Swallowing Mercury

by Wioletta Greg, Eliza Marciniak (Translator)

Wiola lives in a close-knit agricultural community. Wiola has a black cat called Blackie. Wiola's father was a deserter but now he is a taxidermist. Wiola's mother tells her that killing spiders brings on storms. Wiola must never enter the seamstress's 'secret' room. Wiola collects matchbox labels. Wiola is a good Catholic girl brought up with fables and nurtured on superstition. Wiola lives in a Poland that is both very recent and lost in time.

Swallowing Mercury is about the ordinary passing of years filled with extraordinary days. In vivid prose filled with texture, colour and sound, it describes the adult world encroaching on the child's. From childhood to adolescence, Wiola dances to the strange music of her own imagination.

Genres: Fiction, Poland, Short Stories, Historical Fiction, Polish Literature, Novels, Literary Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published February 11, 2014

About the author

Wioletta Grzegorzewska, Wioletta Greg (9 February 1974) is a Polish poet and writer, born in a small village Rzeniszów in Jurassic Highland in Poland. In 2006, she left her country and moved to the Isle of Wight. She lives in Essex.

Wioletta spent ten years in Czestochowa where she organised cultural events, edited student journals, wrote articles about local literary developments. Between 1998 – 2012 she published six poetry volumes, as well as a novella Guguły, in which she's covering her childhood and the experience of growing up in Communist Poland.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

To deftly pack menace into the magical fields of childhood blitheness produces literature that can really grab you at your most vulnerable core. Particularly when the sinister shadow lurking within is of a political nature and implies guns and uniforms and State sponsored murder set to the beat of boots marching your local streets. This notion comes alive in Polish author Wioletta Greg’s Swallowing Mercury, a wry novella that feels like the blend between bildungsroman memoir and folklore, wonderfully translated into English by Eliza Marciniak. There is a jarring contrast between the enlargement and mythical register of childhood perspective with the eyes-averted and passive society of adults just getting through bleak times that really grounds this novel and existentially shakes the reader, something Greg mannages through vignettes in a way that strikes you in a way akin to poetry. Swallowing Mercury is a whimsical novella that casts a sardonic gaze over a young girl growing up in rural 1980s Poland under a Soviet regime unable to hide it’s stress fractures, capturing community life and balancing State, religion, and pagan tradition in a brief but potent story.

During the book, a real event in Polish history occurs that aggravates the tremors of an already rocky terrain of daily life. In December of 1981, an evening television program popular with children was interrupted by General Wojciech Jaruzelski to address the nation and announce martial law. This allowed the State to quickly strike down political opposition, which was reaching a peak in public opinion with the Solidarity movement angered at poor economic conditions and an authoritarian leadership. This speaks to the tone of the entire novel—a childhood disrupted by political disorder told in a way that indulges the childhood perspective with the turmoil discoloring the background and weighing heavy like storm clouds marring sunny skies. The reader is fully aware of the dramatic context, while the narrator, a young girl, is focusing on personal events ranging everywhere from a first kiss and winning a prize at Church to navigating sexual assault and deaths. Still there is evidence the Soviets and the aftermath of German occupation are festering in the public mind at all times.

The narrator is born from a mother who clung to pagan traditions, and her birth is marked by a balance of both pagan ritual and Christian ceremony. This becomes thematic throughout the novella, with tradition feeling subversive against the ways State regulation stifles or instructs community life, and the events are told with a derisory flair that contrats pagan and Christian ideology as commentary on Polish society. In this way the fairy tale aesthetics come to life in an otherwise stark childhood story. It also grants a sense of gallows humor, such as the incident when she vomits on her painting of Russia, creating an inky smear that seems to ominously engulf the cityscape.

Perhaps most effective in the book, however, occurs in the later portion when a character breathes their last and the book launches into a cosmically poetic retelling of their life on its trajectory to the grave. The effect is one that really drives home how these unique and transitory lives are suffocating in a void of Soviet Poland living, existing like a candle snuffed out under a police spotlight, where its glow was never given the opportunity to light up the darkness. Truly, this book holds a space in my heart that is usually categorized for poetry but Wioletta Greg manages to file this in almost effortlessly.

