Trans-Atlantyk (original 1953; edition 1995)

Like the James Joyce of Poland. ( )

This is one of those books where you have to ask yourself why anyone would be mad enough to attempt to translate it. Gombrowicz's idiosyncratic style is obviously the whole point of the exercise, and it's so rooted in the traditions of Polish literature as to be impossible to map into another language. Gombrowicz himself declared the book to be "inaccessible to foreigners because of its linguistic difficulties". French and Karsov (translators of the 1994 Yale edition) have made a brave attempt, and they clearly had a lot of fun doing it, but the resulting mixture turns into something like Anthony Burgess on bad drugs: Quirky, unpredictable, linguistically inventive, but with an awkwardness in its rhythm and flow that makes it hard to read. Full marks to them for trying, but it looks as though we'll have to learn Polish if we really want to understand why this is supposed to be such a great book. ( )

my beloved Gombrowicz ( )