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The author's first novel, originally published in Poland in 1956, translated into 15 languages and made into a film. It gave voice to the disenchantment of the younger generation growing up under Communism and tells of two young people searching for somewhere to consummate their love.
190 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1956
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755 people want to read
About the author
Marek Hłasko
65 books187 followersOne of the most popular Polish writers of the 20th century. Author of numerous short stories and novels. Some of his works were adapted into films. His works were ruled by the idea of an evil dominating over good, inevitable loss of ideas in clash with the reality, as well as with the masculinist point of view. He wrote about protest of a moral nature. In his works he depicted the lives of the lower classes as dominated by hopelessness and cynicism. His characters dream about changes which come out to be vain.
After initial approval of his talent, his nonconformism and critique of communism forced him to leave Poland, and he spent the rest of his life abroad (mainly in Israel, Germany and U.S.A.) He died in Wiesbaden (Germany) in 1969. The circumstances of his death remain unknown. One hypothesis is that he mixed alcohol with sedative drugs.
After initial approval of his talent, his nonconformism and critique of communism forced him to leave Poland, and he spent the rest of his life abroad (mainly in Israel, Germany and U.S.A.) He died in Wiesbaden (Germany) in 1969. The circumstances of his death remain unknown. One hypothesis is that he mixed alcohol with sedative drugs.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
August 18, 2023
I thought I would try a novel by Marek Hłasko, as I had seen him mentioned as an author worth reading. This was his first novel, written in 1954 when he was aged just twenty. It’s a short novella of 117 pages in my edition, and only stretches to that through the use of a large font size. Whilst it isn’t quite to my taste, I have to take my hat off to anyone who can write a novel like this at such a young age. In a way though, I’m glad that at twenty I hadn’t developed quite such a jaundiced view of life as Hłasko – actually, I don’t have his level of disillusionment even now. I imagine the explanation lies in the fact that Hłasko’s childhood was during the Nazi occupation of Poland and his teenage years during the period of Stalinist rule. Under those conditions it’s probably hard to retain much optimism.
Bleak, bleak, bleak. Did I say this novel was bleak? The lead character is a young woman called Agnieszka, who lives in a tiny and overcrowded apartment with her parents and brother, and a lodger who has been with them since 1945, waiting for his own place. They seem to live in a working class/impoverished district of Warsaw. Every night when Agnieszka returns home, she has to run the gauntlet of local drunks who harass her with a variety of crude sexual advances and suggestions. She has a boyfriend called Piotr and the plot, such as it is, is based around the idea that they are looking for somewhere private where they can have sex. Agnieszka totally dominates Piotr and generally treats him pretty abysmally. Everywhere there is drunkenness, poverty, abuse and exploitation.
There’s a sort of steady relentlessness to the novel’s misery and misanthropy. Perhaps someone who lived in Poland through those times could relate to it better. For me, it was a little too much, though I acknowledge the power of the writing.
My last two fiction choices have both featured the seedy side of society. I need something a bit lighter for my next fiction read.
Bleak, bleak, bleak. Did I say this novel was bleak? The lead character is a young woman called Agnieszka, who lives in a tiny and overcrowded apartment with her parents and brother, and a lodger who has been with them since 1945, waiting for his own place. They seem to live in a working class/impoverished district of Warsaw. Every night when Agnieszka returns home, she has to run the gauntlet of local drunks who harass her with a variety of crude sexual advances and suggestions. She has a boyfriend called Piotr and the plot, such as it is, is based around the idea that they are looking for somewhere private where they can have sex. Agnieszka totally dominates Piotr and generally treats him pretty abysmally. Everywhere there is drunkenness, poverty, abuse and exploitation.
There’s a sort of steady relentlessness to the novel’s misery and misanthropy. Perhaps someone who lived in Poland through those times could relate to it better. For me, it was a little too much, though I acknowledge the power of the writing.
My last two fiction choices have both featured the seedy side of society. I need something a bit lighter for my next fiction read.
October 12, 2025
Hłasko's Eighth Day is a book about two young people who want the most ordinary thing in the world: a room with four walls for a first roll in the hay. Pietrek and Agnieszka love each other, but Warsaw in the 1950s offers them only benches in the park, stairwells reeking of cabbage, and a chorus of leering drunks who think romance is public property. Every attempt to find privacy turns into a farce, as if the city itself has sworn a vendetta against intimacy.
Agnieszka's family provides no refuge: her father stares out the window in defeat, her mother treats illness as both occupation and weapon, and her brother drinks himself into oblivion while delivering long-winded speeches about the futility of love. Pietrek, for his part, has survived prison and wants only a chance at peace, but Poland, generous in slogans and stingy in space, cannot even spare him a mattress.
The plot follows their increasingly desperate hunt for somewhere to be together, while the city supplies a background chorus of bureaucrats, opportunists, cynics, and neighbors who take voyeuristic delight in other people's misery. What should have been a simple love story instead becomes a chronicle of exhaustion, humiliation, and the absurdity of trying to carve a private life out of a society that offers no private corners.
A boy in the story had a pet squirrel named Joasia that slept in his bed, followed him like a puppy, and stuck its nose in his plate until its teeth grew too long and it starved because the family had no nuts, only beet jam during the occupation.
Hłasko wrote this work like a man tearing off a scab with his teeth. The book has all the tenderness of a brick, but that is precisely its point: to show how tenderness gets mangled when even the act of holding hands requires strategic planning.
Marek Hłasko became Poland's literary enfant terrible, celebrated as "the Polish James Dean." His novel The Eighth Day of the Week was banned in Poland for portraying the country's gray misery too vividly, yet smuggled abroad and published in Paris in 1958. Hłasko drifted across Europe, worked odd jobs in Israel, married and divorced actress Sonja Ziemann, and died in Wiesbaden at 34 under circumstances that still fuel arguments: suicide, accident, or an overdose of barbiturates washed down with alcohol. He once said, "I have never seen a happy man in my life," which, given the evidence, seems less like philosophy than autobiography.
