Magdalena Tulli

Magdalena Tulli's In Red (W czerwieni 1998) uncovers the pattern of life in the Polish town of Stitchings: it is a pattern that recurs three times within the first half of the twentieth century. The pattern varies by season and generation, but each recurrence is woven with similar threads of growth and greed, hope and despair, and the constant looming presence of war and death.

The introductory sentence to each section hints at the different shadings of each section:

Whoever has been show more everywhere and seen everything, last of all should pay a visit to Stitchings…. Winter everyday of the year and a darkness that softens contrasts and smoothes the sharpness of edges. (7)

Anyone who makes it to Stitchings appreciates its misty grayness and the moist warm breeze in which desires flourish so handsomely.(56)

Whoever wishes to leave Stitchings can avail himself of two methods. (106)

Tulli's protagonist must be seen as the town itself, and the major characters are the three major businesses in town (along with their familial owners): Loom & Son, the makers of corsets and collars and operator of depots; Neumann's, the phonograph record manufacturer; and Strobbel's Works, the porcelain factory. The generations change, and the products are modified for changes occasioned by war and modern life. But although power is tightly controlled, the inevitability of disintegration slowly unravels the fabric of the town.

It begins when Stefania Neumann delays accepting the proposal of a young lieutenant, and he is sent off to the battlefront. Stefania continues to sew her trousseau until she learns that he has sold the engagement ring to pay off his gambling debts. Despairing and distracted, she picks up red thread and embroiders a rose among the white lilies. Frightened at the sight, she picks out the red silk threads, and they are borne by breezes throughout the town. The fate of every man on whom a red thread lands is to die in the war.

As do so many magical-realist tales, In Red couches its horrors in folkloric devices that soften the impact upon the readers—at least initially. We don't have to recoil in pain or shrink from the gory details, but we are brought to understand how those who loved idealistically turn rigid and cold, how those whose hearts stop beating refuse to die, and how easily those who were exploited can become the exploiters.

In Red is mesmerizing—Tulli stitches her readers into her town, which at the end of the fable goes up in flames. When I finished the book, I had been transported into a strange, yet oddly familiar place, and I knew I had to read the book a second time to begin to understand how Tulli explores and exercises the power of storytelling. show less

What an unusual story! At times I found myself rereading sections trying to follow the plot, and at other times simply because the language was so beautiful. In only 158 small Archipelago pages, the author tells a story that feels large in history and space.

Whoever has been everywhere and seen everything, last of all should pay a visit to Stitchings. Simply take a seat in a sleigh and, before being overcome by sleep, speed across a plain that's as empty as a blank sheet of paper, boundless show more as life itself. Sooner of later this someone - perhaps it is a travelling salesman with a valise full of samples - will see great mounds of snow stretching along streets to the four corners of the earth, toward empty, icy expanses. He'll see pillars made of icicles, their snowy caps lost in the dark of a wintry sky. He'll draw into his lungs air as sharp as a razor that cuts feeling away from breath. He'll come to appreciate the benefits of a climate forever unencumbered by restless springtime breezes, by the indolence of summer swelter, or the misty sorrows of autumn. He'll take a liking to frost, which conserves feelings and capital, protecting both from the corruption of decay.

So begins the story of Stitchings, a small town in Poland that could be anywhere but is nowhere. It is mysterious and changing, but with certain signposts that help the reader move through history. In the beginning, Stitchings is occupied by the Swedish, "bearing in mind that a Swedish garrison is better than any Russian, Prussian, or Austrian one, just as a Swedish partition is better than any other possible partition." Historically, Poland is said to have been partitioned three times, by the forenamed powers, although there have been other times when lands were annexed. This fourth partition puts us in a mythical, but familiar place. But Stitchings does not remain fixed in time and space and is subsequently occupied by Germans, then Russians during the World Wars. In addition the topography changes, and Stitchings is later a port city. At times, it is almost always dark, with only a few hours of daylight lasting through the noon meal. By the end of the book, it is almost always light.

As for the plot, it revolves around the families who own the three dominating companies in town. Matches are made and engagements broken, wives are spirited away by outsiders in very mysterious circumstances, and business rivals compete at the expense of others and of the town itself. A doctor reports the death of a woman, yet she refuses to be buried and continues reading French romances. Insomnia, the senselessness of war, and corruption are themes that run throughout. Reading In Red was like reading Gogol, yet with a delicious delicacy of language that is its own. There is so much to talk about in this book, and it definitely deserves a rereading to fully appreciate all that it contains. A truly fascinating read, and I look forward to reading more works by Tulli.

