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A review by celeryradishpun
The Complete Fiction of Bruno Schulz: The Street of Crocodiles, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bruno Schulz
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.