I Burn Paris

by Bruno Jasieński, Cristian Opris (Illustrator), Soren Gauger (Translator)

Je Brûle Paris raconte l'histoire de Pierre, mis au chômage, prenant sa revanche sur la capitale française pour les humiliations qu’il y a vécues. Après avoir volé des bactéries de la peste noire, il les utilise pour infecter le réseau hydraulique. Le jour de la Fête nationale, les premières victimes de l’épidémie sont emmenées dans les hôpitaux. La ville, mise en quarantaine, se divise en républiques nationalistes (les Chinois, les Juifs, les ouvriers de Belleville, les Russes blancs de Passy, la concession anglo-américaine, la république bleue des flics) qui se déclarent la guerre, se dressent les unes contre les autres et se condamnent à l’anéantissement.
Initialement publié en feuilleton dans L'Humanité en 1928, Je Brûle Paris est un best-seller de la littérature prolétarienne.

Bruno Jasieński est un écrivain polonais et militant communiste né le 17 juillet 1901 à Klimontów, et mort le 17 septembre 1938 à Moscou.
L'un des initiateurs du mouvement littéraire du futurisme en Pologne, il est surtout connu en France pour son roman prolétarien Je brûle Paris.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Polish Literature, Poland, Literature, Fantasy, 20th Century

309 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Bruno Jasienski, born Wiktor Zysman, was a Polish poet and leader of the Polish futurist movement, executed during the Polish operation of the NKVD in the Soviet Union.
He was born to a Polish family of Zysmans with Jewish and German roots, but from his mother's side he was a descendant of nobility. His father, Jakub Zysman, was a local doctor and a social worker, member of the local intelligentsia.
In 1929 Jasienski moved to the USSR and settled in Leningrad, where he accepted Soviet citizenship, and was quickly promoted by the authorities. In 1932 he transferred from the Polish division of the French Communist Party to the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and soon became a prominent member of that organization. He migrated to Moscow. During that period he served at various posts in the branch unions of communist writers. He was also granted honorary citizenship of Tajikistan.

By the mid-1930s he became a strong supporter of Genrikh Yagoda's political purges within the writers' community. Jasieński is often mentioned as the initiator of the persecution of Isaak Babel. However, in 1937 the tide turned and Yagoda himself was arrested and Jasieński lost a powerful protector. Soon afterwards Jasieński's former wife, Klara, was also arrested, sentenced to death and executed. Jasieński was expelled from the party, and soon afterwards he was also caught up in the purges. Sentenced to 15 years in a labour camp, he was executed on 17 September 1938 in Butyrka prison in Moscow.
His second wife Anna was arrested the following year and spent 17 years in various Russian concentration camps. Jasieński's underage son was stripped of his identity and sent to an orphanage, but managed to escape during World War II. After the war he went on to become a prominent figure in Russia's criminal underworld. He eventually discovered his true heritage, and under a Polish name became a member of various illegal organizations in opposition to the Communist authorities. He was killed in the 1970s.
Bruno Jasieński remains one of the most notable Polish futurists and as such is still acclaimed by members of various modernist art groups as a patron. A yearly futurist Brunonalia festival held in Klimontów, Poland, is named after him.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his highly cynical novel I Burn Paris, mixing expressionistic and surrealistic styles, Bruno Jasieński paints a phantasmagoric picture of the surreal revolutionary apocalypse…
One romantic evening in Paris… He and his girl…

They walked slowly, arm in arm, intermingling with that random and unsynchronized throng of extras cast by Europe’s rickety film projector onto the screen of Paris’s boulevards every evening.

Crisis… He’s lost his job… He’s lost his girl… Unemployed, homeless and hungry he’s lost his mind…

The contours of objects sharpened as though outlined with pencil, the air became rarified and transparent under the bell jar of the urban sky. The houses swelled and became pliable, squishing unexpectedly into one another, only to stretch once more into an improbable and absurd perspective. People wore scrubbed and indistinguishable faces. Some had two noses, others two pairs of eyes. Most had two heads at the ends of their necks, one strangely crammed onto the other.

Deprived of his willpower, spineless, gullible – he is just a blind pawn used unscrupulously in the class warfare…
Paris is being torn apart… There is a revolution… An outbreak of deadly plague… Chaos… Anarchy… The civil war…

During the previous night the yellow-skinned inhabitants of the Latin Quarter had held a coup d’état. All the white inhabitants had been pushed to the right bank of the Seine, and the Latin Quarter had been declared an autonomous Chinese republic.
That evening, on the walls of the abandoned Latin Quarter, the first long strips of hieroglyphs appeared: proclamations in Chinese.
The provisional government informed the yellow-skinned residents of Paris that an independent Chinese republic had been established in the area of the former Latin Quarter to act in self-defense against the European plague. The provisional government declared that every white person caught in the territory of the republic would be expelled as a plague-sower. The government further forbade, under penalty of death, any yellow-skinned inhabitants from crossing the borders of their republic. With the aim of tightly fencing it off from the infected city, the republic was surrounded by a new Great Wall of China, this one built of barricades.

All the Paris is divided into the independent dwarf states… Different nationalities… Different political regimes… Different interests…

On either side of the Passy Bridge flags fluttered from a lamppost: the tricolor flag of the Russian Empire and the flag of the Bourbons, white with gold lilies – the provisional border between two monarchies.
The two sixteen-year-old boys, leaning on their guns, their backs to the balustrades, let their eyes wander out into space: two tin soldiers on a cardboard bridge with a marvelous paper backdrop, so much like the Paris of adults.
“What was that racket and shooting I heard over there yesterday?” the navy-blue Camelot asked, trying to enjoy a little soldier talk.
“Ah, nothing, no big deal,” Vasya replied in French, his tone emphasizing that it was hardly worth mentioning. “Just creaming a couple of Jews. They gobble our bread and spread the plague while they’re at it.”

Jews dream of exodus… Anglo-American Territory wishes to keep its riches… New Paris Commune fights against starvation… Chinese republic tries to win over plague…

On the fourth day of the new republic’s existence a decree appeared on the walls of houses; the words were alarmingly frank. Contending that the plague in its currently rampant form had in practice proven incurable, and that those infected with it, being artificially sustained, were only spreading the epidemic, the decree declared that henceforth all those infected would be subject to immediate execution. Healthy citizens were obliged to report every case of illness they came across, without fail. Those found guilty of concealing plague victims would likewise be shot.

Social theories that look ideal on paper in reality turn into rivers of blood.

[Kansas · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2023...

"Con el tiempo, toda imagen concreta que tenía de tí se desvaneció de mis recuerdos y, esforzándome durante horas con los ojos cerrados, traté en vano de reconstruirlas. Tu cara se había deslizado por algún recoveco de mi memoria, dejando únicamente tus ojos rasgados y los pómulos altos, como una plantilla cuyos huecos debía llenar por mí mismo."

Me ha sorprendido esta novela de un autor polaco al que no conocía, aunque, ya debería estar acostumbrada porque ha sido traducida y publicada aquí por los heroicos Pálido Fuego, y ha vuelto a ser otra de esas compras a ciegas que no decepcionan. Es casi la única editorial a la que ahora mismo compro todo lo que publican sin saber exactamente quién es el autor, y por ahora, esto solo ha servido para evolucionar en mi experiencia como lectora, conociendo a autores nuevos a los cuales igual no hubiera llegado por mí misma. Yo quemo París es una novela que se publicó hace ya casi un siglo... ¿cómo es posible que haya sido obviada en España hasta ahora??? Ha sido una experiencia rara porque más de una vez durante la lectura me detenía pensando en lo moderna que parecía, no solo por el estilo de Jasieński sino por la temática que toca, más actual que nunca: todos estos cierres de factorías, esa diferencia cada vez más amplia entre la riqueza y la pobreza, desempleados, sin techo, endeudados…, todos estos temas están continuamente presentes en una novela llena de ritmo, vigor y constantes cambios de giros endiablados e inesperados.

"Era la primera vez en meses (¿años?) que echaba a andar en línea recta. Avanzó largo rato por callejones que se cruzaban en todo ángulo posible, pavimentados con adoquines enormes por una extinta raza de gigantes. Aquí, todo era diferente. La gente corría sin orden ni concierto, entre encontronazos, ajenos, al parecer, como si circulasen por un mundo quimérico de libertad absoluta."

En "Yo Quemo París", se empiezan narrando las vicisitudes de Pierre, trabajador de una fábrica que en cuanto comienza la historia se ve despedido y abandonado por Jeanette su novia; desempleado, sin un techo y totalmente perdido, este comienzo de novela empezó impactándome por la forma en la que Jasieński nos presenta ese París por el que deambula desesperado Pierre: encuentros, bares, personajes muy vivos, un entorno en el que Jasienski crea una especie de atmósfera entre la pesadilla, lo onírico y lo sonámbulo: la ciudad, París, está viva pero Pierre se convierte en un muerto en vida sin un objetivo.

"Jeanette no aparecía, no estaba en ninguna parte.
Y sin embargo estaba en todas partes. Pierre la veía y reconocía en la silueta de cada muchacha que salía en compañía de su amante por la puerta de cada hotel, iba en un taxi o desaparecía en los recovecos del primer portal que se terciaba. Mil veces echó a correr, apartando con furia la impenetrable marea de viandantes que eternamente se interponía entre ella y él."

