A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True (2009)

by Brigid Pasulka

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Fiction. Literature. HTML: On the eve of World War II, in a place called Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon falls in love with a girl fabled for her angelic looks. To court Anielica Hetmanská he offers up his "golden hands" to transform her family's modest hut into a beautiful home, thereby building his way into her heart. Then war arrives to cut short their courtship, delay their marriage, and wreak havoc in all their lives, even sending the young lovers far from home to the promise of a new life in Kraków. Nearly fifty years later, their granddaughter, Beata, repeats their postwar journey, seeking a new life in the fairy-tale city of her grandmother's stories. But when she arrives in Kraków, instead of the whispered prosperity of the New Poland, she discovers a city caught between its future and its past, and full of frustrated youths. Taken in by her toughtalking cousin Irena and Irena's glamorous daughter Magda, Beata struggles to find her own place in 1990s Kraków and in the constellation of Irena and Magda's fierce love. But unexpected events�?? tragedies and miracles�?? can change lives and open eyes. And Beata may just find a new way of seeing her family's and her country's history�?? as well as a vision for her own role in the New Poland. Whimsical, wise, beautiful, magical, and sometimes even heartbreaking, A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True weaves together two remarkable stories, reimagining half a century of Polish history through the legacy of one unforgettable… (more)

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Read for a book Club, and felt unenthusiastic, but I ended up truly enjoying the story and the writing. I felt very close to the characters and the polish setting was so interesting. (

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mslibrarynerd | Jan 13, 2024 |

A well woven story that is two stories in one. Just when one story started to get slow for me the other would pick up the pace. I alternated between wanting to read the story long long ago and the modern day story. I thought the author did a great job of creating a fairy tale and a modern story and connecting them over the course of the book. The one thing I would change was the over use of polish words. Nearly every paragraph had a polish word in it and while I understand that it lends itself to the story it became a bit much and I skipped over them because I don't speak polish and they were rarely defined after the fact so it added nothing to the story for me. (

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MsTera | Oct 10, 2023 |

Two wonderful story lines about one family from pre-WWII to post-Soviet independence. If you have the slightest interest in Poland, life during WWII, or life under Soviet occupation and communist rule you'll want to read this book. (

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Chris.Wolak | Oct 13, 2022 |

What a good ride. The untranslated Polish words and phrases are wonderful as well as the translated idioms. The interleaved story of Beata and her grandparents drew me along swiftly and was affecting without being unbearable or so romanticized that it flew away from the war. Happy sigh. (

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Je9 | Aug 10, 2021 |

An elegant structure: two stories, interleaving chapters, one story a grandmother surviving WWII and Cold War, another of her granddaughter surviving end of USSR. Anielica's story progresses forward from the opening months of the Nazi invasion of Poland, not only her personal story but that of her village and the villagers she loves. The second story expands forward and back from Baba Jaga's arrival in Krakow after the fall of the Wall, to live with her Aunt. In this way, events move ahead while memories and conversations between relatives reach back, until the omitted middle is reached by each storyline. Part of the novel's charm is in seeing characters from one storyline poke their heads up in the other; it's not always as easy to spot as might be thought.

Anielica's village story is told in third person, like a fairy tale. Baba Jaga's, in first person as a Bildungsroman. Together, they tell the story of a modern Poland, and it appears to be a tale familiar to generations: resist oppression, wrest what can be gotten from meagre opportunity, find joy with those close, and always anticipate disappointment. It's not unusual, found in other novels and so many national histories. It works in Pasulka's distinctly Polish telling, the way it spools out from villages and cities, from a Polish persistence built over centuries of hardship. Pasulka provides a glimpse of a national identity and it feels genuine. (

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elenchus | Mar 10, 2019 |

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thingScore 75

Fortunately Pasulka, an American descendant of Polish immigrants, has charms of her own — appealing characters and keen observations save this novel from derivative sentimentality.

added by SimoneA | editNew York Times, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow (Oct 15, 2009)

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PEN/Hemingway Award (Winner – 2010)

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2009

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Epigraph

Let me gaze once more on Krakow, at her walls, where every brick and every stone is dear to me. -- Pope John Paul II on the Krakow Błonia, June 10, 1979

Dedication

For Anna and Anita, without whom my Krakow would not exist

First words

The pigeon was not one to sit around and pine, and so the day after he saw the beautiful Anielica Hetmańska up on Old Baldy Hill, he went to talk to her father.

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Mones, Nicole

McPhee, Martha

Langer, Adam

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Wikipedia in English (1)

Polish American Historical Association

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Fiction. Literature. HTML:

On the eve of World War II, in a place called Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon falls in love with a girl fabled for her angelic looks. To court Anielica Hetmanská he offers up his "golden hands" to transform her family's modest hut into a beautiful home, thereby building his way into her heart.

Then war arrives to cut short their courtship, delay their marriage, and wreak havoc in all their lives, even sending the young lovers far from home to the promise of a new life in Kraków.

Nearly fifty years later, their granddaughter, Beata, repeats their postwar journey, seeking a new life in the fairy-tale city of her grandmother's stories. But when she arrives in Kraków, instead of the whispered prosperity of the New Poland, she discovers a city caught between its future and its past, and full of frustrated youths. Taken in by her toughtalking cousin Irena and Irena's glamorous daughter Magda, Beata struggles to find her own place in 1990s Kraków and in the constellation of Irena and Magda's fierce love. But unexpected events�?? tragedies and miracles�?? can change lives and open eyes. And Beata may just find a new way of seeing her family's and her country's history�?? as well as a vision for her own role in the New Poland.

Whimsical, wise, beautiful, magical, and sometimes even heartbreaking, A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True weaves together two remarkable stories, reimagining half a century of Polish history through the legacy of one unforgettable

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