This special book is absolutely brilliant in its bitterness. The novel is short, sharp, and corrosive, like a shot of cheap vodka swallowed on an empty stomach. It leaves you queasy, resentful, and strangely exhilarated.
"...In the doorway she ran into Zawadzki: he was taking out his motorcycle. “I’ll ride a bit to try it out,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“To look for Grzegorz.”
“He’s drinking?”
“I don’t suppose he’s down on his knees in some church.”
They were now in the street. Zawadzki kicked the starter, and the engine began to throb. “Get on,” he said. “I’ll give you a lift downtown.”
They started noisily. After about a hundred yards the engine began to cough. The motorcycle gave a few violent starts, and stopped dead. Agnieszka jumped down from the saddle.
“It’s the feedline again,” Zawadzki said. He looked utterly dejected. They stood in the light of a street lamp, and the glow coming from above illumined his sharp features, now immobile.
Agnieszka started. “Now I know,” she said.
“What?”
“Where I saw a face like yours. Perhaps not a face, but a man standing in the same pose as you now, with the same expression.”
“Well?”
“It was in a movie once. A terrorist accidentally kills a man; he must escape, though he is wounded. The whole city is chasing him—the police, stool pigeons, assorted rats; everyone wants to catch him, each group for their own reason. Also his girl is looking for him.”
“That’s noble of her. And . . . ?”
“In the end she finds him,” Agnieszka said. She smiled. “She finds him when he is already dying, and he has no strength left to run. The police are closing in; I remember the searchlights of the police coming closer and closer. The girl decides to die with him. I can even remember the last words of the film. The dying man asks, ‘Still a long way to go?’ And she answers, ‘It’s a long way, but we’ll walk it together.’ ” She stopped.
“And what then?”
“Then they die together, Zawadzki. They’re killed by a burst of police bullets. But that isn’t the important thing. They believed to the end—that apparently it was necessary, that it was worth while, and not otherwise. Life always holds the threat of separation, but death joins forever.”
“You’re stupid, do you hear?”
“I hear you. Good night.” She walked away..."
"...He turned to Agnieszka.
“Something occurred to me.”
“Yes?”
“I’d like to write something some day.”
“A book?”
“Yes, a book.”
“About love?”
He burst out laughing, and the lines around his eyes turned white.
“Oh, no,” he said. “To write about love is to make yourself ridiculous. So far, at least, all love literature is nothing but glorified crap. God, what has it got to do with love? I’d like to read something about myself and my feelings when for the twentieth night in a row I can’t sleep and lie staring the ceiling. Everything written on the subject is insipid, like brass compared with the sun. Only Dostoevsky is a little bit truthful, but you run away from his love with your hands burned, like from a red-hot iron. This isn’t for modern man. Not for the times we live in.”
He bent toward Agnieszka and took her hand. “Listen,” he said, “this will be something entirely new. The story of two people. We won’t call them by their right names nor will we invent names for them.” He was slightly drunk all the same, and his speech got a bit thick; his breath was searing. He said: “Yes, this is something entirely new. The story of two people who met at one of life’s bad corners. I don’t know yet who they are, I have to make up my mind, see? He must be commonplace, very commonplace; she too, probably, though I don’t know. . . . Let’s say, he drinks too much and complains, could be, no? What else was there to do during that time, except drink and grumble? In Poland drunks have a privileged status, drunkenness has become something like a new special morality. It’s known that when a man drinks, something’s eating him. But never mind, let’s get back to our subject. . . . And what about her? Devil knows what kind of person she ought to be. She must have been through a great deal, she must somehow be resigned or embittered. Whenever anything starts up, it’s hard to believe that this time it really will be worth while. This customer, for instance, is out to get drunk, because he’s in a hurry to destroy something in himself, he’s afraid of suffering, and so on. She’s running away from all that too, for to tell the truth her friend is no good, he drinks like a fish, brawls, has a stretch of bad life behind him. And yet there is something good in him, somehow, somewhere. At some point, on the seventh day, there must be something worth while, something good, and they want somehow to dig through to it, at any price. The earth is a lousy place, life is a comical little hell, butsomewhere deep underneath the surface, molten metal glows white hot. And they try to build up that worthwhile thing by sheer will power. It falls apart a thousand times each day, each hour, but they start it all over again a thousand times. Perhaps everything might even turn out well in the end, who can tell? But then people begin to help them..."
Agnieszka's family provides no refuge: her father stares out the window in defeat, her mother treats illness as both occupation and weapon, and her brother drinks himself into oblivion while delivering long-winded speeches about the futility of love. Pietrek, for his part, has survived prison and wants only a chance at peace, but Poland, generous in slogans and stingy in space, cannot even spare him a mattress.
The plot follows their increasingly desperate hunt for somewhere to be together, while the city supplies a background chorus of bureaucrats, opportunists, cynics, and neighbors who take voyeuristic delight in other people's misery. What should have been a simple love story instead becomes a chronicle of exhaustion, humiliation, and the absurdity of trying to carve a private life out of a society that offers no private corners.
A boy in the story had a pet squirrel named Joasia that slept in his bed, followed him like a puppy, and stuck its nose in his plate until its teeth grew too long and it starved because the family had no nuts, only beet jam during the occupation.
Hłasko wrote this work like a man tearing off a scab with his teeth. The book has all the tenderness of a brick, but that is precisely its point: to show how tenderness gets mangled when even the act of holding hands requires strategic planning.
Marek Hłasko became Poland's literary enfant terrible, celebrated as "the Polish James Dean." His novel The Eighth Day of the Week was banned in Poland for portraying the country's gray misery too vividly, yet smuggled abroad and published in Paris in 1958. Hłasko drifted across Europe, worked odd jobs in Israel, married and divorced actress Sonja Ziemann, and died in Wiesbaden at 34 under circumstances that still fuel arguments: suicide, accident, or an overdose of barbiturates washed down with alcohol. He once said, "I have never seen a happy man in my life," which, given the evidence, seems less like philosophy than autobiography.