Granted, Polish novels hold a special place for me as a link to my ancestry, and I can’t help but imagine what my own late 1980s childhood would have been like had the Pietkiewicz brothers not come to the US (and have our name Americanized into Penkevich). But this brief yet powerful book—a debut no less—seems to me to shine even without that connection. While it may feel a bit slight and meandering at times, Greg keeps it together in her uneasy juxtapositions in a way that strikes straight at the heart.
4/5

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 a group of interlocking stories, memories or snapshots if you will, of a young girl growing up in a small village in Communist Poland. This is said to be an autobiographical novel, and indeed the story has a haunted, almost hazy atmosphere with some wonderful details. From the time she is young we read details of her life with her parents, their strong religious convictions, and her renderings of a rather simple life. In one the Pope is said to be passing through their village, and all the women in the village gather to sew buntings to strew along the road. It is interesting to experience history through the eyes of a child, because the meaning behind some of them are not noticed. Her gaze is firmly focused on her family and what affects her directly.. Watching her grow older and change, broaden her range, was fascinating.

We watch as she grows up, the things she sees, feels, all poignant. There is some sexual tension in a few of the stories, but these as she grows older. The style of writing is simple, but the details which add greatly to these stories, are amazing. A quick read but an interesting one.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars: “Swallowing Mercury” was long listed for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize. This is a fictionalized memoir of author Wioletta Greg’s early life in communist Poland. I found it fascinating and fun. Each chapter is a little story about her life as a girl through her innocent and mischievous eyes. Greg incorporates the political and religious aspects of her Polish upbringing. I very much enjoyed recollections of historical events as a child. Greg has a grand sense of humor, and this delight of a small novel is worth every minute reading.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the only book I had on the shelf that qualified for Women in Translation month, so this was the ideal time to catch up with one that I missed when it was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International prize.

It is a fairly short collection of stories which vividly recreate a childhood spent in a small Polish village in the dying days of Communism. Barely a word is wasted and it is a very enjoyable read, full of humour, with darker undertones that hint that much more lies just beneath the surface. Highly recommended.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book of short stories that seem more like vignettes of a rural Polish childhood during the Communist years. The political details are in the background but place Wioletta well. There are some attempts to weave in fables and myths but they were subtle enough that they did not get in the way of a good story. The cultural details were incredibly vivid, from paprikash spread to the flowers falling from the fabric.

I first knew about this collection when it was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2016. While it didn't make the shortlist, I was happy to find a copy during Women in Translation Month (August 2017.)

I also enjoyed Kamil's review on YouTube because he read the stories both in the original Polish and then in English, and I learned a lot from his comments.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy through Edelweiss.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Polish review of this book states “there is lightness and a kind of magic in her writing, even if she writes about “nothing”. This “nothing” was my dominant impression for most of the book. Wioletta Greg, or rather Grzegorzewska, tells us scenes from her childhood in a remote village in the Częstochowa region during the late years of communism (1983 – 1989). Her father is a worker-peasant, a usual combination in communist times, when independant, i.e. not employed by a cooperative “PGR”, peasants had to take another job to make a living. Her mother takes care for the farm, which is also the home of Wiola’s grandparents. We accompany the girl from the age of six up to her teen age. The stories are mundane for the most part, the more for people like me who know what the Polish countryside looked like in those days. All this is told from the perspective of the child. They are realistic to the very detail but lack reflection. Just two stories reach deeper: When Wiola is confronted with the sexual molestation by a doctor and when a Jewish lady visits the village, who lived there as a child, but was driven out of the country during the antisemitic events in 1968. In general, I was rather disappointed by the book and close to give it a meagre 2-stars rating, until I reached the last stories and understood, that the book is also a requiem to Grzegorzewska’s father, who died during these years. A man, who deeply enjoyed life until a lethal accident: już nazywają mnie starym, a przecież w środku jestem jak te guguły - they call me old, but internally I am still like this unripe fruit.

[Antonomasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wioletta Greg's writing owes a fair bit to Bruno Schulz… but Schulz's stories are wonderful and so is this: often charming and adorable, yet with dark currents running through it. It's not quite so verbally acrobatic, but still full of enthralling descriptions of the narrator's eccentric family, and life at home and in the immediate environs. I'm guessing native readers of Polish might be more used to this sort of thing, given Schulz's centrality to literature in Poland. Olga Tokarczuk said in a recent interview [I wrote most of this post in late October or early November, just after I read the book] he "raised the Polish language to a completely different level. I love him but I also hate him because there’s no way to compete with him. He’s the genius of the Polish language."

