Snow White and Russian Red

by Dorota Masłowska, Krzysztof Ostrowksi (Illustrator), Benjamin Paloff (Translator)

Snow White and Russian Red
Written by Dorota Maslowska
Translated from the Polish by Benjamin Paloff
Illustrations by Krzysztof Ostrowski

A searing, audacious, and darkly comic novel from a new literary voice of international importance, Snow White and Russian Red is a fresh and surprising portrait of marginalized, fatalistic post-Communist youth. It is the story of Andrzej "Nails" Robakoski and his unraveling after his girlfriend Magda dumps him. A tracksuited slacker, Nails spends most of his time doing little more than searching for his next girl, next line of speed, next proof for his conspiracy theories about the Polish economy. A xenophobic campaign against the proliferating Russian black market escalates, culminating in No Russkies Day--or is that just in Nails's fevered mind? By turns poetic, hilarious, disturbing, and dirty, Snow White and Russian Red is a powerful portrait of love, hopelessness, and political burnout in today's Eastern Europe.

When Snow White and Russian Red was first published, it became a controversial, acclaimed best seller in both Poland and Germany, and is now an international sensation, with rights sold in ten languages. Dorota Maslowska's audacious debut novel establishes her as a new young literary voice of international importance. It is a stunning accomplishment, particularly since its author was nineteen when it was originally published.

"Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagq bialo-czerwong was published in 2002 by a small, independent publishing house and deservedly made its author, nineteen-year-old Dorota Maslowska, a huge success, despite the badly depressed book market in Poland. . . Just like Irish writers like Flann O'Brian and Brendan Behan wrote in a colorful Dublin vernacular rarely actually met in Dublin, so too has Maslowska created a literary language which is both uniquely hers and immediately familiar."
ROBERT LOOBY, Slavic and East Europea

Genres: Fiction, Polish Literature, Contemporary, Audiobook, Poland, Novels, 21st Century

308 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Masłowska was born July 3, 1983 in Wejherowo, and grew up there. She applied for the University of Gdańsk's faculty of psychology and was accepted, but left the studies for Warsaw, where she joined the culture studies at the Warsaw University. She first appeared in the mass-media when her debut book Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną (translated to English as either White and Red in the UK or Snow White and Russian Red in the US) was published. Largely controversial, mostly because of the language seen by many as vulgar, cynical and simple, the book was praised by many intellectuals as innovative and fresh. Among the most active supporters of Masłowska were Marcin Świetlicki and Polityka weekly staff, most notably renowned writer Jerzy Pilch. A notable example of post-modernist literature, her book became a best-seller in Poland and won Masłowska several notable awards as well as general support among the critics. It was almost immediately translated onto several languages, including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Russian, English, Hungarian and Czech.

Her second novel Paw królowej (The Queen's Peacock) did not gain similar popularity and remained largely unnoticed. Currently Dorota Masłowska lives in Cracow, collaborating with a number of magazines, most notably the Przekrój and Wysokie Obcasy weeklies, as well as Lampa monthly and the quarterly B EAT magazine.

Her first play, "A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians" has been translated by Lisa Goldman and Paul Sirett and is due to be performed for the first time in the UK at Soho Theatre from 28 February - 29 March 2008 with a cast featuring Andrew Tiernan, Andrea Riseborough, Howard Ward, Valerie Lilley, Ishia Bennison, John Rogan and Jason Cheater

Reviews

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

So this has been called the Polish Trainspotting by other people... and I must admit, I agree... Remember when you first read Trainspotting? How you couldn't understand why someone would write a book like this, but couldn't put it down? This is the same, a stream of scratchy prose with no chapters and hardly any punctuation, becomes one of the funniest and yet most horrible books you will have read. Basically - I absolutely loved this, the first book to make me laugh out loud on the train in a very long time.