This special book is absolutely brilliant in its bitterness. The novel is short, sharp, and corrosive, like a shot of cheap vodka swallowed on an empty stomach. It leaves you queasy, resentful, and strangely exhilarated.
"...In the doorway she ran into Zawadzki: he was taking out his motorcycle. “I’ll ride a bit to try it out,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“To look for Grzegorz.”
“He’s drinking?”
“I don’t suppose he’s down on his knees in some church.”
They were now in the street. Zawadzki kicked the starter, and the engine began to throb. “Get on,” he said. “I’ll give you a lift downtown.”
They started noisily. After about a hundred yards the engine began to cough. The motorcycle gave a few violent starts, and stopped dead. Agnieszka jumped down from the saddle.
“It’s the feedline again,” Zawadzki said. He looked utterly dejected. They stood in the light of a street lamp, and the glow coming from above illumined his sharp features, now immobile.
Agnieszka started. “Now I know,” she said.
“What?”
“Where I saw a face like yours. Perhaps not a face, but a man standing in the same pose as you now, with the same expression.”
“Well?”
“It was in a movie once. A terrorist accidentally kills a man; he must escape, though he is wounded. The whole city is chasing him—the police, stool pigeons, assorted rats; everyone wants to catch him, each group for their own reason. Also his girl is looking for him.”
“That’s noble of her. And . . . ?”
“In the end she finds him,” Agnieszka said. She smiled. “She finds him when he is already dying, and he has no strength left to run. The police are closing in; I remember the searchlights of the police coming closer and closer. The girl decides to die with him. I can even remember the last words of the film. The dying man asks, ‘Still a long way to go?’ And she answers, ‘It’s a long way, but we’ll walk it together.’ ” She stopped.
“And what then?”
“Then they die together, Zawadzki. They’re killed by a burst of police bullets. But that isn’t the important thing. They believed to the end—that apparently it was necessary, that it was worth while, and not otherwise. Life always holds the threat of separation, but death joins forever.”
“You’re stupid, do you hear?”
“I hear you. Good night.” She walked away..."
"...He turned to Agnieszka.
“Something occurred to me.”
“Yes?”
“I’d like to write something some day.”
“A book?”
“Yes, a book.”
“About love?”
He burst out laughing, and the lines around his eyes turned white.
“Oh, no,” he said. “To write about love is to make yourself ridiculous. So far, at least, all love literature is nothing but glorified crap. God, what has it got to do with love? I’d like to read something about myself and my feelings when for the twentieth night in a row I can’t sleep and lie staring the ceiling. Everything written on the subject is insipid, like brass compared with the sun. Only Dostoevsky is a little bit truthful, but you run away from his love with your hands burned, like from a red-hot iron. This isn’t for modern man. Not for the times we live in.”
He bent toward Agnieszka and took her hand. “Listen,” he said, “this will be something entirely new. The story of two people. We won’t call them by their right names nor will we invent names for them.” He was slightly drunk all the same, and his speech got a bit thick; his breath was searing. He said: “Yes, this is something entirely new. The story of two people who met at one of life’s bad corners. I don’t know yet who they are, I have to make up my mind, see? He must be commonplace, very commonplace; she too, probably, though I don’t know. . . . Let’s say, he drinks too much and complains, could be, no? What else was there to do during that time, except drink and grumble? In Poland drunks have a privileged status, drunkenness has become something like a new special morality. It’s known that when a man drinks, something’s eating him. But never mind, let’s get back to our subject. . . . And what about her? Devil knows what kind of person she ought to be. She must have been through a great deal, she must somehow be resigned or embittered. Whenever anything starts up, it’s hard to believe that this time it really will be worth while. This customer, for instance, is out to get drunk, because he’s in a hurry to destroy something in himself, he’s afraid of suffering, and so on. She’s running away from all that too, for to tell the truth her friend is no good, he drinks like a fish, brawls, has a stretch of bad life behind him. And yet there is something good in him, somehow, somewhere. At some point, on the seventh day, there must be something worth while, something good, and they want somehow to dig through to it, at any price. The earth is a lousy place, life is a comical little hell, butsomewhere deep underneath the surface, molten metal glows white hot. And they try to build up that worthwhile thing by sheer will power. It falls apart a thousand times each day, each hour, but they start it all over again a thousand times. Perhaps everything might even turn out well in the end, who can tell? But then people begin to help them..."
November 4, 2012
This novella shine with an unexpected eloquence. The themes are worn but this work proves itself invaluable. I have likely owned this one for a few years, thanks to the Ost-Europe challenge, I rescued it from our library upstairs and I admit to finding myself touched by Marek Hlasko's abbreviated life.
His tale is one of greasy windows and a cold longing. Subtract a few variables and the story is universal.
His tale is one of greasy windows and a cold longing. Subtract a few variables and the story is universal.
September 17, 2014
After a long chase that went on through three countries and two languages, I finally managed to get a (second hand) copy of 'The Eighth Day of the Week'. Upon reading this novella, I'm happy to say that the chase was worth for Hłasko's book is a good catch indeed.
I'm writing this review sitting at a diminutive table in the tiny kitchen of my little sixth floor flat in the Varsovian district of Praga Połnoc. From the window on my left hand side I overlook a vast empty space left in the middle of the neighbourhood. Down there some bald-headed guy is fixing up the carburettor of his motorcycle. Next to him a bunch of kids is playing hide and seek among the bushes punctuating interconnected communal courtyards. Above them, at the top of a grey-coloured apartment block, two guys in white t-shirts are installing (or removing) the umpteenth satellite dish. In the pale blue sky of an early September morning a lock of white doves is drawing spirals around the red-bricked buildings in various state of disrepair stretching along Brzeska street.
I wouldn't have annoyed you with all these details had 'The Eighth Day of the Week' not been set in this very same area of Warsaw, fifty-eight years ago. The road where I live is even mentioned once and I confess how reading that name gave me a thrill. Back then, Praga Połnoc was probably the dodgiest place in Warsaw and it's no surprise that Marek Hłasko chose it as the background of this very bleak and very pessimistic novella. Not that the neighborhood is all wealthy and glossy right now. Actually, many a Varsovian I spoke with couldn't believe that I moved here of all places in town. But then again I met several people who live or lived here at some stage of their lives and love the area as much as I do.
