - 4.5/5
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass - 3/5
"Father's Last Escape" - 5/5
Street of Crocodiles - 4.5/5
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass - 3/5
"Father's Last Escape" - 5/5