Review by Booklist Review
Gothic themes and melodramatic flourishes dramatize a modernist novel preoccupied with the fluidity of identity. At a crumbling castle in the Polish countryside, a scheming secretary tries to separate a mad prince from his art collection. Strange occurrences suggest the ghostly presence of the prince's unavowed son. Meanwhile, young Maja Ochołowska finds herself increasingly enmeshed with her tennis instructor, Marian, with whom she has much in common. A mysterious death, with hints of demonic influence, ensues, as do some of the most psychologically intense tennis matches known to literature. Amid a jumbled and inconsistent plot, the narrative hovers over key moments of intensity, illustrating the various ways in which human beings can be said to possess or be possessed by each other. Originally published in serial form in 1939, Opętani has typically been regarded as one of Gombrowicz's lesser works. But in allowing the utter weirdness of the great Polish modernist to shine through, this new English translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, best known for her translations of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, may invite reassessment of its place in his oeuvre.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This 1939 treasure from Polish modernist Gombrowicz (1904--1969; Pornografia), available in its entirety for the first time in English, involves a young tennis coach entangled in intrigue and supernatural phenomena. Leszczuk is visiting an estate in the Polish countryside to tutor tennis prodigy Maja Ochołowska, who's engaged to middle-class schemer Cholawicki. Knowing that his fiancée finds him repulsive and is only out for money, Cholawicki pins his hopes to clinch the marriage on inheriting or outright stealing a treasure trove of art from his employer, Prince Holszań ski. The nobleman, meanwhile, is haunted by the ghost of his dead son, Franio, whose apparition stalks Holszański Castle. Gombrowicz fills the plot with genre tropes, including a self-important professor who convinces himself that he would steal the prince's art for the sake of "the common good," a cowed servant who, terrorized by Franio's ghost, lets leak to Cholawicki that all is not normal in the castle, and more. What emerges is a crafty and sharp exploration of the greed, lust, and vanity that spin people out of control. Gombrowicz's gleeful misanthropy and sense of the absurd shine through the genre trappings to create a potboiler that's enjoyable on multiple levels. This works perfectly both as a straightforward gothic akin to Du Marier's Rebecca and as a knowing parody. Agent: Bonnie McKiernan, Wylie Agency. (Mar.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Eighty-five years after the Nazi invasion of Poland interrupted its original serial publication, Gombrowicz's second novel receives its first complete Polish-to-English direct translation. Marian Leszczuk, a working-class coach, travels to a boardinghouse in the Polish countryside to train wealthy tennis prodigy Maja Ochołowska. A few kilometers away stands an ancient castle, bordered by mist and "reed-choked marshes, "inhabited by the batty Prince Holszański and his secretary (and Maja's fiance), Henryk Cholawicki. Leszczuk and Maja are drawn into a conspicuously stormy relationship, spurred by their uncanny physical resemblance to one another and by "something deeper and more elusive." Cholawicki, jealous of Leszczuk and determined to inherit the prince's fortune, tries to guard both Maja and the castle's valuables from interlopers. Meanwhile, the prince dodders around his massive castle in a terrified fugue, convinced that "pretty much the whole place is haunted." Professor Skoliński, another boarder, yearns to study the castle's antiques rather than leave them "lamentably wasted at the mercy or lack of mercy of a demented aristocrat"--but Skoliński soon realizes the castle is "in possession of unclean forces" fueling the prince's insanity. Crumbling antiquity, petty scheming, romantic comedy of manners--these are the foundations of an unpredictable gothic pastiche, both brazenly funny and deeply spooky. The short paragraphs fly by, buzzing with intrigue and danger. Even when sentences circle the same woebegone or paranoid sentiments, there is the sense of mounting pressure. Gombrowicz acutely renders the interiority of his capricious characters, most of whom are prone to double-dealing and quick to take offense at social transgressions; their erratic behavior is explained with striking clarity. Lloyd-Jones' translation crackles with choice phrases, deftly capturing Gombrowicz's gorgeous scenic descriptions, mordant sense of humor, and evocations of lurking horror. A delightful revelation of an interbellum novel from one of the great Polish modernists. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
