5/27/2023 0 Comments Lalka by Bolesław PrusThe contempt for “the trades” was being sweetened by the possibilities of trading titles for new money, though not without some shame and doubts. The aristocracy, in many cases was losing wealth and land, both relatively and actually. The Industrial Revolution, near the centenary of its beginnings, was enabling more and more men to achieve great wealth, in the trades and industry. Thematically, Prus takes us into the European wide buckling of the long established social order. And since friends are our first resource, in books as well as in life, I began. I took it up when a charming house guest wanted to share something of her native land. It is unusual only in the context of my reading of the past year, predominantly novels and memoirs about WW I. It is a quite readable, realistic novel of the late 19th century –think George Elliot, Honoré Balzac, Gustav Flaubert– set mostly in Warsaw of the 1860s and 70s, with a brief excursion to the Queen of Cities, Paris. The most unusual book in my reading universe this year has to be the 1890 Polish classic, The Doll (“Lalka”) by Boleslaw Prus, in a “New York Review of Books” re-release.
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