Sin embargo, cuando creemos que Pierre va a ser el auténtico protagonista de la novela, y una vez que se dilucida el primer giro inesperado de la trama, lo verdaderamente fascinante será el ritmo cambiante y vertiginoso en todos los sentidos: chinos, comunistas, exiliados rusos, rabinos, miembros de la aristocracia, americanos millonarios y la comunidad judía. No soy muy partidaria de revelar en esta reseña mucho de la trama porque en mi caso ha funcionado como un descubrimiento continuo, personajes que surgían inesperadamente y Jasiénski les regalaba páginas y páginas para a continuación pasar a otros, igual de inesperadamente. Una trama que se va revelando poco a poco en la que el autor crea en París un microcosmos que podría ser el fiel reflejo del mundo de la época a través los judíos, comunistas, los rusos blancos, los angloamericanos...

"El rabino Eleazar ben Zevi tiene ojos muy juntos que siempre miran hacia arriba. Impasibles, minúsculos, idénticos, están vueltos hacia el cielo, donde al parecer ven cosas sólo perceptibles para ellos. Un órgano, cuando no se usa, desaparece. El rabino Eleazar ben Zevi ve muchas cosas invisibles para el ojo humano, pero no ve las más simples."

Y todavía ahora, después de haber terminado esta novela tan sorprendente, no sé bien qué es lo que más me ha gustado de ella. Las descripciones de algunos de sus personajes son tan enganchantes en muchos momentos, que me daba una pena enorme cuando Jasiénski los abandonaba para seguir avanzando en la trama y detenerse en otros personajes. Es una historia llena de momentos inesperados que podría estar formada por un coro de pequeñas historias ensambladas y reunidas en el París de los años 20. Así que ahora mismo no sé realmente si lo que más me ha subyugado de esta novela fantástica han sido sus personajes o esas descripciones de París, vivas y atmosféricas al mismo tiempo. La prosa de Jasieński quizás sea lo más destacado porque convierte el estado de ánimo de sus personajes en algo fuera de este mundo, por muy descarnado, duro o aberrante que pueda suponer algún hecho relatado, algunas escenas están dotadas de tanta intimidad que resultan realmente conmovedoras.

"De apartamento en apartamento. Escondites. Gabán gris de soldado, manos sucias de hollín: descuidadas, faltaba más, y con callos. Padre muerto de un disparo. Finca convertida en soviet. Tierra repartida. Mansión llena de recuerdos de una infancia feliz ahora una escuela llena de sucios mocosos de campo.
Huida. Papeles falsificados. Crimea. Ofensiva. Para vengar una Rusia deshonrada, Pueblos recuperados..."

Bruno Jasieński tenía un talento innato a la hora de diseccionar la sociedad en la que vivía; es evidente que sus simpatías estaban en un estrato determinado de esta sociedad y así y todo se las arregló para regalarnos un texto donde lo importante es el ser humano convencido de que puede luchar por un mundo mejor aunque este mundo sea una utopía demasiado optimista de alcanzar. Es una novela exquisita en muchos sentidos, pero lo impactante quizás esté en la forma en cómo el texto se metamorfosea para ir encajando en cada personaje. Otra joyita de Pálido Fuego.

"Pocos sabían que en el pasado había sido un hombre de letras. En su juventud había escrito poemas. Al parecer bastante buenos. Pero lo había dejado hacía mucho. Le avergonaba su talento literario, así como su erudición y su formación intelectual. Se erizaba como un gato salvaje ante la rudeza, ante las puyas caracteristicas de los soldados ante los modales bruscos."

[Alwynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

”Some readers may find this all very dated. The idea that a people in the heart of Europe might be cut off from help and hung out to dry while they deal on their own with some kind of raging infection that might otherwise spread to the rest of the continent destroying economy after economy in a domino effect obviously has no place in modern, twenty-first century Europe…The idea that “parliamentary blather” is futile also belongs strictly to its time only…” - review 2012 edition of I Burn Paris

A deadly virus is on the loose, economic systems are in chaos, warring political factions, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and ancient prejudices are rife, urban areas rapidly become ‘no-go’ zones, not the storylines from a bleak, contemporary piece but the substance of Bruno Jasienski’s I Burn Paris. First published in 1928, after it was serialized in a French newspaper, its Polish author was deported from France for ‘seditious’ views, his book banned because it supposedly

"exuded blind and stupid hatred for Western European culture.”

I Burn Paris opens with the spotlight on Pierre, a car-factory worker, whose settled life’s suddenly torn apart: he’s made redundant, his employers refuse to issue suitable paperwork so he can’t claim compensation, his girlfriend leaves him for richer prospects, his landlord kicks him out, he ends up destitute and starving on the streets of Paris. Pierre’s 1920s Paris isn’t the celebrated, culturally-sophisticated, sparkling stereotype but a harsh, repressive city with a nightmarish underworld of poverty, petty crime, and child prostitution. Pierre’s expected to fade away into the shadows, waste product in a world where unemployment makes him less than nothing, but a chance opportunity for revenge results in the unleashing of an incurable virus, which rapidly spreads through the city’s water supply,

”The first ambulance was observed at ten o’clock that evening…Not twenty minutes later a second ambulance showed up, only to disappear into the black crevice of a neighbouring alleyway. Nobody paid it any mind…The third, fourth and fifth arrived just after the second filling the festive square with the echoes of their ominous sirens.

The first minor disturbance was seen around eleven o’clock…one of the dancing couples fell on the slippery asphalt and showed no signs of getting up. They were surrounded by laughter. The pair shook in convulsions. They were brought to the nearest pharmacy…For the first time someone dropped the word “epidemic,” which clattered like a coin and rolled through the crowd. Nobody believed it and the dancing resumed.”

But as the bodies start to pile up, world leaders agree to isolate the city in a bid to stop infection leaking out and Parisian society quickly falls apart, any semblance of civilisation or solidarity shattered as people hive off into a variety of ethnic, political or religious groupings.

I Burn Paris is hard to characterise, in terms of plot and atmosphere, after a leisurely beginning it morphs into a hybrid of apocalyptic, literary thriller and polemical, socio-political critique. Reading it set off so many associations, it reminded me of aspects of Orwell, Kafka, Rilke’s earlier portrait of Paris and even echoes of Stephen King – or at least his attention to detail when he writes about individuals, and the horror and absurdity of the situations that can develop when communities turn on their own members. Jasienki’s narrative pays similar attention to those seemingly small but all-important details. I admired Jasienki’s unashamedly avant-garde, modernist style, his use of vivid, almost-cinematic imagery, sometimes poetic, sometimes hallucinatory, sometimes ponderous and ridiculously overblown but frequently striking, innovative and gripping. Despite the grim scenario driving it forward, it isn’t a pessimistic novel but a surprisingly hopeful one. For Jasienski catastrophe opened up possibilities for radical change: for the death of an uncaring capitalism that neglected people’s needs in its relentless drive for profit and productivity and for a pathway to a better, more compassionate, humane form of living. So, he gradually shifts his perspective here from dystopian towards utopian: although I’d have preferred it if Jasienski’s vision of a workers’ paradise hadn't been so obviously reliant on an, already problematic, Soviet model - I could also do without the more grating descriptions of some of the ethnic-minority characters. Overall a flawed but fascinating, powerful and compulsively readable example of so-called 'plague' literature.

[[P] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her name is Laure. And the place is Paris. Her name, which she dislikes because of its ubiquity in that city, was given to her by her parents precisely for that reason: so that she would fit in. I met her in Le Piano Vache, a bar on Rue Laplace. With a typical male predatory instinct, I waited until her friend had gone to the toilet before approaching her. When I introduced myself she laughed at l’englishman ivre. Her voice was like the tinkling of small bells; when I heard it I felt as though I was being called to worship. I told her she was beautiful; she told me she was Algerian. I did not understand.

In Paris, she said, there is no solidarity. You would not love me; and I could not love you. I am not French here; not Parisian. Only to you I am. She sounded gay; I suspected that she could not sound anything but gay. They are obsessed and now I am obsessed too, and it is because we are all scared. The way she told it there was no Paris at all, only a number of independent communities or small states eyeing each other suspiciously, each convinced that the others are intent on killing them. She made it sound like a large-scale Mexican stand-off, one that would inevitably descend into bloody chaos when the strain of inaction became too much to bear.

I took Laure out only once. She was right, we were destined not to love each other; but not for the reason she had envisioned. I had to return to England, of course; and, although we stayed in touch for a while, eventually she became just another in a series of my life’s small, but still painful endings. However, what she said to me that first night still plays on my mind; it troubled me that someone could feel that way, could live feeling despised and dispossessed in the city that they ought to be able to call home. Motivated by a desire to explore, or indulge, these thoughts and feelings, I initially picked up Philippe Soupault’s Last Nights of Paris, but, for all its virtues, its light and airy tone was like eating candyfloss; it upset my stomach with its sugary sweetness.