[Klaudia_p · Rating 3 out of 5]

Z Masłowską mam ten sam problem od zawsze. Cenię wszystko, co dzieje się na płaszczyźnie językowej i konstrukcyjnej, ale fabularną życzliwie pomijam milczeniem.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poddałam się. Naprawdę się poddałam. Nie byłam w stanie przeczytać tej książki. Równie dobrze mogła być napisana trzynastozgłoskowcem. Ta książka jest po prostu zła. Człowieka, który wynalazł Masłowską i ją wypromował, powinien być surowo ukarany.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snow White and Russian Red by Dorota Maslowska is the first and award-winning novel by this young Polish author. It is tersely written, stylish and darkly humorous, about troubled, drug-addled, marginalized post-Communist Polish youths. The story starts out with the main character being dumped by his girlfriend and his search for the next girl, next hit of speed and his continued commentary about the state of Poland. The book is well written, but the characters were so unlikeable and their lives pointless and uninteresting that I had a hard time connecting with them in any way. I quickly grew tired of the casual sex, rampant drug use, and shallow friendships. Not bad, just not my cup of tea.

[P42 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Książka (dla mnie) jedyna w swoim rodzaju, w tym bezbłędna narracja która wciąga i nie wypuszcza aż do ostatniej strony, do tego narodowy brud, soczysta wulgarność i gorzki komentarz społeczny, tylko pod koniec wszystko się jakoś za bardzo rozmywa, niemniej zdecydowanie polecam sprawdzić każdemu..!

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just wanted to write a little in my native language this one time, just to see whether I still am able to. The English version of the review - a different one - is below the Polish version.

Miesiac temu przeczytalem "Snow White and Russian Red" Doroty Maslowskiej - angielskie tlumaczenie powiesci "Wojna polsko-ruska pod flaga bialo-czerwona" i zachwycony jej wspaniala proza ocenilem ksiazke na cztery i trzy czwarte gwiazdki. Teraz, przeczytawszy ksiazke po polsku, musze zmienic zdanie. Jest to absolutnie fantastyczna ksiazka. Wiem, ze to zabrzmi jak swietokradztwo a moze obrazoburstwo, ale powiesc Maslowskiej jest dla mnie porownywalna z "Lalka" Prusa, "Przedwiosniem" Zeromskiego, czy "Ferdydurke" Gombrowicza. Teraz calkiem sie wychyle, ale porownam te powiesc tez do "Pana Tadeusza". Podobna sila przekazu i podobnej skali talent pisarski.

"Wojna polsko-ruska" portretuje rzeczywistosc Polski 2002 roku, nowo-wolnej Polski, sytuacje ludzi kompletnie otumanionych przez telewizje i reklamy, ludzi szamoczacych sie w tej nowo-nabytej wolnosci. Dorota Maslowska ma absolutny sluch pisarski, jej wyczucie jezyka jest fenomenalne. Jezyk powiesci jest prawdziwy, dosadny, bardzo wulgarny, bo przeciez tak, kurwa, wielu Polakow mowi. A do tego jest to histerycznie smieszna ksiazka. Zasmiewalem sie nad prawie kazda stronica. Wezmy chociazby zdanie "A w miedzyczasie osraly ja wazki". Czy tez "Wiesz, mnie od urodzenia bolalo w piersiach, czulem niepokoj. Wreszcie jednego dnia zajrzalem sobie do gardla, a tam podwojne dno". Ze wszystkich ksiazek, ktore czytalem w zyciu - a bylo ich wiele - chyba tylko "Wstep do imagineskopii" Sledzia Otrembusa Podgrobelskiego wywolal u mnie wiecej smiechu.

