Salki

by Wojciech Nowicki

Salki to niespieszna podróż w czasie i przestrzeni. Wojciech Nowicki wyłuskuje z przeszłości dzieje swoich kresowych przodków, ich wspomnienia, obawy i krzywdy, tworząc uniwersalny obraz tęsknoty i lęku. To także zapis podróży do światowych metropolii, miast, wsi i przysiółków, opowieść o ciągnącej w daleki świat włóczędze „z domami w głowie i poczuciem bezdomności”. Znakomita refleksyjna proza.

Genres: Fiction, Poland, Travel, Polish Literature, Essays, Adult Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published April 17, 2013

Reviews

[João Reis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite an interesting book. Although categorized as fiction, I've read it mostly as an essay (I don't classify it as a novel), a kind of melancholy travelogue, written in a style slightly reminiscent of that of Sebald. The narrator (a Polish writer spending a month in Gotland, Sweden) reflects on his family past migrations all over Eastern Europe and, therefore, on European history and current society. Each chapter can almost be read as an independent little essay. A quiet, slow reading, but sadly too much revering of Perec and disconnected to be an awesome book.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Late in his memoir, Nowicki refers to Life A User's Manual as a favorite book that always accompanies his incessant travels. "Another moment of beauty in Perec is his endless calculations, lists of objects, people, facts, and occurrences that stemmed from each other. Lists of consecutive owners of certain objects filling out spaces that, in the end, disperse like smoke over a meadow because, as the author claimed himself, they had never existed, were neither beautiful or ugly." Nowicki roams through the gloomy and gritty back roads and forgotten towns of Central and Eastern Europe, unconsciously seeking such vanished trails, following the memories imparted to him of his family's tragedies. Salki - a Polish word for attic spaces where sentimental objects are stored - is essentially a meditation on history and landscape. It has been compared to Austerlitz , as at times it seems preoccupied with topics unrelated to its central premise. In this way it is very intuitive in its connections and is a rather "quiet" work. A contemplative read.

[madziar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do tej książki będę wracać. Być może dlatego, że to bardzo dobra książka podróżnicza. (Podróżnicza właśnie, nie turystyczna - myśląc kategoriami Bowlesa). Nowicki ma w sobie rzadką umiejętność przelania na papier mikrokosmosów zdarzeń i ludzi - tak, jakby robił im fotografie. Nawiedza kolejne miejsca bez dyscypliny zwiedzania, chłonie klimat i staje jako obserwator - zawsze gdzieś z boku, zawsze z bagażem historii rodzinnych, którymi jest nasiąknięty jak gąbka. Książka jest zbiorem zapisów z podróży - niekompletnym i chaotycznym, tak jak mówi sam autor - jest to rupieciarnia (tytułowe salki) wspomnień, które wracają. Te miejsca składają się na malarski dziennik podróży - którą trudno zacząć, trudno przerwać, gdzie sensem samym w sobie jest Droga.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book through Goodreads. Heartwarming and beautifully written. Loved it.

[Trevor Arrowood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salki is Polish for “attics,” and this book truly explores the metaphorical attics of Eastern Europe.
Salki, despite being shelved under fiction, feels more like a variety of essays that explores the prosaic, yet intricate qualities, of an Eastern Europe after the dissolution of the USSR. There’s this paradox presented throughout the whole book that these variety of cultures were brought together under the iron curtain; each culture vastly different from the next. Yet, under the Soviet Union, there was still this hint of unity. But as the curtain fell, Eastern Europe, despite their cultures that they continued to differentiate, were left lost. I’m not sure I can convey this cultural phenomenon well. So I’ll let Novicki do that with quotes from the book…
- “As an adult, I went to visit where they came from and where they never wanted to return.”
- “Where there had been a forest, now there was a field.
Where there had been nothing, now there was a hill with a machine ripping up gravel from the ground for construction. Everything is upside down, everything is shifted around, everybody’s dead.”
- “But now it’s a little bit like everywhere else, reddish asphalt, clean and flat, and the vastness of snow. It’s empty. The real place can’t keep up with the memories. It just won’t.”
Perhaps our memories deserve to see the light after being held in our mental attics.

[Madhuri · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
This is a book about a man’s travels, where he is looking for other people’s memories in the places he sees. He is either trying to find the suffering recounted to him by his family of Eastern European immigrants, or looking for borrowed eyesight from Writers like Milosz and Perec. In scattered bits, he talks about these places, most of them in Eastern Europe or merging into Eastern Europe. He is almost aware that he sees nothing in this world except through his filters.
In many places his writing becomes an eulogy to his family. He has broken away from them by defying their one rule of not traveling in this cruel, bad world. But he escapes, and yet in his escapes continues to linger as the voices of his family keep asking him why he travels. He comes back to their words, their suffering, their letters.

[Luis Cuesta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book as a giweaaway, I like how the narrator of Salki starts recounting tragic stories of his family’s past, detailing their lives, struggles, and fears in twentieth-century Eastern Europe. In these pieces, he investigates various “salkis”—attic rooms where memories and memorabilia are stored. From memories of childhood trips to, fairly late, a more detailed description of his stay at BCWT in Gotland, Nowicki gets around a great deal -- including, often, tangling with (largely family) history. In cocnlcusion the book is a sort of Salki is a sort of travelogue, though author Wojciech Nowicki's spin on the genre is very much his own.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Salki is an interesting book--not straightforward and requiring some thought, but the result is a gathering of places in Eastern Europe...ones that have changed hands, been invaded, been destroyed, and have been recreated to erase the past. It also tells the tales of people who were forced to flee, whose friends and family were murdered, and who moved into the places just vacated by others.

[Chris Grieves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely my favourite book from Open Letter so far. A joy to read. Sections of it reminded me of Seiobo There Below by László Krasznahorkai (which, in my mind, is a huge compliment).

[RACHEL · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Salki" is a great collection of memories and reflections on the author's family and his travels, a journey well worth the read.

[Lazarus-II · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5/5 or 3/10

[Brie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads contest.

I gifted it to an avid reader friend during the holidays and hope she really enjoys it.