Yet with literature, much like with music, there is, if you look long enough, or know where to look, always something out there to suit your mood; whatever your feelings, whatever your ideas, someone else will have had them before you and fixed them on paper. It was, therefore, only a matter of time before I came upon Bruno Jasieński’s I Burn Paris. First published in 1928, the novel, which was apparently met with a fair amount of controversy when it saw the light of day, ostensibly deals with an outbreak of plague in the French capital. As one would expect, the spread of the disease results in Paris being essentially quarantined by the authorities. But more interesting than this is the effect it has on the general population, not physically but psychologically.

We are, of course, all aware that one day we will cease to exist, but for many of us this knowledge is stored away in one of the least accessible corners of our minds as we carry on with our mundane lives. A tragedy such as a plague epidemic, however, makes this impossible, and Jasieński’s novel includes some impressive writing about what it is like to make sustained eye contact with almost certain death. My favourite passage in this regard involves the rich American David Lingslay who is said to safeguard the ‘wretched formulation of hope, that one percent chance of salvation, somewhere deep inside him, like a nestling coddled in his bosom.’ There is, moreover, also the suggestion that some of the inhabitants of Paris consider themselves to be, in a sense, superior to the disease. The Jews, for example, believe it to be a punishment that has ‘descended upon Aryan Paris for their centuries of oppressing the Jewish nation’, and, as such, they – the Jews – will naturally be ‘spared’.

While for the Jews the catastrophe is arrogantly deemed to be a sign of favour, others actively seek to use it to their advantage. Indeed, according to the author, the plague ‘levelled social stratification,’ such that Lingslay cannot, despite the ‘gravity of his surname’, arrange to leave the city. As a consequence of this levelling, this shuffling of the cards, men like Captain Solomin, an emigre Russian, who had been working as a taxi driver prior to the outbreak, are able to gain power and prestige. Similarly, the communists view the plague, not necessarily as a punishment for certain groups, but as a convenient, welcome, event that will eradicate, or at least weaken, their enemies – the bourgeoisie – and give them a chance to create a proletarian, communist Paris.

What ought to be clear at this point is that Jasieński’s vision, his take on humanity and its impulses and behaviour, has much in common with Laure’s. When faced with this hardship, these difficulties, the people of Paris, in both the novel and the experience of my friend, do not come together, they move even further apart. In fact, in I Burn Paris there is an organised division, i.e recognised independent city-states are created, some along racial or national lines – Jewish, Chinese, Russian, Anglo-American, etc – and others social. Once this separation takes place, these groups indulge their prejudices or biases; the opposing city-states become other and therefore something to be feared, denigrated, ridiculed and ultimately eradicated. ‘Russians are savages’, one character thinks to himself, and one cannot but see in this the similarly absolute, and similarly misguided, belief that ‘Muslims are terrorists.’

In the small number of reviews of that I have encountered there seemed to be an emphasis upon the important role of socialist politics in the book, even to the point of suggesting that it is a kind of [sometimes morally dubious] anti-capitalist manifesto. However, I find it difficult to reconcile this view with what I read. Certainly, there is discussion of socialist politics and concerns, and Pierre, who sets the story in motion, is made redundant as a result of France’s ‘lousy economic condition.’ Yet while you might argue that unemployment is responsible for the plague, that it motivates Pierre to act, Jasieński makes it clear that, to quote his own first line, things that are ‘private in nature’ are equally or more significant. For me, the first section of I Burn Paris is, at heart, about jealousy. Yes, Pierre loses his job, but he also loses Jeanette, and, for the remainder of his life, sees her, or imagines her, in the company of other men everywhere he goes.

To his credit, the author avoids lazy moralising by giving depth to, or breathing some life into, his characters. For example, the adult P’an Tsiang-kuei is a psychopathic communist, who thinks nothing of killing for 'the greater good' [where have we heard that before?]; but we are also allowed access to his backstory, his history, as a mistreated orphan. We come to see how he became what he is, and it felt kosher to me. I believed it, and I believed in P’an. In Jasieński’s world, as in the real world, there are no absolute villains [or heroes]. People frequently do bad things, but in most cases one understands their motivations, even if one does not agree with the resulting act or behaviour. Another example of this is when a Japanese deliberately infects the man who ordered the death of his wife. Indeed, I Burn Paris is full of wonderful, often moving, minor portraits; and this is, I believe, its greatest strength. ‘You cannot feel concern for everyone,’ Jasieński writes at one point, and yet his own work goes some way to disproving this statement.

[Roula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ο Πιερ είναι ένας άνδρας απογοητευμένος από τη ζωή του μιας και η σύντροφος του τον αφήνει ,χάνει τη δουλειά του ,περιπλανιέται άσκοπα στους δρόμους του Παρισιού χωρίς ελπίδα ,όταν ξαφνικά ένας φίλος του εμφανίζεται με καλά νέα : του προτείνει να πιάσει δουλειά με νορμάλ συνθήκες εργασίας στο ινστιτούτο Παστέρ . Εκεί ο Πιερ θα βρει τον πιο απάνθρωπο και τρελό τρόπο να "εκδικηθεί " για την κακη του τύχη :παίρνει δοκιμαστικούς σωλήνες με τον ιό της πανούκλας τον οποίο διοχετεύει στο φίλτρο ύδρευσης του Παρισιού . Η κατάσταση γίνεται τραγική και παίρνει τη μορφή επιδημίας .μέχρι την πεμπτη μερα ανακοινώνονται μισό εκατομμύριο νεκροί και τα πάντα είναι ανεξέλεγκτα .
Ο Π'αν ζει στην Κίνα και από παιδί ονειρεύεται την αλλαγή . Δουλεύοντας σε απάνθρωπες συνθήκες με ανύπαρκτα εργατικά δικαιώματα ,από παιδί διαβάζει (και φυσικά τιμωρείται γι'αυτό) για τον Μαρξ και τις αλλαγές στην Ευρώπη . Στη Γαλλία ερωτεύεται ένα κορίτσι το οποίο βιάζεται και έτσι και αυτός ονειρεύεται την εκδίκηση .
Ο ραβίνος Ελεάζαρ θεωρεί ότι όλη αυτή η κατάσταση οφείλεται στο ότι η Ευρώπη έχει γυρίσει την πλάτη της στην ορθοδοξία .
Ο Αμερικανός επιχειρηματίας Ντέιβιντ Λινγκσλει ανακαλύπτει ότι τα λεφτά του μπορούν να ανοίξουν όλες τις πόρτες και να τον γλιτώσουν από τα πάντα εκτός από τον θάνατο .
Όλη αυτή η ιστορία αποτελεί μια τέλεια αποτύπωση του πόσο μακρυά από την πραγματικότητα βρίσκεται η ανθρωπότητα και πόσο δεν έχει καταλάβει ούτε λίγο από το νόημα αυτής της απλής αλήθειας : ότι ο θάνατος είναι η μόνη κοινή συνισταμενη.ο συγγραφέας δημιουργεί ένα σύμπαν αρρώστιας και κλειστοφοβικης ατμοσφαιρας όπου αντί να ενώσει τους ανθρώπους τους κάνει να στρέφονται ο ένας ενάντια στον άλλον για να πετύχουν τι? Απολύτως τίποτα . Ο συγγραφέας ασχολήθηκε με το φουτουριστικό στοιχείο και το δυστοπικο και τελικά πέτυχε να γράψει το 1928 ένα βιβλίο το οποίο είναι πιο πραγματικό και επίκαιρο από ποτέ. Μια εργατική τάξη που καταπιέζεται και ασφυκτιά και τελικά το μίσος της και η εκδίκηση της είναι ικανό να "κάψει το Παρίσι " και όχι μόνο ,για να εναντιωθεί στη μπουρζουαζία. Μένω άφωνη με τη διορατικότητα ορισμένων συγγραφέων ,αλήθεια .
Ένα χρόνο μετα την έκδοση του βιβλίου ο Jasiensky απελάθηκε από τη Γαλλία γιατί θεωρήθηκε ότι κάνει επικίνδυνη πολιτικη προπαγάνδα και περίπου δέκα χρόνια μετά εκτελέστηκε με την κατηγορία της κατασκοπίας .
Το βιβλίο αυτό είναι απαιτητικό ως προς το ότι θέλει την προσοχή του αναγνώστη ,έχει πολλούς χαρακτήρες ,αλλά ανταμείβει με το παραπάνω με το πόσο φρέσκια ματιά ειχε και πόσο φιλοσοφημένος ήταν ο συγγραφέας ,γιατί αυτό τελικά μόνο μπορεί να μας σώσει ίσως ,κάπου,κάποτε, να φιλοσοφησουμε τις καταστάσεις . Εξαιρετικό ...
🌟🌟🌟🌟✨/5 αστέρια

[Bbrown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Progressivism and tolerance are facing pushback like we’ve not seen in the last thirty years; xenophobia threatens to tear nations apart; even the institution of democracy itself seems to be at risk. Whether you believe these things or not, they are unquestionably how many people are depicting the state of the world today. I Burn Paris, a book written nearly a century ago, speaks to these concerns, but more than that it does so with a great premise, well developed characters, and ambiguity that will force you to think. The only explanation for why it and Bruno Jasieński seem to be almost entirely forgotten that I can come up with is that reading I Burn Paris makes people uncomfortable, but it makes you uncomfortable for a purpose. It’s an underappreciated gem that I recommend you read.