Zamieszczam ponizej moja angielsko-jezyczna recenzje z angielskiego tlumaczenia, a tutaj jeden z moich ulubionych fragmentow oryginalnej wersji polskiej: "Cale me zycie staje mi przed oczami takie, jakie bylo. Przedszkole, gdzie dwiedzialem sie, ze wszystkim nam chodzi o pokoj na swiecie, o biale golebie z bristolu 3000 zlotych za blok, a potem raptem 3500 zlotych, mus tak zwanego lezakowania, siku w majtki, epidemia prochnicy, klub wiewiorki, brutalna fluoryzacja uzebienia. Potem przypominam sobie podstawowke, zla wychowawczynia, zle nauczycielki w kozakach kurwiszonach, szatnie, obuwie zamienne i izbe pamieci, pokoj, pokoj, golebie pokoju z bristolu frunace na nitce bawelnopodobnej przez hol, pierwsze kontakty homo w szatni wuef." Ja tez przez to wszystko przeszedlem, mimo ze pani Maslowska jest mlodsza od mojej corki.

Poza tym odszczekuje krytyke zakonczenia z "Masloska" z mojej angielskiej recenzji. Jest ono swietne; w pewnym sensie przypomina mi najlepsze utwory Stanislawa Lema. A wiec albo moj angielski nie jest wystaczajacy, albo tlumaczenie nie jest tak znowu wspaniale jak uwazalem.

Dlugopis z napisem "Zdzislaw Sztorm" przypomina mi symbol Trystero z wspanialej noweli Thomasa Pynchona, "The Crying of Lot 49". Co za klasa!

Szesc gwiazdek za genialny warsztat literacki, cztery za tresc Czyli piec gwiazdek.

For years my wife has been telling me about this young (born in 1983) Polish writer, Dorota Maslowska, and about her book "Snow White and Russian Red" (2002) (the original Polish title sounds much better: "Wojna polsko-ruska pod flaga bialo-czerwona", which roughly means "A Polish-Russian war, under the white and red flag"). I have been reluctant to read it; after all what can one expect from a nineteen year old author? While it is obvious that at nineteen one can be a great mathematician, poet, chess player, and the like, it seems impossible to write a great novel at that age. At nineteen one can have the knowledge of structures, but not the structure of knowledge, which takes years and years of living to emerge. For example, I myself at nineteen was a total idiot (like almost all of my friends and acquaintances, boys much more than girls, sorry for the sexist stereotyping); of course I knew about music, games, sports, films, TV, etc., but I knew nothing about the matters that count, I knew nothing about life.

Now that I have read the book (in English translation, because someone has borrowed the Polish original from us and never bothered to return it), I am totally blown away by it. There is much depth in the novel, and the writing is utterly magnificent. The entire ending is a literary tour de force; it is poetic, hypnotic, brilliant. Like, wow, man.

The novel, which some critics rightly compare to "Catcher in the Rye", "Trainspotting", "Naked Lunch", is about gray, depressing, small-town life of young people, the author's contemporaries, in the times of systemic change in Poland, from the so-called Communism to free-market economy. The narrator is a young man, called Nails (Silny, in the Polish original), who has just been dumped by his girlfriend. Nails and everybody else in the novel are constantly on speed. They live from day to day, without any aim, in a country where, as they say, there is no future. They look up to the West and down on the "Russkies".

When I was 19, life was so much easier. We knew who the bad guys were: the government, the press, radio, and TV. They were always lying to us, the good Polish people. In 2002 Poland things are not so easy; it is hard to know who the bad people are. Nails claims to be a leftist-anarchist, but he really does not know what it means and is mainly interested in satisfying the needs of this one special part of his body.

"Snow White and Russian Red" is a biting satire on xenophobia and fake patriotism: "Either you are a Pole or you're not a Pole. Either you are Polish or you're Russki. And to put it more bluntly, either you're a person or you're a prick." Patriotism is measured by respect of the flag.

It is a very funny novel as well. I burst out laughing about every other page. The translation by Benjamin Paloff is totally wonderful. I will soon read the original and amend this review, if need be, but I cannot believe the original Polish version could be any better. The quarter of a star that I am taking off is for the author's failed device (in my opinion) of putting herself, "Dorota Masloska", in the final parts of the book.