True, the dimly lighted and drunkard patrolled Praga Połnoc popping up leafing through the pages of 'The Eighth Day of the Week' is quite different from the one where I live and that's a relief. However, you don't need to be a historian to picture that bygone atmosphere nowadays if you walk past some hidden and half-forgotten corners of the district. Perhaps the fact that I can relate with the places Hłasko wrote about here makes me a biased reviewer, but that doesn't matter.
I liked this novella very much even though you have to be in the right set of mind to appreciate it. As I said before, this book is quite pessimistic to the point it sounds almost nihilistic in some of its parts. All characters here cannot see any hope in their present and future existence alike and thus behave like there's no tomorrow. In fact everyone here despise drunkards, but drink to a stupor nonetheless as drunkenness seems to be the only way to be sane in Warsaw A.D. 1956.
Where Marek Hłasko excels is in dialogues which are no short than masterful and imbibed with dark humour as well as with a good deal of fatalistic sarcasm. Agnieszka, the main character of the novel, develops her sense of morality through the story to the point it's hard to recognise her at the end. And yet, she always keeps consistent in not giving a damn about life, Poland and mankind in general.
Grzegorz, Agnieszka's brother, will become your favourite pessimistic alcoholic philosopher in town and is the perfect author's alter-ego no doubt expressing Hłasko's point of view on many a subject.
Pity that the other characters here are much less focused than the protagonists.
Agnieszka's father is an oddball who enjoys walking on his hands (!) and endlessly pines for fishing; his spouse got a sort of nervous breakdown which made a perennial complainer out of her. Zawadski, the lodger at Agnieszka's flat, has potential with all of his passionate temperament and his POW camp stories, but ultimately turns out to be a rather passive moron. Piotr, Agnieszka's beloved, is the greatest disappointment of them all being neither tough nor romantic, but only someone who gets ridiculed by the events.
No surprise that this book got banned in then socialist Poland as it is more than a mere J'accuse by its author, but portrays a bleak country where even young generations grew up to be cynical, harsh and disillusioned.
All in all, 'The Eighth Day of the Week' is an interesting, if monochromatic, snapshot on some of the darkest and most desperate days of the Polish People's Republic: quite a contrast with contemporary Poland.
I'm writing this review sitting at a diminutive table in the tiny kitchen of my little sixth floor flat in the Varsovian district of Praga Połnoc. From the window on my left hand side I overlook a vast empty space left in the middle of the neighbourhood. Down there some bald-headed guy is fixing up the carburettor of his motorcycle. Next to him a bunch of kids is playing hide and seek among the bushes punctuating interconnected communal courtyards. Above them, at the top of a grey-coloured apartment block, two guys in white t-shirts are installing (or removing) the umpteenth satellite dish. In the pale blue sky of an early September morning a lock of white doves is drawing spirals around the red-bricked buildings in various state of disrepair stretching along Brzeska street.
I wouldn't have annoyed you with all these details had 'The Eighth Day of the Week' not been set in this very same area of Warsaw, fifty-eight years ago. The road where I live is even mentioned once and I confess how reading that name gave me a thrill. Back then, Praga Połnoc was probably the dodgiest place in Warsaw and it's no surprise that Marek Hłasko chose it as the background of this very bleak and very pessimistic novella. Not that the neighborhood is all wealthy and glossy right now. Actually, many a Varsovian I spoke with couldn't believe that I moved here of all places in town. But then again I met several people who live or lived here at some stage of their lives and love the area as much as I do.
True, the dimly lighted and drunkard patrolled Praga Połnoc popping up leafing through the pages of 'The Eighth Day of the Week' is quite different from the one where I live and that's a relief. However, you don't need to be a historian to picture that bygone atmosphere nowadays if you walk past some hidden and half-forgotten corners of the district. Perhaps the fact that I can relate with the places Hłasko wrote about here makes me a biased reviewer, but that doesn't matter.
I liked this novella very much even though you have to be in the right set of mind to appreciate it. As I said before, this book is quite pessimistic to the point it sounds almost nihilistic in some of its parts. All characters here cannot see any hope in their present and future existence alike and thus behave like there's no tomorrow. In fact everyone here despise drunkards, but drink to a stupor nonetheless as drunkenness seems to be the only way to be sane in Warsaw A.D. 1956.
Where Marek Hłasko excels is in dialogues which are no short than masterful and imbibed with dark humour as well as with a good deal of fatalistic sarcasm. Agnieszka, the main character of the novel, develops her sense of morality through the story to the point it's hard to recognise her at the end. And yet, she always keeps consistent in not giving a damn about life, Poland and mankind in general.
Grzegorz, Agnieszka's brother, will become your favourite pessimistic alcoholic philosopher in town and is the perfect author's alter-ego no doubt expressing Hłasko's point of view on many a subject.
Pity that the other characters here are much less focused than the protagonists.
Agnieszka's father is an oddball who enjoys walking on his hands (!) and endlessly pines for fishing; his spouse got a sort of nervous breakdown which made a perennial complainer out of her. Zawadski, the lodger at Agnieszka's flat, has potential with all of his passionate temperament and his POW camp stories, but ultimately turns out to be a rather passive moron. Piotr, Agnieszka's beloved, is the greatest disappointment of them all being neither tough nor romantic, but only someone who gets ridiculed by the events.
No surprise that this book got banned in then socialist Poland as it is more than a mere J'accuse by its author, but portrays a bleak country where even young generations grew up to be cynical, harsh and disillusioned.
All in all, 'The Eighth Day of the Week' is an interesting, if monochromatic, snapshot on some of the darkest and most desperate days of the Polish People's Republic: quite a contrast with contemporary Poland.