The greatest strength of I Burn Paris is its premise: after being psychologically broken by losing everything, a worker releases a deadly plague into Paris’s water supply, which swiftly kills thousands and results in the French army quarantining the city. In the chaos that follows people settle scores, make grabs for power, indulge in hedonism, and (most importantly) different political and ethnic groups break off into their own independent enclaves. Paris is fractured into a patchwork of different factions. These factions ally with each other and fight amongst each other, growing ever more desperate as resources in the quarantined city dwindle.

In Jasieński’s depiction of Paris democracy isn’t a system people truly believe in, just one they are willing to put up with, and which they would abandon if what they truly want is within grasp, whether that be communism, fascism, monarchism, or something else entirely. Likewise, in Jasieński’s Paris the French national identity is one of the first casualties of the plague. When tragedy strikes citizens of Paris don’t identify themselves as Parisians or French (if they ever did), but rather as workers, as American, as Russian, as Jewish, as police officers. It’s the modern concerns over failure to integrate immigrants cranked up to eleven, and I’m not surprised that Jasieński got deported from France for writing this book.

Jasieński doesn’t depict this breakdown of Parisian society by focusing solely on the macro-level, instead he tells his tale through a number of characters that differ vastly in background and philosophy, yet that all have depth. Varying degrees of depth, to be sure, for instance P’an Tsiang-kuei is more one-dimensional than most despite the book giving him a lengthy backstory, but none of Jasieński’s characters are black and white and none of them are boring.

Despite there being no clear heroes or villains, I Burn Paris is unambiguously a critique of capitalism, which is likely a major factor why the book lacks recognition today. The entire first part of the book is the tale of a worker being broken by a city’s indifference to the poor in contrast to its willingness to do anything for a dollar. After being fired from his job through no fault of his own, Pierre is unable to find work, loses his girlfriend, and becomes homeless, eats scraps out of the garbage, gets thrown in prison, even stoops to the depths of trying to make money catering to depraved sexual predilections. Even when he rebounds from poverty Pierre has been shattered by the experience, and takes his revenge on the city when the opportunity arises. This isn’t depicted as an evil act, more like the act of a man understandably driven insane by society at the time.

After moving on from Pierre the book almost immediately jumps into the perspective of another character suffering under the yoke of capitalism. Throughout the book the capitalist system is criticized, often very effectively, and, while the socialist characters are not depicted as perfect, socialism is clearly the best of the options that Jasieński sets out. As a person who has never been a believer in socialism, I have to admit that I Burn Paris made me seriously think about and sympathize with the ideas behind that system in a way that no book had managed to before.

The premise and characters are strong, and I give credit to Jasieński for skillfully pushing his philosophy through the book without being heavy handed, but I Burn Paris is not without its flaws. The most glaring one is that I think more pages could have been spent depicting the plague-ravaged city of Paris and setting an appropriate tone through that depiction. Paris undergoing the cataclysm that I Burn Paris depicts would have been a living nightmare, but all too often the characters leading the different factions seem nonchalant about living in a plague city, and only seem to sporadically remember that they could contract the incurable disease at any minute and be dead within days. This dissonance between how the characters should have been behaving and how they actually were may well have been an intentional commentary by Jasieński on the willful ignorance of those in power, but it still took me out of the story at times. It was made more frustrating when it occurred by other parts of I Burn Paris demonstrating that Jasieński had the writing ability to successfully depict Paris as a nightmare if he had chosen to do so.

The prose of I Burn Paris oscillates between typical fare and wordy descriptions that I thought worked, but I’m sure that many others will find overwritten. Here is a sample of the latter:

The electricity burned bright in the print room of the workers’ daily. Linotypes clattered and the tar-covered typesetters galloped the equine fingers of their calloused hands across the tiny cobblestones of the keys like some strange virtuosi. The levers and scatterbrained letters now leapt up, now dropped, soldiers instantly falling into line

Not for everyone, but on balance I liked it, and verbose descriptions like these make up a small enough percentage of the book that I don’t think they’ll ruin I Burn Paris for you even if you hate them.

The ending of the book goes beyond Paris, with mixed results. To keep my commentary general, I enjoyed the suggestion that the catastrophe that Paris suffered is one that will recur, but to end the book with a depiction of the beginning of a worldwide conflict was a shift that I understood, but that I didn’t think played to the strengths that I Burn Paris showcases.

Overall I Burn Paris is good book in its own right, made even more interesting by its parallels to modern day anxieties. I don’t thing its suggestion that the solution to these anxieties might be socialism would be well received in the current era, and that fact is likely why so few people nowadays are familiar with this book. Nevertheless, its premise and characters make it worth a read, and the prose and ideas it presented were plusses for me as well. I just wish it had done more to establish a realistic tone for what Paris would be like in such a state, and I think an appropriate tone of dread created by depicting the horrors of such a situation would have augmented the call for reform that Jasieński was making with I Burn Paris. I give it a 4/5, and after I think about it more I may rate it even higher. Edit: it's been more than a year since I read this one, and my memory of its flaws have faded while my memory of its virtues have remained. It's my favorite of the books that I read last year, and as such I'm bumping this one up to a 5/5.

[Emma Charala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Θα κάψω το Παρίσι – Όταν η πανούκλα γίνεται πιο ειλικρινής από τον καπιταλισμό
(4,5 ★ – γιατί πάντα μένει μισό αστεράκι για να θυμόμαστε ότι οι επαναστάσεις δεν τελειώνουν ποτέ)

Ο Γιασένσκι πιάνει το Παρίσι του μεσοπολέμου και το μετατρέπει σε εργαστήριο: εργάτες που λιμοκτονούν, αστοί που χορεύουν τζαζ με σαμπάνια, και στη μέση ένας απολυμένος Πιερ που αποφασίζει πως, αν δεν μπορεί να πάρει γοβάκια στη Ζανέτ, θα μοιράσει… πανούκλα. Όχι πολύ ρομαντικό, αλλά σίγουρα πιο δραστικό.
Η γραφή θυμίζει Αϊζενστάιν με φουτουριστικά κοψίματα και τζαζ ρυθμό∙ ένα μοντάζ όπου η Διεθνής ακούγεται παράφωνα, σαν να τη διασκευάζει μπάντα σε υπόγειο μπαρ. Στη μια σελίδα ο Μαρξ κάνει καριέρα ως ήρωας τρόμου, στην άλλη ο καπιταλισμός εμφανίζεται σαν πανηγύρι εξαθλιωμένων. Ο Γιασένσκι δεν χαρίζεται σε κανέναν: αστοί και κομμουνιστές διασύρονται εξίσου για την αλαζονεία και την ανικανότητά τους. Η πόλη σπάει σε μικρές δικτατορίες καχυποψίας, καθεμιά πιο κωμικοτραγική από την άλλη.
Κι εδώ έρχεται το πιο υπαρξιακό του στοιχείο: κανείς δεν είναι καλός, κανείς δεν είναι κακός, όλοι πεθαίνουν. Η απόλυτη ισότητα, μόνο που υλοποιείται όχι μέσα από την ουτοπία αλλά μέσα από την πανδημία. Ο Σαρτρ θα χαμογελούσε πικρά: η ελευθερία δεν είναι να διαλέγεις, αλλά να ξέρεις ότι η κατάληξη είναι ίδια για όλους.
Κι όμως, εκεί που νομίζεις ότι όλα είναι απλώς ένα γκροτέσκο πανόραμα θανάτου, έρχεται η τελευταία πράξη: οι πολιτικοί κρατούμενοι, ξεχασμένοι πίσω από τα τείχη, βγαίνουν και στήνουν μια νέα κομμούνα. Από τις στάχτες, δηλαδή, μια υπόσχεση – ούτε χολιγουντιανή ούτε αγιογραφική, αλλά τόσο κυνική που καταντά πειστική.

Έναν αιώνα μετά, το βιβλίο δεν είναι «παλιό»∙ είναι σαν προειδοποίηση που δεν έχει λήξει ποτέ. Αν σήμερα δεν μας καίει η πανούκλα, μας καίει η αγορά. Κι ο Γιασένσκι, με όλη την υπερβολή του, υπενθυμίζει πως η μόνη ασθένεια που δεν χρειάζεται μετάλλαξη για να μείνει ζωντανή είναι η ανισότητα.

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro impactante. Bruno Jasieński fue un escritor polaco dentro del movimiento futurista. Este movimiento revolucionario imaginaba diferentes escenarios a los cuales estaba abocada la humanidad y analizaba el presente de manera descarada y radical.

En esta novela, un trabajador desilusionado, cabreado con la injusticia y la podredumbre del capitalismo, vierte en las aguas potables un frasco de bacterias de la peste. La epidemia que estalla en la ciudad hace que el gobierno la cierre y nadie puede salir ni entrar.
Un comienzo radical donde el protagonista le pega fuego a París y a partir de aquí la ciudad pasará a ser la protagonista de la novela.
La urbe pasa a dividirse en diferentes ghettos donde no se puede salir ni entrar( judios, rusos, chinos, estadounidenses) y queda totalmente aislada de Francia y del resto del mundo ante el temor de que la peste se contagie al resto del planeta.