Here's a passage that reminds me of some of the great works in world literature; it could have been written by William Faulkner or James Joyce, but it was written by 19-year-old Dorota Maslowska, barely out of high school in Wejherowo, Poland:

"Indeed, we're girls talking about death, swinging a leg, eating nuts, though there's no talk of those who are absent. They're scarcely bruises and scratches that we did to ourselves, riding on a bike, but they look like floodwaters on our legs, like purple seas, and we're talking fiercely about death. And we imagine our funeral, at which we're present, we stand there with flowers, eavesdrop on the conversations, and cry more than everybody, we keep our moms at hand, we throw earth at the empty casket, because that way death doesn't really concern us, we are different, we'll die some other day or won't die at all. We're dead serious, we smoke cigarettes, taking drags in such a way that an echo resounds in the whole house, and we flick the ash into an empty watercolor box."

Four and three quarter stars (five stars for the translation).

[fiona japko · Rating 5 out of 5]

the omnipresent god of wrath, Zdzisław Sztorm,

[Julia ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ta książka to taka faza. Bohaterowie są naćpani tak bardzo, że aż przechodzi to na czytelnika. Świetne przeżycie. A tak poza tym to oczywiście książka stoi przede wszystkim językiem - barwnym, soczystym, wprowadzającym do literatury pojęcia, którymi wcześniej się nie posługiwała. I to wszystko zrobiła Masłowska, kiedy była w klasie maturalnej. Ogromny talent i ciężka praca.

[Antoni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masłowska jest po prostu genialna. Bez żadnych spoilerów, bo uważam, że tę książkę warto przeczytać nie tylko z powodu walorów estetycznych, ale i tego, co wojna polsko-ruska za sobą niesie. Mnóstwo wspaniałych zestawień, często prostych, co bynajmniej nie odbiera im tego, co ma „blaszany paw”. Silny to szef, o reszcie nic nie mówię. Chciałbym napisać tak dużo, ale chyba po prostu mogę polecić. Kola, spid, obgryzione paznokcie i ruskie papierosy. Brak kultury, zepsucie, wrażliwość, inna perspektywa. Chyba trafna diagnoza naszego społeczeństwa, co smutne, ale czasem tak bywa. Pyszny smak Polski początków XXI wieku i zasychających lat 90tych. Serialnie wybitna

[Jasiek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bardzo dobrze stylistycznie napisana książka i w sumie to jej jedyna zaleta. Kilka razy naprawdę się zaśmiałem ale fabularnie to za dużo się nie dzieje. Ot narkotykowy trip jakiegoś dresiarza i mnóstwo chaosu.

[Ludwika · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okropna. Tak mnie zmęczyło i wyprało czytanie tego, że zastanawiam się, jak coś takiego w ogóle można było napisać. Niemniej: jestem w stanie zrozumieć, że ta powieść może się podobać. Nie każdy musi mieć wyrobiony gust literacki, a lepiej czytać cokolwiek niż czytać nic.

[Bartek M · Rating 4 out of 5]

średnio zrozumiałem

[Cathorsaurus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nigdy więcej masłowskiej

[Lavinia Zamfir · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't read this one if you don't know what drugs do to your brain. I can hardly say I liked reading this book, and I love books that involve drugs. Too much trips, too much chaos for me. Good job for portraying the post communist country though. This one was not for me, even though I do appreciate it.

[absurdliteracki · Rating 2 out of 5]

czytane na studia, ale absolutnie nie uważam że było warto

niby rozumiem jaki był cel, bo całe zajęcia odpowiadaliśmy na pytanie po co, ale nie umiem czytać tak wulgarnych książek, a do tego jestem ciekawa co autorka pisząc to w wieku 16 lat miała na myśli i ile z tego co się mówi o tej książce to nadinterpretacja

[Szyszka · Rating 3 out of 5]

jak cola mieszana z wodą w stosunku 1:5

[Izabela Noga · Rating 4 out of 5]

[4.4] Coś bardzo ciekawego i przejmującego. Bardzo do mnie przemówiła.