August 9, 2022
Zupełnie nie moja bajka. Chociaż Hłasko jest bardzo dobrym pisarzem, to obraz beznadziei i rozpaczy sączący się z kart Ósmego dnia tygodnia to było dla mnie za dużo. Melodramat i pseudofilozoficzne (czuć, że dwudziestolatek pisał), niemożliwie długie wynurzenia bohaterów wymęczyły strasznie. Nie obraziłem się jednak na Hłaskę, bo spod całego tego hamletyzowania co i rusz wyłażą przebłyski świetnej prozy. Biorę się za "Następnego do raju".
August 13, 2008
Hlasko was a Polish James Dean with flippy pomp-hair, dangling cigarette, consciously-styled toughness. He was a vagrant, a vandal, a party crasher,a wife-borrower and not a very good returner. The feeling the book gives is kind of like hanging with guys like him, only about a thousand times more harsh.
I put this in my noir shelf only because Hlasko is Polish and even the happiest Polish stories are freaking dark as the damned.
I put this in my noir shelf only because Hlasko is Polish and even the happiest Polish stories are freaking dark as the damned.
February 18, 2024
Warto. Choćby dla języka 🩷
December 15, 2013
Inteligente, mordaz, irónico, sarcástico y casi surrealista y absurdo. GENIAL
"There are places on Earth where every day is a century"
"I want to believe in people. In the end, that is the most important thing of all"
"Life always holds the threat of separation, but deathn joins forever"
"Who can tell whether each truth is not at bottom the greatest obcenity of all"
"How can we reconcile feelings with dirty hands"
"Cynicism is coming-and fast to be the sole morality"
"I'm not a bit interested, I'm just being sociable"
"There are places on Earth where every day is a century"
"I want to believe in people. In the end, that is the most important thing of all"
"Life always holds the threat of separation, but deathn joins forever"
"Who can tell whether each truth is not at bottom the greatest obcenity of all"
"How can we reconcile feelings with dirty hands"
"Cynicism is coming-and fast to be the sole morality"
"I'm not a bit interested, I'm just being sociable"
April 25, 2021
Marek Hłasko war einer aufgrund seiner Schriften aus der Volksrepublik verbannter polnischer Exilschriftsteller und diese Werke eine seiner ersten bekannteren Veröffentlichungen. Diese Edition besteht aus den zwei oben genannten Novellen "Der achte Tag der Woche" und "Die Friedhöfe".
"Der achte Tag der Woche" ist ein ziemlich düsteres Portrait des Lebens der Protagonistin Agnes (eingedeutscht), die im stalinistisch geprägten realsozialistischen Nachkriegswarschau ein ziemlich beschissenes Life lebt und die ganze Zeit versucht einen Weg aus ihrem zerrütteten und versoffenen Elternhaus zu finden bzw. in aller erster Linie eine Bude um mit ihrem Freund Peter (eingedeutscht) ungestört Sex haben zu können. Hört sich vllt aus meiner Feder eher unspektakulär an, aber ist tatsächlich sehr nice geschrieben und hab's richtig genossen das zu lesen, auch wenn das alles natürlich mal wieder vor Hoffnungslosigkeit, Zynismus und allen möglichen anderen bedrückenden Gefühlen trieft & der Autor überraschenderweise subversiv durchscheinen lässt er sei nicht so der größte Fan der sozialistischen Volksrepublik. Buch ist sehr kurzweilig geschrieben und besonders die Hauptcharakterin Agnes war mir irgendwie auch ziemlich sympathisch. Gemessen an dem Zeitpunkt der Veröffentlichung fand ich auch beeindruckend wie klar dort das heftigst misogyne Klima beschrieben wird, dem Agnes sich ausgesetzt sieht. Auf jeden Fall Leseempfehlung, einzeln hätte ich wahrscheinlich sogar so 4.5/5 Sterne vergeben.
Die zweite Novelle "Die Friedhöfe" fand ich nicht ganz so geil wie die erste. Hier begleitet man den Arbeiter Franciczek Kowalski, der im Suff zu Unrecht ins Fadenkreuz von der politischen Polizei gerät und sich dann in eine Abwärtsspirale des Grauens voller Repressionen seitens des Staates wiederfindet, die in seinem Rauswurf aus der Partei mündet - inklusive relativ dramatischen Folgen für seine Liebsten. Die Cherry on top ist dass Kowalski selbst im 2. Weltkrieg noch im kommunistischen Untergrund an vorderster Front gegen die Nazis gekämpft hat. Die ganze Story ist ein bisschen wie 1984 in der realistischen light-Version (Man könnte fast sagen Auf Wish b-). Konnte das Ding trotzdem ganz okay lesen und denke auch, dass es auch aus linker bzw. gerade kommunistischer Perspektive immer wichtig ist, sich mit diesen realen Missständen in realsozialistischen Ländern kritisch auseinanderzusetzen. Der reale Erkenntnisgewinn in der Story hält sich aber relativ in Grenzen würde ich behaupten & geht nicht wirklich über diese Revolution frisst ihre Kinder Binsenweisheit hinaus. Darüber hinaus ist sie leider auch nicht so geil geschrieben wie die erste Story und auch bei den Charakteren hab ich ein bisschen die Tiefe vermisst, auch wenn es glaub ich stilistisch so gewollt sein könnte. Hier eher so maximal 3 Sterne, eher 2.5.
Hab jetzt eher das Augenmerk auf die erste Story gelegt, also overall 4 gwiazdy von mir an den polnischen James Dean.