Esta novela supuso que Jasienski tuviese que refugiarse en Rusia ante la condena que sufrió después de su publicación y que le supuso la deportación por parte de Francia. Es una utopía comunista cuya función es la de confrontar el espacio negativo de un sistema capitalista en colapso a su reverso positivo, una ciudad comunista levantada sólo por los obreros y eso se ve muy bien planteado con las vidas de algunos de los protagonistas chinos o rusos, cuyas vivencias tampoco es que sean demasiado agradables. Probablemente de esa doble vertiente de los movimientos políticos tuviese experiencia Jasieński al ser desgraciadamente condenado a la cárcel durante las purgas estalinistas, lugar donde fallecería fusilado.

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ένα πολύ δυνατό πρώτο μέρος, με πυκνή γραφή, ποιητική δύναμη, σουρεαλιστικό ύφος. Στα επόμενα όμως κεφαλαία, η τέχνη υποχωρεί μπροστά στην πολιτική και ο σοσιαλιστικός ρεαλισμός κερδίζει έδαφος. Εκεί όμως με έχασε. Μια σπουδαία ευκαιρία που δεν δικαιώθηκε.

[Gianni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brucio Parigi viene presentato in quarta di copertina come ”un romanzo futurista che mescola fantascienza, distopia e avanguardia”; pur non essendo particolarmente affezionato alle etichette di genere non mi sembra ci siano risvolti fantascientifici e sulla distopia e l’avanguardia rimango un po’ dubbioso. Mi sembra, invece, che si rinvengano in più punti tracce di scrittura futurista, ”Dietro un’Hispano-Suiza che fuggiva in avanti snella e di razza, femmina di levriero con le pupille dei fari spaventate, grondante del succo femminile della benzina, con latrati e lamenti, mordendosi reciprocamente e provando invano a raggiungere con le narici le loro sottocode femminili, correvano maestosamente e dignitosamente come alani le Rolls-Royce, tozze come bassotti le Amilcar, sporche e randagie come bastardi le Ford e raccolte, dalle code tagliate come foxterrier, le Citroën: una variopinta e furibonda muta dei cani nel periodo del calore. Al di sopra della strada si spandeva il chiasso, odore svenevole di femmina, il caos di un folle inseguimento, ossido di carbonio inebriante in un afoso pomeriggio estivo.”

Brucio Parigi è un testo interessante, ben scritto e scorrevole, stratificato, dall’architettura complessa e più, a mio avviso, ucronico che distopico, talvolta un po’ didascalico e potrebbe apparire dispersivo. Può far storcere il naso a chi non gradisce leggere di utopie socio-politiche e da questo punto di vista mi sembra che, per alcuni versi, abbia delle affinità con Il tallone di ferro di Jack London, pubblicato vent’anni prima.

Scritto in Francia in soli tre mesi e pubblicato nel 1928, prima a puntate su L’Humanitè e poi in volume edito da Flammarion, è ambientato nell’intorno di quello stesso anno.
Il mondo è uscito da poco dal primo conflitto mondiale e si prepara alla grande crisi del ’29, da un lato crescono i profitti e dall’altro si moltiplicano lo sfruttamento, le serrate e i licenziamenti, su scala che non è più locale ma planetaria, ”Il mondo, al pari di una macchina costruita male, distruggeva più di quel che produceva.”; l’Occidente chiude gli occhi al ritmo delle jazz band, dell’alcol, del sesso consumato nei bordelli, con un tenore di vita impossibile da raggiungere e mantenere per la maggior parte della popolazione, a meno di non vendere le proprie braccia e il proprio corpo.

È in questo contesto che esplodono la rabbia e la ribellione di Pierre, guardiano del serbatoio dell’acqua a Parigi, che diffonde il bacillo della peste nella rete dell’acquedotto della città con una decisione che ha solo qualche barlume di coscienza politica maturata in carcere, ”Anche in precedenza Pierre aveva sentito, quando ancora stava in fabbrica, lunghi e monotoni racconti su quel nuovo mondo, senza ricchi e poveri, dove le fabbriche sarebbero divenute proprietà  degli operai e il lavoro, anziché schiavitù, sarebbe divenuto inno e igiene di un corpo liberato. Non ci credeva. Non toccare quella macchina mostruosa! Aveva attecchito per metri e metri sotto terra. Una volta messa in moto, girava da tempi immemorabili. Afferrare l’ingranaggio con le mani nude? Non si sarebbe fermato; avrebbe soltanto strappato via le mani. Vide il sangue sulle bende macchiate, le mani legate con stracci insanguinati e pensò: un altro, inutile sforzo. I corpi feriti, con un unico colpo della cinghia di trasmissione, venivano gettati a margine, al di là  del muro.”.

Quello di Pierre è un gesto individuale, una vendetta personale contro i soprusi subiti, non ha nulla di nichilista o di anarchico e neppure di terroristico, forse ha più affinità con il gesto dell’impiegato cantato da Fabrizio De Andrè.
L'azione di Pierre è l’input scatenante, la rapida diffusione della peste incrementa la crisi a cui le istituzioni e la borghesia capitalista non sanno dare risposte e che innesca l’odio di classe, la risposta xenofoba, solleticando la pancia della massa, a partire dall’istigazione al linciaggio,
”«Sicuramente è stato lui ad avvelenarci! Delinquente! Si vede subito dalla faccia!»
«Picchiatelo!»
«Ammazzatelo, questo zoticone!» echeggiarono decine di voci imbestialite.
«Signori, e se fosse un pazzo?!» gridò qualcuno; però il suo grido, come un sasso, affondò nel mare della confusione.
«E la peste, da dove è uscita fuori?»
«E le provette?»
«Si sa che è stato lui ad avvelenarci!»
«Ammazzatelo, questo cane rognoso!»
Dopo il terzo colpo di bottiglia ben assestato, l’uomo dai capelli rossi barcollò e, schizzando sangue, crollò sul marciapiede. Lo ricoprò una fiumana di gente furibonda, una selva di bastoni sollevati, uno stridore di sifoni frantumati e un penetrante strillo di donna.
Quando la fiumana di gente defluì, sul marciapiede rimase senza vita un grumo rosso appiattito.”

Qui si vede la modernità e l’attualità del testo, non tanto perché Jasienski abbia doti di preveggenza, ma perché fondamentalmente la nostra società poggia sulle stesse basi. La risposta alla diffusione della peste è innanzi tutto l’isolamento di Parigi, ”La Prefettura informava che, allo scopo di localizzare l’epidemia, particolarmente maligna, e prevenire la sua propagazione in tutta la Francia, nel corso della notte Parigi era stata circondata dalle truppe militari. Qualsiasi tentativo di uscire dalla città  sarebbe risultato inutile e sarebbe stato punito con la pena di morte. Il Prefetto chiedeva ai cittadini di mantenere la calma e la prudenza, e di non abbandonare le proprie abitazioni. […] Tutta una serie di istituzioni pubbliche era stata trasformata, in fretta e furia, in ospedali. Si prevedeva una requisizione obbligatoria di auto private dai garage per metterle a disposizione della Croce Rossa.”
La seconda risposta è la frammentazione su base etnica o religiosa, ”Le torri delle chiese cattoliche e ortodosse e i minareti delle moschee accompagnavano in cielo, come parafulmini, una corrente magnetica di diversità  che cresceva in ogni istante, raccogliendo il branco umano disperso in singoli compagini razziali e religiose.”, con la costituzione di enclavi separate che anche la nostra storia recente ricorda, ”Il giorno 30 luglio, quasi contemporaneamente, dall’organismo omogeneo di Parigi, per effetto degli attacchi armati dei separatisti e nel moto istintivo d’autodifesa di fronte al contatto con la pestilenza degli ariani, si distinsero due quartieri: il Quartier Latin e l’Hôtel-de-Ville, che crearono sulla mappa della vecchia Parigi due piccoli stati indipendenti: quello cinese e quello ebraico. I movimenti sociali seguivano quelli razziali. […] Dopo mezz’ora sui muri della Cité apparve un decreto che creò un’agitazione insolita sull’isolotto assonnato. In virtù di questo decreto, tutti gli abitanti biondi dell’isolotto venivano dichiarati nemici dello Stato, a differenza dei bruni, che risultavano invece cittadini osservanti della legge. Al personale della polizia incaricato di fare applicare la legge si ordinava di liquidare i nuovi criminali nel più breve tempo possibile, agendo senza scrupoli.”
E una conseguenza è la divisione sociale, ”Com’è buffo: soltanto ieri erano compagni di scuola, giocavano a carte sotto il banco e dopo la scuola a tennis; mentre oggi sono soldati di guardia che vigilano la frontiera di due stati separati dalle estremità  di un ponte. In verità  non sono paesi nemici, anzi, in un certo qual modo persino alleati, e tuttavia sono sempre due paesi separati.”

