Bruno Schulz (1892-1942)

[Zlatko Waterman]

The Polish writer and pictorial artist Bruno Schulz (1892-1942) is not well known in the US, but is a marvelously inventive novelist, draftsman and muralist with quirky but sharply disciplined moral and satirical resources at his command.

Schulz wrote novels, translated the work of other writers ( his translation of Kafka's "The Castle" won him the gold medal of the Polish Academy) and made many drawings, etchings and paintings in his short life.

A Polish citizen of Jewish faith, he was murdered by the Nazi SS in 1942.

John Updike, among others, has written an introduction to Schulz's ( also sometimes spelled "Schultz") work. Schulz's drawings have been published in two deluxe editions in the US, both long out of print.

The subject of Schulz's work is sometimes identified as "sexual idolatry", "the dark side of human sexuality" or even, more simply and puritanically, "sex perversion."

Reading Schulz carefully and examining his drawings, however, reveals a deeper meaning. Like Gunter Grass, another writer and accomplished draftsman/printmaker, and like Franz Kafka, Schulz used apparently "prurient" subjects to cast moral dilemmas into complex and intricate metaphors.

Here is an Internet link to some of Schulz's drawings and writings. Note that he is placed right under Kafka on the page:


(link)

http://www.creative.net/~alang/lit/absurd/fiction.sht



--Zlatko

[abcrystcats]

You've piqued my interest with this one. I think I'll be ordering the complete fiction. Thanks

[Zlatko Waterman]

Cattina:

Since you're in a receptive mood, here's another weird recommendation:


Robert Walser 1878-1956.

Recently, J. M. Coetzee ( another master of the original, unexpected and strangely oblique-- you should read lots of him, starting with "Waiting for the Barbarians", one of the best books writtten on race and culture prejudice) wrote a NYR of Books article on Walser:



(link)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/13878


A rewarding and strange writer, Walser is.

God, we've been having horribly hot weather here in Southern California.

Nevertheless I shall write to you soon via e-mail.

God(s) Bless you and your kitties--Yahweh, Aphrodite, the Holy Trinity, Mithra-- whichever you like,


Love,


Zlatko

[panta rhei]

yes, robert walser - his books sink into you and don't stop sinking into you, and you don't stop wondering about the infinite and soft weight of these books and about those depths that can be awakened inside you....

[abcrystcats]

panta rhei -- That is a beautiful way to describe how his writing affects you!

Zlatko -- I only wish I READ as quickly as you RECOMMEND. I used to scribble names and titles of books you recommended in classes, all the time, but of course it was impossible to keep up with all that reading.

sorry to hear about your hot weather ... it's been nice and breezy here in Colorado ... even some heavy rain. We've had a weird season, or so I've been told. We got rain most days during the summer, and the grass here is still green, the wildflowers still blooming hectically.

I look forward to hearing more from you later,


Cat

[cornelius]

..

[abcrystcats]

No, it's not a tangent. Thanks for the detail, it just makes me more interested. Appreciate it!

[frollostone]

Anyone who defines Schulz's writing as 'sex idolatry' or 'perversion' is being far too narrow, or else they're reading a completely different Schulz to the one I love. How could any thinking human being reduce Street of Crocodiles or Sanitorium to plain sex? The books are sensuous, with a luminous feeling for touch and transformation, but why confine it all within one dull little word, 'sex?' Let it be sex and other things, sex and the rest of the world. Nothing in his writing has ever seemed prurient to me. Who are these people? Let them be kicked by bees and flies. Let oxen eat their livers.

[abcrystcats]

Frollo -- I ordered the complete fiction and an album of his drawings off the internet late last week. They ought to be arriving soon, but thanks for the additional information. I know nothing about this artist except the two recommendations and what little I could get off the internet. Thanks for an extra perspective.

Cat

[frollostone]

My pleasure. I came to the books after watching The Brothers Quay's Street of Crocodiles stop-motion version of his first book, and, after thinking about it, I can see what the people who describe his work as 'sex' are getting at - it's full of men who dissolve, erupt, or transform themselves, in ways that could easily be interpreted as orgasmic, while women are either tempting or repressive, or both (Adela, for instance, who interrupts Father's imaginitive ecstasies by tickling him or showing him her leg) but still - 'sex' is such a very small word, and Schulz is so very, very large.