"Der achte Tag der Woche" ist ein ziemlich düsteres Portrait des Lebens der Protagonistin Agnes (eingedeutscht), die im stalinistisch geprägten realsozialistischen Nachkriegswarschau ein ziemlich beschissenes Life lebt und die ganze Zeit versucht einen Weg aus ihrem zerrütteten und versoffenen Elternhaus zu finden bzw. in aller erster Linie eine Bude um mit ihrem Freund Peter (eingedeutscht) ungestört Sex haben zu können. Hört sich vllt aus meiner Feder eher unspektakulär an, aber ist tatsächlich sehr nice geschrieben und hab's richtig genossen das zu lesen, auch wenn das alles natürlich mal wieder vor Hoffnungslosigkeit, Zynismus und allen möglichen anderen bedrückenden Gefühlen trieft & der Autor überraschenderweise subversiv durchscheinen lässt er sei nicht so der größte Fan der sozialistischen Volksrepublik. Buch ist sehr kurzweilig geschrieben und besonders die Hauptcharakterin Agnes war mir irgendwie auch ziemlich sympathisch. Gemessen an dem Zeitpunkt der Veröffentlichung fand ich auch beeindruckend wie klar dort das heftigst misogyne Klima beschrieben wird, dem Agnes sich ausgesetzt sieht. Auf jeden Fall Leseempfehlung, einzeln hätte ich wahrscheinlich sogar so 4.5/5 Sterne vergeben.
Die zweite Novelle "Die Friedhöfe" fand ich nicht ganz so geil wie die erste. Hier begleitet man den Arbeiter Franciczek Kowalski, der im Suff zu Unrecht ins Fadenkreuz von der politischen Polizei gerät und sich dann in eine Abwärtsspirale des Grauens voller Repressionen seitens des Staates wiederfindet, die in seinem Rauswurf aus der Partei mündet - inklusive relativ dramatischen Folgen für seine Liebsten. Die Cherry on top ist dass Kowalski selbst im 2. Weltkrieg noch im kommunistischen Untergrund an vorderster Front gegen die Nazis gekämpft hat. Die ganze Story ist ein bisschen wie 1984 in der realistischen light-Version (Man könnte fast sagen Auf Wish b-). Konnte das Ding trotzdem ganz okay lesen und denke auch, dass es auch aus linker bzw. gerade kommunistischer Perspektive immer wichtig ist, sich mit diesen realen Missständen in realsozialistischen Ländern kritisch auseinanderzusetzen. Der reale Erkenntnisgewinn in der Story hält sich aber relativ in Grenzen würde ich behaupten & geht nicht wirklich über diese Revolution frisst ihre Kinder Binsenweisheit hinaus. Darüber hinaus ist sie leider auch nicht so geil geschrieben wie die erste Story und auch bei den Charakteren hab ich ein bisschen die Tiefe vermisst, auch wenn es glaub ich stilistisch so gewollt sein könnte. Hier eher so maximal 3 Sterne, eher 2.5.
Hab jetzt eher das Augenmerk auf die erste Story gelegt, also overall 4 gwiazdy von mir an den polnischen James Dean.
September 2, 2023
nigdy nie byłam fanką naturalistycznej prozy, ta jednak pokazuje tak doszczętnie okrutną, brudną, szarą rzeczywistość prl-owską i ponadczasowe zagadnienia egzystencjalne, że ciężko nie czytać tego z zachwytem. Hłasko dokładnie sportretował Polskę lat 50, ludzi w niej żyjących, zapewne niewiedząc nawet, że mentalność ludzka do tej pory się nie zmieniła. Może właśnie przez podjęcie się takiej tematyki, hlaske można nadal czytać z myślą: "tak, tak. to jest to. utozsamiam się."
June 7, 2010
One of the most depressing books I've ever read
February 23, 2024
nie dziwnego, że adaptacja nie przypadła do gustu Hłasko ((I still love it tho))
August 18, 2025
problemem bohaterow byl fakt, ze nie mogli znalezc sobie pokoju… ciekawe, ze dla innych problemem moze byc fakt, ze moga spotykac sie TYLKO w pokoju. zycie jednak pisze ludziom najrozniejsze scenariusze….. ……. …
September 16, 2018
Pikkuinen kirja, joka sisältää kaksi novellia 1950-luvun Puolasta.
Tämä on toinen Hlaskoni ja synkkyys näyttää olevan Hlaskon toinen nimi. Viikon kahdeksas päivä taitaa olla nimitys elämän toivottomimmalle päivälle. Hlaskon ihmisen elämässä toivottomia päiviä vain on jatkuvasti. Elämä sosialistisessa valtiossa on todellakin niin vaatimatonta ja ankeaa kuin millaiseksi se pahimmillaan on kuvattu.
Varsovassa asuu Agnieszka ja Varsovassa asuu Kuba. Molemmat ovat ensisijaisesti köyhiä ja toivottomia. Elämä on rumaa, likaista ja rakkaussuhteet epätoivoisia. Miehet ryyppäävät suruunsa ja naiset etsivät heitä kapakoista ja katuojista. Varsova on vieläkin sodan jälkeen raunioina ja ihmiset katkeroituneita ja impulsiivisen väkivaltaisia.
Agnieszkan ja Kuban hyvät pyrkimykset ovat heikkoja ja huuhtoutuvat pois tihkusateen lailla. Heidän henkinen tilansa on epävakaa ja huolia täynnä.
Oikeasti oli aika masentava kirja. Ei kuitenkaan huono, sillä Hlasko on naturalismissaan taitava. En kuitenkaan suosittele lukemaan tätä, jos podet omaa kahdeksatta päivääsi.
Tämä on toinen Hlaskoni ja synkkyys näyttää olevan Hlaskon toinen nimi. Viikon kahdeksas päivä taitaa olla nimitys elämän toivottomimmalle päivälle. Hlaskon ihmisen elämässä toivottomia päiviä vain on jatkuvasti. Elämä sosialistisessa valtiossa on todellakin niin vaatimatonta ja ankeaa kuin millaiseksi se pahimmillaan on kuvattu.
Varsovassa asuu Agnieszka ja Varsovassa asuu Kuba. Molemmat ovat ensisijaisesti köyhiä ja toivottomia. Elämä on rumaa, likaista ja rakkaussuhteet epätoivoisia. Miehet ryyppäävät suruunsa ja naiset etsivät heitä kapakoista ja katuojista. Varsova on vieläkin sodan jälkeen raunioina ja ihmiset katkeroituneita ja impulsiivisen väkivaltaisia.
Agnieszkan ja Kuban hyvät pyrkimykset ovat heikkoja ja huuhtoutuvat pois tihkusateen lailla. Heidän henkinen tilansa on epävakaa ja huolia täynnä.