Per una scelta dell’autore molto interessante Pierre muore nella prima parte del libro e nessuno degli altri protagonisti delle storie parallele sopravvive a tutto il romanzo, segno, forse, che le vicende individuali anche se entrano nel flusso della Storia sono alla fine irrilevanti, ciò che resta e ha importanza sono i grandi movimenti che intersecano le loro strade e che spesso si scontrano.
Jasienski dipinge la società capitalistica del tempo per quello che è (ma è forse tanto diversa oggi?), sfruttatrice, guerrafondaia, autoritaria, imperialista; a questa oppone, come speranza e utopia, il modello nato dalla rivoluzione d’ottobre che si auspicava unisse i lavoratori su scala mondiale. Ironia della sorte, Stalin stava ripiegando sul socialismo in un solo paese e Jasienski, rifugiato in URSS nel 1929, fu vittima delle purghe staliniane e morì in prigione a Mosca nel 1938.
Con queste premesse, la trama non può che essere di ampio respiro arrivando a interessare lo sfruttamento imperialista in Cina fino alla vittoria di Chiang Kai-shek, ”«Ai bianchi piacciono i soldi. Per averli bisogna lavorare e ai bianchi non piace lavorare, ma gli piace che si lavori per loro. Nel loro paese lavorano per loro i macchinari e i loro stessi operai bianchi. Ma ai bianchi non bastano mai i soldi. Per questo sono venuti in Cina e hanno obbligato tutti i cinesi a lavorare per loro. I bianchi, in questa faccenda, sono aiutati dall’Imperatore e dai mandarini. E proprio per questo il popolo cinese vive così in miseria, in quanto deve lavorare per l’Imperatore, per i mandarini, e soprattutto per i bianchi che hanno bisogno di tanti, tantissimi soldi, così che non gli rimane più nulla.» […] Oggi, del resto, i nostri ruoli stanno cambiando. La vostra vorace Europa sta crepando, come una cavalla che si sia rotta una gamba davanti all’ultimo ostacolo. Sta crepando con la gola strangolata per l’avidità  eccessiva, senza aver fatto in tempo a divorare tutto. Non è un caso che la piaga che la sta finendo è la peste, la nostra vecchia conoscenza asiatica. L’Asia si è rivelata indigesta per lo stomaco del capitalismo europeo.”

Alla fine è un libro che risulta di piacevole lettura, trecentocinquanta pagine scorrevoli e in cui le divagazioni e le diramazioni sono tenute insieme bene.

[Tasos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Δεν ξέρω αν φταίει η πρόσφατη εμπειρία της πανδημίας, ο οργασμός των ανατυπώσεων χαμένων μυθιστορημάτων που επανέρχονται θεαματικά στο προσκήνιο με την αύρα (ή το hype) της λογοτεχνικής αποκάλυψης ή το γεγονός ότι το ξεκίνησα χωρίς καμία προσδοκία πέρα από το αν θα δικαιώσει τον πιασάρικο τίτλο του, αλλά τελικά το Θα Κάψω το Παρίσι αποδείχθηκε ένα εμπρηστικό μυθιστόρημα, κάτι παραπάνω από ένα απλό κι εκ νέου επίκαιρο αφήγημα καταστροφής, μια ορμητική λογοτεχνική περιδίνηση μέσα στην καταγωγική βία ενός ολόκληρου κόσμου που δεν ξέρει καν ότι περιμένει την καταστροφή του κι όμως τη γεννά καθημερινά, μια απόκοσμη, αταβιστική και νομοτελειακή κατάδυση στο χάος, τη σύγκρουση και την εντροπία.

Αφετηρία και πυρήνας του βιβλίου είναι η εσκεμμένη διάδοση ενός θανατηφόρου μικροβίου στο Παρίσι του Μεσοπολέμου, μια πράξη εκδίκησης που λειτουργεί όχι μόνο ως αφηγηματικός μοχλός αλλά ως χειρουργικό εργαλείο για την απογύμνωση μιας ολόκληρης κοινωνίας που παραπαίει σε σαθρά θεμέλια, για μια διαδοχή ρεαλιστικών, σχεδόν νατουραλιστικών, περιγραφών που μετατρέπονται σταδιακά σε μια γκροτέσκα αλληγορία ταξικής πάλης και σε ένα φουτουριστικό υπερθέαμα, όπου ιδεολογίες, κοινωνικές τάξεις και λογοτεχνικά ύφη συγκρούονται και αλληλοεξοντώνονται.

Ο Γιασένσκι εξετάζει τη βία της Ιστορίας μέσα από τη λογοτεχνική υπερβολή για να ξεσκεπάσει την ηθική χρεοκοπία της αστικής τάξης, την απανθρωπιά του κρατικού μηχανισμού και την έλλειψη συμπόνιας μιας κοινωνίας που προτιμά την αυτοσυντήρηση από την αλληλεγγύη, ξεκάθαρος ως προς το πού ρέπει η καρδιά του κι επιρρεπής ενίοτε στην προπαγάνδα, με έναν δαιμονισμένο και πολυφωνικό ρυθμό πού δεν ενδιαφέρεται για τις λεπτές αποχρώσεις ή το ψυχολογικό βάθος, αλλά επιδιώκει τη μετωπική σύγκρουση.

Αποκύημα της συναρπαστικής και τρικυμιώδους εποχής του, το Θα Κάψω το Παρίσι διαβάζεται έναν αιώνα μετά ως ένα ηλεκτρισμένο και οργισμένο (μητρο)πολιτικό έπος, ένα λογοτεχνικό γκραν γκινιόλ όπου η παραζάλη, η φαιδρότητα και η κτηνωδία αγγίζουν τα επίπεδα της συγγραφικής έκστασης. Είναι κάπως αστείο ότι στις άγριες μέρες (μας) του ύστερου καπιταλισμού η πανδημία δεν έφερε την επανάσταση, αλλά ίσως αυτό το αστείο είναι τελικά σε βάρος μας.

[Xrysoula Patatoukaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Τι νόημα έχει να κάθομαι τώρα να γράφω πόσο μου άρεσε, πόσο υπέροχο, λυρικό, μαγικό είναι, πόσο βαθιά δυστοουτοπικά πολιτικό. Το μόνο που θέλω να πω είναι ότι για μένα) ΑΥΤΟ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΕΝΑ ΤΡΟΜΑΚΤΙΚΑ ΣΗΜΑΝΤΙΚΟ ΒΙΒΛΙΟ!!!

[Eadweard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Burn Paris has characters, but like Andrei Bely's Petersburg, the real protagonist is the city itself, that was one of the first things I thought as I read the first 30 or so pages, it reminded me quite a bit of Petersburg, the scale of it, the pace, the poem-like vibe. I simply loved this book. An ode to the proletariat? A rail against capitalism? Both.




"Back in the factory Pierre had heard long and monotonous stories about this new world, a world with neither rich nor oppressed, where the factories would be owned by the workers, and labor would change from a form of slavery to a hymn, to hygiene for the liberated body. He didn’t believe them. No one would budge the diabolical machine, not one inch! It had grown deep into the Earth. It had been running since time immemorial, ever since it had been set in motion. Seize the cogs with your bare hands? It wouldn’t stop, it would just rip off your hands. He saw blood on soiled bandages, hands bound in bloody rags, and he thought: another exercise in futility. The battered bodies were flung off the transmission belt and onto the sidelines, behind the wall, with a flick of the wrist.

Sometimes at night, a white-hot word of hatred would fly out from the huddled group, fall like a spark upon the soft sawdust of his dreams and then blaze up with a red flame: Go! Stand arm in arm with them! Storm! Smash! Take revenge!"
----



"The following day was the 14th of July.

Paris’s intrepid shopkeepers, those who had stormed the Bastille to erect in its place an ugly hollow column “with a view of the city,” twelve bistros, and three brothels for average citizens and one for homosexuals, were throwing a party in their own honor, as they did every year, with a traditional, republican dance.

Decorated from head to toe in sashes of tricolor ribbons, Paris looked like an aging actress dressed up like a country bumpkin to star in some folksy piece of trash at the church fair.

The squares, illuminated with tens of thousands of paper lanterns and light bulbs, slowly filled with the strolling crowd.
With the coming of dusk an unseen switch was flicked, and the gaudy footlights of the streets exploded in a gala show.
On platforms cobbled together from planks, drowsy, grotesque musicians – rightly assuming that a holiday meant a day of communal rest – blew a few bars of a fashionable dance tune out of their strangely warped trumpets every half-hour or so and then rested long and extravagantly."
----



"“Tell me,” the professor finally said, wiping the misted lenses of his glasses with a handkerchief, “tell me if you’d be so kind ... I simply don’t understand. Why is it exactly that you despise us so implacably when you owe us so much, when you are endlessly taking from us. I think about this constantly, and I can’t find an answer. If I killed you, I’d never know. Please explain why, if it makes no difference to you ...”


Under the arcades of the bridge with their feminine curves, black, sparkling water babbled with a million mouths in prayer.
Leaning on the stone balustrade, P’an Tsiang-kuei spoke in a measured and passionless voice:

“Asian-European antagonism, a subject on which your scholars have scribbled whole volumes, searching for its origins in the depths of racial and religious differences, plays itself out entirely on the surface of everyday economics and class struggle. Your science, of which you are so proud and which we travel here to study, is not a system of tools to help man conquer nature, but rather to help Europe conquer non-Europe, to exploit weaker continents. This is why we despise your Europe and why we come here to study you so fervently. Only by mastering the achievements of your science will we be able to shed the yoke of your oppression. Your bourgeois Europe, expatiating far and wide on your cultural self-sufficiency, is no more than a small parasite latched onto the western flank of Asia’s gigantic body, sucking its juices dry. It is we, planting our rice and growing cotton and tea, who are – along with your own proletariat – the real, though indirect, creators of your culture. Its complex aroma, spreading the sweat of your workers and peasants all around the world, mingles with the smell of the Chinese coolie’s sweat." "
----




"Bells rang from Sacré-Coeur.