But, as an English-language reader who has nowhere near exhausted what's available in translation from Poland, this Schulz-influenced style delightful and novel. I was already predisposed to be interested the book, being near the author's age and having heritage from the south of Poland, but the style of writing on top of that made it one of my favourite reads of the year. Any cultural references were a joy to look up, knowing they were things I'd have also heard of in childhood had I lived in, or maybe just spent more time in Poland myself; I recognised a few items as souvenirs, and I felt nervous on Wiola's behalf when she submitted an unintentionally-suspicious painting to a Communist children's art competition.

Whether this small semi-autobiographical book is a novella in sequential snapshots (I prefer to see it that way) or a short story collection, it shares something else with Schultz's first collection. Both volumes have delicious, appetising titles in Polish that reflect the almost edible quality of the cosiest and most beautiful moments of the narrative, but in English, have been retitled in a way that suggests something horrorish. Cinnamon Shops v The Street of Crocodiles; Unripe Fruit v Swallowing Mercury. I would say inexplicably, except that I'd guess English-language publishers of the 1960s thought Cinnamon Shops sounded girly or Christmassy, where they saw the market for East European literature as masculine and serious, and certainly not seasonal. I wondered what the process for this book might have been. Did someone think that Unripe Fruit was an icky title in English for a book about a pre-teen and teenage girl, even though the author chose it herself and the protagonist actively rejects unwanted incursions on her sexuality? It's a translated literary novella rather than a book likely to get the attention of the sort of Twitter mobs that pick over every choice of word by Neil Gaiman. (The title of another story, Sour Cherries would have suited the book rather well too, for its combination of appetitising-and-not, and especially its Polishness, but I guess that would have had similar implications about a young woman if the translator and/or publisher were approaching the title from that same angle. Instead, in English it has been retitled according to the most traumatic story in the book, an event by which I think it's evident that Wiola-the-protagonist would not define herself.

I needlessly put off reading Schultz for maybe 20 years, assuming the content quite different from what it was; whilst not scary, something that wasn't my idea of fun: jagged Buñuel-esque surrealism in which pedestrians were bitten by crocodiles. But it only took me about 18 months from publication to read Wioletta Greg's book, as I had read the beginning of it when it was first released and previously liked her writing in online literary journals.

And 2018 was a better time to read it: I'm not sure I'd have appreciated it as much, or in the same ways, had I read it as part of the 2017 Booker International longlist. I found it a more feminist work than many novels that are explicitly described as such. Gregorszewska takes a style of idyllic reminiscence about growing up strongly associated with male authors, and includes as brief incidents starting periods, and sexual assaults by adult acquaintances, the sort of thing which often get chapters or whole books to themselves dwelling on them with much commentary. (To me the assaults seemed bizarrely many, but the many #metoo accounts of the past year or so indicate that hers probably wasn't an unusual experience. And besides, this was a country in which girls had traditionally married earlier on average than in Western Europe and so may have been viewed as sexual earlier on by more people.) In tone the book is also similar to Cider With Rosie: broadly idyllic, but actually doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of life at the time, including poor housing conditions and human behaviour. Adolescent Wiola goes on with her life in many ways as she had as a child less subject to norms of femininity: the narrative integrates starting her periods in what I felt was a subtly very effective way: it's not a weird thing that seems to make her feel different or even think that she should feel different; she just keeps living and acting much as she pleases, and doing tomboy activities like going about the countryside collecting scrap metal for a school project. Unlike in the reminiscences of older female authors I seem to recall reading when I was younger - but whom I couldn't now specify - it never separates her from tearing about the countryside, or from a sense of her own story and not being beholden to others which historically one saw more often in narratives of growing up by respected male authors. Nor does she even have to discuss this. She just does. Likewise she gets on with other things in life despite being somewhat disturbed by the assaults (the effects are shown by actions rather than introspective writing) and she is entirely absorbed in various projects and other events. I really liked the way Wiola is obsessive about collecting, whether for herself or for school projects, in a way I could strongly relate to, but which popular culture often associates with boys and men.