Oikeasti oli aika masentava kirja. Ei kuitenkaan huono, sillä Hlasko on naturalismissaan taitava. En kuitenkaan suosittele lukemaan tätä, jos podet omaa kahdeksatta päivääsi.
April 30, 2018
Me gustan las historias sobre vidas difíciles y en este libro lo son. Sin embargo, entre tanta dureza, desgracia, alcohol y cielos grises asoma humanidad. El prólogo de Domingo Manfredi Cano (en la edición que he leído) me parece ridículo.
November 10, 2018
Voiko näin masentavasti kirjasta nauttia? Ilmeisesti voi. Hienoa kirjallisuutta kaikessa brutaalissa synkkyydessään.
Read
July 21, 2024kryzys mieszkaniowy so true
August 15, 2025
jakie to było dobre!! czuję się jak Grzegorz, czuję się jak Pietrek - niedziela jest poza czasem
April 3, 2025
Wspaniały język, barwne postaci
Szczególnie pierwsza połowa przypadła mi do gustu, Hłasko świetnie wprowadza do beznadziejnego obrazu powojennej Warszawy. Intrygujące wątki historyczne i ciekawe również z tej właśnie perspektywy
Szczególnie pierwsza połowa przypadła mi do gustu, Hłasko świetnie wprowadza do beznadziejnego obrazu powojennej Warszawy. Intrygujące wątki historyczne i ciekawe również z tej właśnie perspektywy
May 29, 2025
Hłasko jest git!
May 1, 2013
This was a quick, easy read. I enjoyed it for what it was. That being said, it was an extremely depressing book. Everything about it frustrated me. The society depicted by the author was literally just about the most undesirable place on the entire planet. Not a single tidbit of a word in the entire book had a positive connotation associated with it. The constant drunkenness, blatant sexism, and overall negativity served to make this the most depressing book I have ever read. I believe it was meant to achieve this purpose however, so it succeeded in its goals. The reason I only rate it four stars is because of the flat out putrid way that Agnieszka treated everyone around her. Many of the characters, such as Agnieszka's father, I found to be borderline enjoyable. But then Agnieszka would come in and act like the entire world revolved around her. I could not stand the way she treated Pietrek either. Everything about their relationship screamed emotional and physical abuse; while it would be easy to denounce Pietrek because he is the male (and so CLEARLY it must be his fault that their relationship is trying to turn sexual...), Agnieszka did nothing but tear him down even when he tried to build her up. She would not let him share his experiences, forcing him to talk about something else and then getting frustrated when he wouldn't go deep enough. Tomorrow is all that matters, so there is no reason to share the past; but of course she gets frustrated about barely knowing anything about him. And she abused her parents in similar ways. Every interaction with them was spent belittling them. These constant pity-party behaviors in Agnieszka had a souring effect on me, and resulted in an overall less enjoyable experience.
March 6, 2017
A moving story of young people warped by the ugliness all around them in Communist Poland. Agnieszka and Pietrek are in love, but for want of a private space they can't consummate their relationship. Pietrek, who was denounced and spent time in prison for no obvious reason, is the weaker of the 2. Agnieszka, on the other hand, shoulders heavy burdens at home: her mother is a bitter invalid, and her brother Grzegorz spends all his time getting drunk in bars, supposedly waiting for his mistress to leave her husband. Not only that, but the family has to share their cramped quarters with a mechanic called Zawadski, similarly obsessed with a girlfriend whose fidelity he (rightly) suspects - and his motorbike. In this horrible set-up Agnieszka tries to keep her dignity and humanity, and finally agrees to have sex with Pietrek if he can persuade a friend to let them have his room to themselves for the night. The pig of a friend forgets about his promise and the disappointment is too much for the decent couple to bear. In a paroxysm of despair, Agnieszka offers herself to Pietrek on the rubble of a derelict house. After Pietrek flees in horror, Agnieszka, seeing no future for them, sleeps with a guy she meets in a bar, then tells Pietrek she has strung him all along. Better give up hope once and for all sort of thing. While this is not as memorable as "Killing the Second Dog", it is a chilling depiction of what life was like, not for protesters, but for the ordinary citizen in the Soviet republics.
August 3, 2015
Wiem, że to polskie, na wskroś polskie, z jednej strony przez tą polskość mi bliskie, z drugiej strony – bardzo egzotyczne. .. Wiem, że tak w Polsce było, nie aż tak dawno temu przecież. I cieszę się, że teraz już tak nie ma. Tą egzotyczność zauważam jakoś dziś zwłaszcza, kiedy obchodzimy kolejną rocznicę wstąpienia do UE, kiedy będziemy niedługo świętować 25 lat wolności i ta szarość pokazana przez Hłaskę daje po oczach. Szare życie, szara rzeczywistość, depresyjny brak perspektyw na cokolwiek lepszego. Nie wiem, jak odbierali to czytelnicy kilkadziesiąt lat temu, kiedy opowiadanie to zostało po raz pierwszy wydane; Ci, którzy sami żyli w tamtych czasach, ale myślę, że ta opowieść teraz poraża bardziej. Wtedy – to była ich rzeczywistość, codzienność; dziś – to ‘tylko’ przypomnienie nam tego co było, opowiadanie o komunistycznej Polsce, stosunkach międzyludzkich w latach 50.
Wszyscy bohaterowie wydają się być przegrani, jedynie Agnieszka zdaje się być osobą, która rozpaczliwie szuka nadziei na lepszą przyszłość i nie jest do końca pogodzona z otaczającą ją beznadziejnością. I trzeba przyznać, że w jej świecie, nie jest to łatwe. Matka i ojciec, totalnie pogrążeni w marazmie, brat - młody alkoholik. A to właśnie z bratem, z Grzegorzem, Agnieszka prowadzi najbardziej wartościowe rozmowy i stara się go poprzez te rozmowy ratować.
Szarość i brud. To widać w tej książce. Hłasko nic nie wybiela. Jest oszczędny w słowach, ale to najlepiej właśnie oddaje realizm tamtych czasów.