From Saint-Pierre, from Sainte-Clotilde, from Saint-Louis, from the small, scattered churches of the Saint-Germain district, Catholic Paris replied with a rueful clanging of bells.

The dull, weepy bells fought it out over the city with their fists of lead in their hollow bronze chests, and the church interiors responded with the din of hands convulsively wringing and a bitter, pious murmur. The adoration of the Sacrament continued incessantly, administered by waxen priests swaying from exhaustion.

In the Orthodox church of the Passy district, the metropolitan in gilded robes read from the Gospels in a rich, sonorous voice, and all the bells rang like it was Easter Sunday.

Paris again burst open along the wide seam of the Seine, where it had once been hastily stitched with the white threads of bridges.

On either side of the Passy Bridge flags fluttered from a lamppost: the tricolor flag of the Russian Empire and the flag of the Bourbons, white with gold lilies – the provisional border between two monarchies."
----




"Left to their own devices, the police found themselves for the first time in a troublesome quandary. Suddenly stripped of the compass of the law, unable to decide which of the emergent governments should be considered lawful, and realizing the fictitiousness of any government outside the ring of the cordon, the unemployed blue people swiftly came to realize that they were less real creatures with every passing day, becoming metaphysical fiction, pure nonsense, insubstantial, like the very concept of “police for police’s sake.”

On the third day, Île de la Cité bore witness to the first demonstration of unemployed policemen in the history of the world.

The crowd of jobless blue people spread all across the island, flowing into the square below the prefecture. At the head of the procession demonstrators carried placards with slogans: “The Republic is dead – Long live the Republic!” “We demand some form of government!” “The police without a government is like an electric tram without a power plant!” and so forth.

An impressive meeting was held in the square before the prefecture. After long discussions on how to save the police as such, it was decided to turn to the various governments of the new states one at a time, offering law enforcement services.

“This is not about the color, or even the national status of a government,” claimed the man who devised the idea. “In order to win back their raison d’être, to return from the land of fiction and onto the lists of real institutions, the police have to immediately support a government of any sort, even the idea of government. Without the notion of law and order, we are but shadows.”"

[Braden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very bleak, ironic and funny.
The whole thing works as this impressive machine for Jasienski's metaphors. If you can't come to any conclusion about the viability of Communism, if one can avoid feeling drowned as a proletariat within a Capitalist machine, what's obvious is this is a pretty incredibly crafted novel.
Since this was written in 1928 and only published in English in 2012 this is likely the case of a significant novel being given late-dues.

[Aleksandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Futurist masterpiece... Definitely not an easy read, I would like to point out the beauty of the prose in it, a masterful control of the written word "and an ability to make even the most mundane, the most brutal and the most industrialized scenery seem beautiful."- it is truly a rarity.
The fact that saddened me deeply was the knowledge that Jasienski still do not receive the recognition he had most certainly deserved, although it has been 91 years since the first publication.

[Alicja Bagińska · Rating 4 out of 5]

dżuma dla komunistów

[Anastasia Ts. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 ⭐️

[Natalia Osolińska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coś zupełnie dla mnie nowego. Bardzos is cieszę, ze miałam okazję przeczytać tą historię. Jej poetyckość w opisach rzeczy brutalnych mnie urzekała, a pomysł na fabule, mająca chwalić komunizm intrygujący- czy musiał być aż tak szalony? Chwilami się dłużyła, ale po przeczytaniu czułam wielką satysfakcję:)) Nie wiem dlaczego, ale przez te wszystkie szaleństwa w fabule, to trochę mi się skojarzył z Gombrowiczem xd

[Kitty Red-Eye · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first fifth or so is pretty good, very well-written, Darkness and delirium. Up until the plague claims its maker.

Then everything changes and we get the life story of a chinese communist, very impressive man.

Then everything changes and it spirals downwards into a non-narrative with multiple viewpoints it is virtually impossible to give a shit about.

Then everything changes and there are hardly any POVs at all, only the all-knowing author writing fantasy proletarian history.

A few POVs again, then back to fantasy history book.

It’s pretty boring.

Then it ends.

[Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for audacity alone. And it is a fun book, a catastrophic vision of Western Europe crumbling, giving way for a new system (it was written between the two World Wars, so guess which). And you know, as bizarre as the book is, there are some touching moments among the plague and hubris. Mostly I wanted to see what was so bad that the French felt the need to kick Jasienski out of Europe.

[Kevin Stebner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely spectacular! Startlingly plausible, razor-sharp prose (even in translation); amid the shifting perspectives, utterly engrossing. Best novel I've read this year.

[Paco Serrano · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A las 8 salió de la fábrica medio sordo y desmoralizado. Por la garganta le subía un grito absurdo que crecía por momentos. Jamás habría podido imaginar aquello. ¿Qué eran los libros, la pobreza endémica, el hambre y la abstracción de las estadísticas comparado con aquello? Allí, por primera vez, presenció con ojos desorbitados por el espanto, el abismo de la desgracia humana, la enormidad del tormento reservado al hombre común".

Yo quemo París, o Cómo destruir al capitalismo en tres sencillos pasos, es una metáfora de una ciudad en ruinas que intenta renacer desde la organización social. El libro es de propaganda soviética, pero va más allá del deseo político: la historia tiene una fuerza realista maravillosa.

[Katerina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πάρα πολύ καλό βιβλίο, ειδικά από την μέση και μετά που πιάνει γρήγορες στροφές. Προπαγανδιστικό μεν, αξιόλογο δε. Πολύ καλή μετάφραση, μπράβο στον εκδοτικό οίκο για την επιλογή.

[KR · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Burn Paris was a great read, if confusing at times. Profoundly ambiguous in viewpoint, in my opinion. It was only later that I read about Jasiénski that things started to make sense: a Polish Futurist, a poet, a communist, and a later prisoner of Stalin's gulag. But (perhaps shockingly for a futurist) this book is possessed of a deep class hatred, mocking the liberals of Paris, while the proletariat and political underclass are nearly heroic. Of course I was a huge fan of this part in particular.

The novel opens with a story that's pretty standard fare, I guess I would call it romantic. Pierre loses his girlfriend, his job, and his sanity in quick order. After that, the story explodes, killing Pierre in a bizarre way (nearly off-camera) after he introduces some type of hyper-bubonic plague to Paris' water reservoir. As Paris disintegrates under the plague, factions form and intrigue begins: here's the Soviet of Belleville, here's the White Army Emigres, here's the Parisian bourgeoisie, here's the Jewish quarter, here's the Maoist Latin Quarter. As often with books from a more politicized time period, the starkness of the political affiliations on display jumped out at me—imagine a post-apocalyptic (if you can call it that) novel that so explicitly represents political schools like this written in the last like 20 years. Maybe this is too Mark Fisher of me but I couldn't help but compare it to contemporary things like The Hunger Games with its laughable caricature of politics and insurrection.

Anyway, the book ends with a series of feints and botched heroism. Not going to spoil the end, but it's strangely uplifting what happens inside a diseased Paris within the military cordon.

[Paulo Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary book. I discovered it in a bookshop in Krakow, it looked interesting, so later I ordered it. It was a surprise, it's not that often that an old bookworm like me finds such an original and excellent work. I guess it could only have been written in the first quarter of the 20th century, when modernism turned the novel writing upside down.

The book is so original in so many ways. One can classify it as a dystopian book, or as a socialist book, but the good thing is that it defies classification - it deals with how society and civilized mores crash during a catastrophe, but also how humanity endures. His characters are all extremely humane and believable, ordinary human beings caught in extraordinary circumstances and questioning their moral standards. They're all real and endearing, and it's painful to watch their inexorable demise.

It's a wonderful read, and I highly recommend it.

[Tomasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powieść bardzo zaskakująca. Nie jest to może "wielkie" dzieło ale z pewnością jedna z niespodzianek polskiej literatury, która mimo upływu czasu nadal warta jest czytania. Niby powieść socjalistyczna, z tezą i znanymi motywami, ale jeszcze przed ustaleniem się socrealizmu. Są postacie uciemiężonego proletariatu, silnych robotników i ideowych komunistów, jest apoteoza pracy i krytyka zachodniej zgnilizny, ale styl, język i fabuła są dalekie od ortodoksji. Przede wszystkim ogromna pasja niszczenia. Komunistyczna utopia powstaje dopiero na ugorze Europy. Sam pomysł zarazy, uwolnionej przez człowieka, a która nie zostaje opanowana, lecz wypala się wraz z wymarciem Paryża jest zupełnie wyjątkowa.
Bardzo dobrym pomysłem jest wydanie jej wraz z opowiadaniem Moranda, które wbrew temu co napisano we wstępie, jest rzeczywiście mocną krytyką warunków życia w radzieckiej Moskwie.

[Electric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modernistisch, futuristisch und auf sehr verstörende Weise aktuell, seziert Jasieński die Zersplitterung der Gesellschaft im Angesicht der bakteriologischen Katastrophe. Trotz eindeutiger Parteiergreifung für die Sache der Kommunist*innen ist das Buch über weite Strecken keine holzschnittartige Abrechnung, auch den Bösewichten widerfährt so etwas wie erzählerische Gerechtigkeit. Ab und zu holpert die Struktur, aber das wird insbesondere durch die oft durchaus lyrische Qualität der Sprache aufgewogen.