There are many ways in which to the British reader, the levels of technology make it seem like the story is set decades earlier than the 1980s. (Although it is not surprising if you saw Poland just after the fall of Soviet communism, when horses and carts went about the roads in some areas routinely, whilst in the UK they'd have seemed like apparitions, or wanderers from the set of a costume drama - and dusty slum villages that were like something from a news item filmed in Romania, or outside Europe.) Kids in their early teens still have outdoor and cooking skills worthy of Arthur Ransome or Enid Blyton protagonists. However, glue-sniffing was evidently a problem common to Western and Eastern Europe back then; it was kind of strange seeing what I had thought of as a British social problem of the 1980s pop up in the midst of this half-mythic world - although it is also part of the novel's trajectory, in which modernisation gradually changes the world of Wiola's village , and she becomes less sheltered in her teens.

Unlike in a lot of Polish literature, there's no hint of racial issues being handled with attitudes any different from those in Western Europe, perhaps because Wiola's father likes to talk about his Sinti heritage, and the family was slightly disadvantaged by this under the Communist regime.

As in several of the Central/ East European novels I've read over the past few months, the grandmother is an almost folkloric being and embodiment of ancient ways. Wiola's grandmother wears seven skirts, hosts feathering evenings - where local old women pluck feathers for home-made pillows and quilts - makes traditional dishes such as buckwheat blood pudding and sour rye and potato soup, and puts a red blanket on the bed of an ailing child to draw out the fever. Meanwhile, Communist woman is encouraged to be a worker equal to men, as evinced by Wiola's mother's job making paving slabs at the start of the book.

Her grandfather, an old maker and mender of stoves, is benign and more practical and measured than the narrator's father, an amateur taxidermist and genial, ramshackle eccentric, who is the presiding spirit of the book (just as Bruno Schulz's father is in his first collection).
"He showed me a different kind of geometry of the world, where boundaries are not marked by field margins overgrown with thistles and goosefoot, by cobbled roads, fences or tracks trodden by humans, but instead by light, sound and the elements."
Conflict is usually in the background so that the narrative often retains its picturesque quality despite events:
"my father took over the running of the farm and, to my grandmother’s dismay, began to introduce reforms, gradually turning our homestead into an unruly and exuberant zoo"
and
"since his return from military detention, Dad had been living in two houses: one was a stone ruin wobbling unsteadily over its limestone foundations, while the other, which for years had been forming in his head, was a clean brick house with central heating, an attic scented with resin and a shiny bathroom tiled from floor to ceiling."
However, there is grit too when necessary:
"All that was left of the half-mile of bunting were muddy shreds soaking in the ditch next to empty vodka bottles and cigarette ends."
some of it of the sort you'll recognise if you know less glamorous side of the countryside: "the bones of a rusty harrow protruded from under a tarpaulin among young nettles."

I've rarely encountered a book which contains so much loveliness whilst also not shying away from very unpleasant aspects of life, and I am very impressed by this combination of romanticising-and-not. I was always going to have something of a soft spot for it - if it had been from almost anywhere else I might never have read it due to the English title - but my expectations were surpassed, and I'm glad to see that the sequel, the better-named Accommodations is out in English next year, even if, so far, only a US publication is evident.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 2 from the Man Booker International list for me, and in a way this is what I think of as a typical IFFP/MBI novel: short, almost a novella, with beautiful but straightforward prose, and the main innovation for the English reader being the unfamiliar setting rather than anything in the writing.

Wioletta Greg, who lives in the UK, is a primarily a poet and this shows in the often exquisite prose, sensitively translated by Eliza Marciniak.

Overall, an enjoyable read but I would hope that there are more ambitious books longlisted and that these will be the ones that form the shortlist.

Swallowing Mercury is a coming-of-age tale set in rural Poland narrated by a young girl Wiola who goes through puberty as her country itself goes through fundamental change.

The novel is set mainly during the 1980s, when political events in Poland often dominated the headlines - the Solidarity movement, the imposition of martial law, Glasnost and Perestroika in the Soviet Union and the eventual collapse of the Communist regime. But such developments, as well as the lingering shadow of World War 2, are merely in the background, and the passing of time mainly noted by passing references to events such as the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Lech Wałęsa in 1983 and the Papal Visit of 1987.

Occasionally one is reminded of the shadow of the prevailing ideology. Wiola's best subject is art and she often enters regional competitions. An innocently intended picture of a real life incident on the family farm, a potato beetle climbing out of an empty Coca-Cola bottle, wins a prize form the authorities as it 'portrayed, in a deeply metaphorical manner, the crusade of the imperialist beetle'. But an accidentally smudged picture of Moscow entered into another brings the ideological police out to her school to investigate the teachers.