Wszyscy bohaterowie wydają się być przegrani, jedynie Agnieszka zdaje się być osobą, która rozpaczliwie szuka nadziei na lepszą przyszłość i nie jest do końca pogodzona z otaczającą ją beznadziejnością. I trzeba przyznać, że w jej świecie, nie jest to łatwe. Matka i ojciec, totalnie pogrążeni w marazmie, brat - młody alkoholik. A to właśnie z bratem, z Grzegorzem, Agnieszka prowadzi najbardziej wartościowe rozmowy i stara się go poprzez te rozmowy ratować.
Szarość i brud. To widać w tej książce. Hłasko nic nie wybiela. Jest oszczędny w słowach, ale to najlepiej właśnie oddaje realizm tamtych czasów.
May 2, 2009
I picked up The Eighth Day of the Week the debut novel from Marek Hlasko at a Bookcrossing meeting a year ago. I picked it up because when I was a film student I rather enjoyed Polish films from the same time period but I really didn't know anything about Polish literature.
The novel is a frustrated romance between Agnieszka and Pietrek. They want a moment together to consummate their relationship but where can they find the time when everyone is struggling just to meet the basics of life? Agnieszka while madly in love is still an idealist and doesn't want their rendezvous to seem cheap. At the same time she's not sure she wants to wait for Pietrek to borrow a room from a friend.
Against this romantic farce is Warsaw still trying to rebuild after near total destruction during World War Two. There are shortages in food, a lack of jobs, a lack of money and a lack of freedom. Agnieszka and Pietrek's relationship brings humanity back into the picture.
Like the films I saw in college, The Eighth Day of the Week is really more a moment in time, a vignette, than it is a full story arc. By the end of things, they have exhausted all of their initial plans but they have a new plan. Whether or not it works is left up to the imagination.
The novel is a frustrated romance between Agnieszka and Pietrek. They want a moment together to consummate their relationship but where can they find the time when everyone is struggling just to meet the basics of life? Agnieszka while madly in love is still an idealist and doesn't want their rendezvous to seem cheap. At the same time she's not sure she wants to wait for Pietrek to borrow a room from a friend.
Against this romantic farce is Warsaw still trying to rebuild after near total destruction during World War Two. There are shortages in food, a lack of jobs, a lack of money and a lack of freedom. Agnieszka and Pietrek's relationship brings humanity back into the picture.
Like the films I saw in college, The Eighth Day of the Week is really more a moment in time, a vignette, than it is a full story arc. By the end of things, they have exhausted all of their initial plans but they have a new plan. Whether or not it works is left up to the imagination.
November 23, 2011
Choć w odróżnieniu od innego opowiadania Hłaski ("Amor nie przyszedł dziś wieczorem") autor przedstawia historię dwojga młodych ludzi, finał, jak zwykle u autora "Pętli", utrzymany jest w mrocznej tonacji. Oś akcji to nie tylko relacja Agnieszka-Piotrek, ale również temat nieszczęśliwej miłości jej brata, oczywiście szukającego pocieszenia w alkoholu. Jak spytałby autor, gdzie indziej można by go szukać?
Jest to historia stanowiąca rozwinięcie, może parafrazę najbardziej znanego motywu Hłaski z wczesnych lat ("Pierwszy krok w chmurach") - a więc eksploracja tematu niezdolności miłości do przerwania w świecie brutalnym, nieznoszącym słabych, kruchych jednostek. Swoistym mottem opowiadania jest stwierdzenie brata Agnieszki, kiedy dowiaduje się, że jego dziewczyna rzuciła go definitywnie - stwierdza, z wyrazem ulgi, że można już od tej chwili pić bez niepotrzebnych złudzeń.
Jest to historia stanowiąca rozwinięcie, może parafrazę najbardziej znanego motywu Hłaski z wczesnych lat ("Pierwszy krok w chmurach") - a więc eksploracja tematu niezdolności miłości do przerwania w świecie brutalnym, nieznoszącym słabych, kruchych jednostek. Swoistym mottem opowiadania jest stwierdzenie brata Agnieszki, kiedy dowiaduje się, że jego dziewczyna rzuciła go definitywnie - stwierdza, z wyrazem ulgi, że można już od tej chwili pić bez niepotrzebnych złudzeń.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 15, 2011
I absolutely love this book. There is a lot of speculation as to whether or not Hlasko had a ghost writer, or not. I don't care who wrote this book. Agnieszka is one of my favorite literary characters of all time. The book itself is incredibly depressing, but remember the time period that we're dealing with here: Poland was just destroyed by WWII. The mother is literally dying of a broken heart -- she's been completely incapacitated by the war. Everyone is aging prematurely (again, the war.) Then we have the stifling atmosphere of Stalinist Poland. Don't expect this to be an uplifting read.
February 11, 2013
This elegantly-written novella, set in Poland around the time of Stalin's death, tells the story of a young couple looking for somewhere to make love, just like the Polish people were looking for somewhere to live their lives under strict communist rule. A real gem of a tale, something you can sit down and enjoy in one sitting.
May 29, 2018
"And the award for Most Wretched, Hopeless Region/Era in a Work of Literature goes to... 1950's Poland!"
[applause]
" ___ ___kowski will be accepting the award on behalf of Marek Hłasko, who arrived staggeringly drunk, berating security in his native Polish, and was escorted from the premise, being mistaken for a homeless person"
[applause]
[applause]
" ___ ___kowski will be accepting the award on behalf of Marek Hłasko, who arrived staggeringly drunk, berating security in his native Polish, and was escorted from the premise, being mistaken for a homeless person"
[applause]
July 15, 2013
Vic Bobb told us this book would make us want to throw ourselves in front of a train. He was right. (I tried to crawl into the dryer and turn it on, but my roommate refused to put in the quarters). It's beautifully written; but a smidge depressing.
February 9, 2016
very good book that made Hłasko popular.
For Hłasko fans and fans of James Dean.
For Hłasko fans and fans of James Dean.
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