[Li · Rating 5 out of 5]

jasienski’s descriptions of the city are as coarse as they are kinetic, and his metaphors can be a bit too on the nose. it takes the entire novel and then some to get used to. I couldn’t feel cold or fear for a good five hours after finishing this book. I imagine this is what it must feel like to bump a line of cocaine

[John Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

jasienski is lazy and smart. the book is driven by strong passions and prejudices. doesnt apologize for outright glorification of proletarians and, more strikingly, the villification of decadent and rotting liberals & bourgeois

he got banned from france for writing it

[Adam McPhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

When life gives you test tubes, head for the water treatment plant.

Starts off like the social realism down-and-out type stuff from Orwell or Celine or whoever, but then goes off the wall when a plague reduces 1920s Paris into a bunch of competing factions: communists, the police, Chinese, Jews, Anglo-Americans, White Russians, all willing to go to extreme lengths for the last scrap of bread in the cordoned city.

If I can be vulgar for a paragraph: this is what zombie movies aspire to and never reach. Or think of it as like a 1920s version of The Purge, but one that doesn't try to hide its ideology or sympathies.

It's told in the montage style that was popular in Soviet cinema at the time, and it rules, especially as the technique amps up towards the end of the novel when the plague has been replaced with famine and the world has written Paris off for dead.

That radio crackle is going to stick with me for a long time yet.

Under the arcades of the bridge with their feminine curves, black, sparkling water babbled with a million mouths in prayer.
Leaning on the stone balustrade, P’an Tsiang-kuei spoke in a measured and passionless voice:
“Asian-European antagonism, a subject on which your scholars have scribbled whole volumes, searching for its origins in the depths of racial and religious differences, plays tself out entirely on the surface of everyday economics and class struggle. Your science, of which you are so proud and which we travel here to study, is not a system of tools to help man conquer nature, but rather to help Europe conquer non-Europe, to exploit weaker continents. This is why we despise your Europe and why we come here to study you so fervently. Only by mastering the achievements of your science will we be able to shed the yoke of your oppression. Your bourgeois Europe, expatiating far and wide on your cultural self-sufficiency, is no more than a small parasite latched onto the western flank of Asia’s gigantic body, sucking its juices dry. It is we, planting our rice and growing cotton and tea, who are – along with your own proletariat – the real, though indirect, creators of your culture. Its complex aroma, spreading the sweat of your workers and peasants all around the world, mingles with the smell of the Chinese coolie’s sweat.
“But today the tides are turning. Your gluttonous Europe is croaking like a mare who has broken its leg before the final hurdle. It’s croaking without having swallowed everything down, its gullet clogged from the greedy mouthfuls it’s taken. It’s no accident that it’s being killed off by the plague, an old friend of ours in Asia. The stomach of European capitalism has found Asia indigestible.
“How sweet it is to watch the death of your enemy, sneaking up behind him, to see miniature reflections of your face in his terror-dilated pupils. I saw one of your plague victims. He was practically blue when the health service carried him out of his house. When they wanted to put him into a vehicle with other people, he burst out screaming: ‘You’re not putting me in there! Those people are infested!’ They had to use force. He thrashed, kicked and bit, and when he was finally pushed inside and the doors were bolted behind him, he suddenly turned blue and stiff. His fear of death advanced death’s slow progress.
“I looked into those eyes wide with lethal horror, and then I understood that precisely this fear was the engine and the mainspring of your whole vast culture. That dread, that drive to endure at any cost, against the logical inevitability of death, has pushed you to superhuman effort, to carve your faces into such summits as could not be wiped clean by the all-consuming river of time. I also thought that perhaps only with an injection of the serum of European culture could our Asia be torn from its thousand-year coma under the Bodhi Tree of Buddhism. Thus far Europe has only sent us her merchants and her missionaries. Christianity was once a venom Asia inoculated into Europe, a venom that destroyed the rich Roman culture and plunged Europe for many centuries into a barbarian darkness. But Europe proved capable of assimilating even this poison of powerlessness, kineticizing it, sucking out the venom and turning it into a tool of oppression. Today Europe is getting its belated revenge by exporting it back to Asia. Unable to colonize us outright, they want to turn us into a colony of the Vatican. Christ is a salesman, a paid stooge of the profiteers.
“Today, however, it can no longer do us any harm. Europe is dying in its last convulsive spasms. No cordon sanitaire will save it. The plague will surge unstoppably across the whole of the continent when it’s done with Paris. To tell the truth, its meddling in our age-old conflict is entirely superfluous. The absurdity of this intervention would almost convince me of the existence of your god, whose tricks – if we are to believe the authors of the Holy Book – were never exactly distinguished by their excessive intelligence. The years were already numbered for your imperialist Europe one way or another, and there was no need to hurry the conclusion with such extravagance.“Two years from now, on the nameless, abandoned tomb of your rapacious Europe of exploiters, there would have grown a new Europe, a Europe of workers, who would have easily communicated with Asia through the international language of labor.
“The unwelcome intervention of this pointless natural disaster might bring about the death of both Europes in one go: the one that was dying and the one that was yet to be born.
“The old usurer hasn’t even had time to put her last will in order. But the will – though unwritten – still exists. We are its inheritors, along with your own proletariat. Fate has cast us here, to the metropolises of Europe, to tear the keys from its ossifying hands.”
P’an Tsiang-kuei fell silent. For a moment the only thing audible was the splash of water breaking against the base of the pillars supporting the bridge.
“Listen carefully. This is the expedition of the Paris Republic of Soviets speaking. At midnight we broke through the cordon and came here for food. The Parisian proletariat is dying of starvation. Our boat is on the river, across from the dock. I am speaking from its deck. Don’t try to call the garrison for help. All the telephone lines have been cut. The only remaining line connects you to our boat. Now listen carefully. We have come in peace. We are anchored in the middle of the river and if you act promptly we won’t touch shore at all. We have come to collect food for the starving poor of Paris. If over the next hour you do not supply and load barges with six hundred sacks of flour, we will come ashore, plunder, and bombard your village. We are giving you one hour. It is your job, Citizen Mayor, to wake up the village, arrange transport, and guide the shipment to the dock. You, Citizen Priest, will use your authority to convince the reluctant and ensure that everything gets done on time. Both of you set your watches. It is now ten to two. If by ten to three the first load of sacks of flour has not yet appeared on the road to the docks, we will disembark. Discipline and punctuality will keep you and all of France from becoming infected with the plague. Understood, Mayor? Six hundred sacks of flour in one hour to the docks.”
A British plane flying from London to Lyon lost its way in the thick fog over the Channel, flew off course, and unexpectedly found itself over Paris. It miraculously escaped being fired at and managed, in spite of a broken wing, to land beyond the cordon.
What the English pilot saw and reported was so unfathomable that even the tabloid press, which was not known for its adherence to scruples, conveyed it with a heavy dose of skepticism.
Wanting to establish where he was, the pilot had flown at only three hundred feet above the ground. By the time he had realized he was above Paris, it was too late – his curiosity had gotten the better of his caution.
He had flown from the direction of the Bois de Boulogne. There was a southerly wind blowing the fog from the city, so everything was clear as a bell. The Paris that sprawled before his eyes was not burned in the slightest. The buildings, palaces, and monuments – everything seemed to be standing where they had always been, and yet he was also struck by all the changes that had taken place. The first thing the pilot noticed were the countless radio towers soaring above the city. The air was sliced on all sides by an infinity of antenna wires.
Passing the Arc de Triomphe, the pilot flew along the Champs-Elysées. What he saw there defied all probability.
Where once the Place de la Concorde had stretched with a measureless sheet of polished asphalt, from La Madeleine to the Chambre des Députés, from Champs-Elysées to the Tuileries, a meadow of ripe grain now rippled in the gentle southerly wind. This grain was being gathered by mechanized harvesters driven by brawny, tanned men in white undershirts. Men and women dressed in the same light harvesting clothes were nimbly piling the ready sheaves onto a waiting truck. At the edges of the field on all sides, women rested and breast-fed their infants.
Seeing the airplane overhead, the harvesters stopped working, turned their heads upward, and gesticulated wildly.
Flying over the Tuileries Gardens the pilot noticed a colony of a few thousand children playing in identical clothing, smocks and small red caps, like a field of poppies right beside the fields of grain.
Where the Luxembourg Gardens had once sprawled were now rows of cauliflower growing white in the sun in a chessboard of colorful plots, a gigantic vegetable garden.
The pilot was so astonished by what he saw that he left further observations aside and flew a beeline over the city to hurry and share his discovery with his superiors.
“This is the workers’ Paris. Workers! Peasants! People bound by the yoke! A war against the USSR is a war against you, a war against our commune that you shall defend, as an international revolutionary bastion in the sea of capitalist Europe. Pick up your arms! All for revolutionary Paris! For dis ... pea ... with the Uni ...”

... Madeleine, Madeleine!

“... live ... your revolution of workers and pea ... ! Down with the mili ... pitalist ... live ... vil war! Long live Paris, capital of the French Socialist Republic of Soviets!”