[patrick o'hara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read this book in Gary Thompson's Central European Lit. class.

It's a decent work of fiction, but if you aren't hooked on amphetamines you won't relate to the characters as much. It's also translated from Polish, so a lot of the dialogue is hard to follow.

It's a lot like the movie Trainspotting starring Obi-wan Kenobi, except takes place in Poland.

Here is the part where I make reference to the fact that the characters are living in a post-Soviet world, and that is why their situation has aroused itself, but I'm really, really lazy.

[Eva Lavrikova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knihu som čítala už dávnejšie v českom preklade, teraz v slovenskom (preložil Tomáš Horváth, vyšlo pod názvom Sneh a krv). Chvíľu mi trvalo, kým som sa dostala do štýlu plného repetície, metafor, asociačných reťazcov a poetizmov, ale potom som si to užila náramne... štýl krásne kontrastoval s drsnejším dejom a "prízemnými" zápletkami, celé rozprávanie sa odvíja ako myšlienkový prúd hlavnej postavý, Silného, ktorý je drsňák, ako má byť - napriek tomu si ho však človek akosi obľúbi. Naozaj plastické zobrazenie príbehu a postáv, na to, že to autorka napísala ako čerstvá maturantka, klobúk dolu.

[Eva D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crazy, trippy, insane. Maslowska ventriloquizes the hypermasculine protagonist "Nails" to unfold a nightmarish account of Anti-Russki day in a small town in Poland. As nationalism and xenophobia are blown out of proportion, tradition and interpersonal relationships become hopelessly fraught and doomed. Reality fragments itself, and it is impossible to figure out what on earth is going on. Awesome read. Definitely pick it up if you like Yerofeev's Moscow to the End of the Line.

[Piotrek Machajek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lej te colę, wedle moich zapatrywań.

Kolejna książka, którą chciałem "sprawdzić" – czy trochę starszy ja wciąż lubię.

Dalej śmieszy, jeszcze bardziej w wersji audio, najlepiej to przyspieszyć lektora o 40%, to wtedy pojawia się dodatkowa warstwa spiny w tym głosie. Końcówka (od szpitala) już wytraca impet, a ten odmasłowski-odautorski epilog całkowicie gubi wątek, ale nie przyćmił wcześniejszej radości nicowania mózgu.

[Lukáš Cabala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, je to vulgárne, fekálne, brutálne, je to intoxické, krvavé. Ironizuje hlúpu formu domnelej ľudskosti a dobromyseľnosti. No ak je to taká šialená jazda a čitateľ je spolujazdec, tak v šoférke, ktorou je autorka, má istotu, že jazdu nie len zvládnu a vyviaznu živí, ale zároveň si ju užijú. stačí sa len dobre pripútať...

[Gosza · Rating 4 out of 5]

no to ja poprosze kole

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good but difficult

I’ve wanted to read Masłowska for some time now. I live in Poland and know some Polish but not enough to read it in its original language. To its credit, I think the translation is fantastic (bird milkies! I'll only refer to them by that now). It’s a difficult book to get through, subject and writing style-wise, and if I had no connection to Polish culture and everyday life I don’t think I’d get almost any of the rapid-fire references throughout. But it's an incredible stream of consciousness that is hilarious and poignant and disgusting and tragic and absurd all jumbled together for better and worse. I’m very happy I finally read it and look forward to reading more of her work.

[emogej · Rating 4 out of 5]

wejhoodrowo

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's shite being polish

[Kuba · Rating 5 out of 5]

jak czasem cos napisze, to az chce sie smiac albo plakac

[smiechuwarte · Rating 4 out of 5]

też się tak czuję jak posłucham paktofonike

[wiktoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

"życie grozi śmiercią!"
ogólnie fajna, najciekawszy był tu język

[bambi · Rating 4 out of 5]

kwintesencja polskości