Whoever wishes to leave Stitchings can avail himself of two methods. If he is an outsider - for example, a traveling salesman of his own virtues, obliged to compete for a favorable market, or a collector of experiences whom life has taught humility - without a second thought he ought to ascend at dawn in a passenger cabin suspended beneath a dirigible balloon. For it's easy to sail among the clouds, where the sun casts its pink rays over the cranes of the port and the docks, over the roofs of the banks, over the stock exchange, over Ludwig Neumann's works producing radio sets, Slotzki & Co.'s sanitary appliance factory, and Loom's munitions plant, whose chimneys send dark smoke curling into the morning sky. If this person wishes before starting preparations for his journey to study the train timetables or the brochures of shipping lines, he'll quickly realize that the desire to leave bears no relation whatsoever to the calendar or the clock. The right moment never comes at any time. show less

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. The author's credits include translation of Calvino, I could definitely see parallels to Calvino, especially Invisible Cities. Like that book, there’s not much in the way of plot or characterization – just wonderful descriptions.

The overarching theme is the development of a city, from the initial plan to the gradual decline to the many ways that its inhabitants try to escape. In Invisible Cities, there were depictions of multiple different cities (which show more were actually all one and the same) which were both vividly descriptive and highly symbolic. Tulli’s city is described in a similar fashion – while the things she wrote could be taken literally, I was constantly thinking of the sentences as metaphors. Some comparisons I kept coming back to – organisms/cells and ideas – political, religious.

The city itself is torn between two ideas: the city as a machine and the city as a tree. While initially it’s seen and treated as a machine – there is one perfect plan, everyone goes about their jobs like clockwork, everything’s regulated and ordered – eventually cracks start to show, though this was foreshadowed by the fact that the city had a countercity, which was pushed off to the side. This tension is also seen in the title, Dreams and Stones. Both are woven throughout the book. At first the Stone is the symbol of the city – the stone statues of workers, who outlast the real ones, are described during the city’s peak. Later on, it becomes a city of dreams, where everything is hazy, uncertain and constantly changing. In between, Tulli describes the decline of the city and various coping methods – travel, utter destruction, fencing in the whole area. The later stages of the city resembled Bruno Schulz’s Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Tulli even makes use of the terms invisible cities and sanatoriums) – people groping blindly in the darkness, the surreal, dreamlike atmosphere. This is a very short but dense and rewarding book. show less

Initially published in 1995 and a winner of the Polish Koscielski Foundation Prize, Dreams and Stones is a work built of stone and metaphor. Abstaining from conventional narrative structure, Tulli's Dreams has been categorized as simply a "novel" by author, the ambiguous "prose-poem" by translator Bill Johnston, and the often gone to "postmodern" by many a critic. The craving of categorical summations aside, it is the story of a great city rebuilt. In myth and metaphor, with Tree and show more Machine, Tulli offers up the burgeoning fruit of an ideal and captivates one within its evanescent existence, its life cycle.

When I first read the synopsis for Tulli's Dreams and Stones it precipitated both a keen interest in the book and a wariness that it might not live up to the extravagant praise decorating its back cover. I have to admit to ignorance concerning Bruno Schulz; as such, the synopsis comparison between his work and Tulli's fell flat for me. However, having read Tulli's poetic and stirring Dreams it is an ignorance I plan to correct as soon as possible.

Dreams and Stones is the risen cream, a compendious reduction in which its prose and Tulli's use of metaphor is thickened and intensified so that each word, each taste, is easily savored. Though a short read, Dreams offers up relatable imagery that conjures rich reflection on the worth of an ideal and its reality, the build and lifespan of society, and the interplay between humanity and the world that sheathes it.

Prior to starting, I saw this as a quick read. It ended up being better experienced in short bursts which allowed me to sit with the material a bit and relish it. Tulli's prose has a beautiful energy to it and it carries great philosophical weight. Both offer up satisfying depths to bask in and reading it in bursts was a perfect opportunity to prolong it.

Bill Johnston's translation of this work seems to be strong, authentic, and satisfying. While this will inevitably be added to my Read in its Original Language pile, as well as my To Be Reread (many times) mountain, I enjoyed Johnston's version immensely. There is this fulfilling sensation to be had from authentic translations that seem to really connect with an author's energy and context such as in Robert Pinsky's translation of Dante's Inferno, a lasting favorite translation of mine. I felt that essence with this translation as well.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Archipelago for the opportunity to read this book. show less