But in practice, life in the (fictional) rural town of Hektary largely carries on unaffected, and with a slow pace that, were it not for the historical references, might have seemed to have set the novel some decades earlier.

In June, we went to the parish fair at St Anthony's Basilica. The procession began. The priest came out of the church, followed by embroiders banners and women dressed up as princesses carrying plaited lambs and wreaths. Girls who had recently received First Communion scattered lupin flowers under their feet. I was mesmerised, and when Mum started searching thorough her bag for coins for the collection tray, I let go of her hand and ran after the procession as if it were a royal entourage. I didn't stop until I reached a market stall with a blown-up silver whale. The whale wasn't able to float off towards the clouds. The sun caught it in red and purple rings and blinded me, burning my cheeks. Gilt figures kept disappearing between the cars and the britchkas, leaving elongated shadows on a wall. A balding llama was standing drooling under a tree.

The novel consists of 23 episodic vignettes, typically just 5 pages long and with little connection between them other than the recurrence of the characters and the sense of progression in Wiola's life, in particular her burgeoning sexuality, noticed by other characters before herself (at one family gathering an aunt asks Wiola's mother if "Aunt Flo has come to visit Wiola yet ... you know her blood relation...".)

Poland at that time was torn between the powerful forces of Communism and Catholicism. Wiola's family are strongly religious and rumours that the Pope's motorcade will pass through the town lead to a frenzied making and erection of elaborate bunting, only for another equally fevered group of locals to systemically tear it all down again during the night.

And Wiola's mother's religious beliefs contain an odd mixture of biblical faith and superstition:

Spiders are sacred creatures and it's forbidden to kill them. They saved Our Lady. When the Holy Family was fleeing Jerusalem, spiders wove such a thick web around the road that the swords of Herod's soldiers couldn't pierce it.

The title, Swallowing Mercury, is taken from an incident in one of the stories, but the original Polish title was Guguly which Eliza Marciniak has translated the two times it appears as unripe fruit. The first occasion is in the one story which is narrated by a character other than Wiola, as a story told to her on a train, about a boy who, teased by his classmates due to a birthmark, eats guguly to make himself sick to avoid school. However, given that school was due to start on 4th September 1939, he turns out not to need that excuse.

The 2nd comes from an incident at the novel's end after Wiola's father has died and she imagines scenes from his life. She recalls one incident which serves as a metaphor for Wiola's own development and that of her country:

'What a strange world this is' he said to me suddenly when the bus turned into Pulaski Street. 'Before I've even had time to blink, they're already calling me old, when inside I'm like an unripe fruit.'

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirk can go either way: it can induce a cringe and a roll of the eyes, or it can make you smile and warm to the narrator. Quirk is particularly common in indie and translated books, I find, and while it’s often offputting for me, I loved it here. Greg achieves an impressive balance between grim subject matter and simple enjoyment of remembered childhood activities. Her novella is, after all, set in Poland in the 1980s, the last decade of it being a Communist state in the Soviet Union.

The narrator (and autobiographical stand-in?) is Wiolka Rogalówna, who lives with her parents in a moldering house in the fictional town of Hektary. Her father, one of the most striking characters, was arrested for deserting from the army two weeks before she was born, and now works for a paper mill and zealously pursues his hobbies of hunting, fishing, and taxidermy. The signs of their deprivation – really the whole country’s poverty – are subtle: Wiolka has to go selling hand-picked sour cherries with her grandmother at the market even though she’s embarrassed to run into her classmates; she goes out collecting scrap metal with a gang of boys; and she ties up her hair with a rubber band she cut from an inner tube.

Catholicism plays a major role in these characters’ lives: Wiolka wins a blessed figure in a church raffle, the Pope is rumored to be on his way, and a picture of the Black Madonna visits the town. A striking contrast is set up between the threat of molestation – Wiolka is always fending off unwanted advances, it seems – and lighthearted antics like school competitions and going to great lengths to get rare matchbox labels for her collection. This almost madcap element balances out some of the grimness of her upbringing.

What I most appreciated was the way Greg depicts some of the universalities of childhood and adolescence, such as catching bugs, having eerie experiences in the dark, and getting one’s first period. This is a book of titled vignettes of just five to ten pages, but it feels much more expansive than that, capturing the whole of early life. The Polish title translates as “Unripe,” which better reflects the coming-of-age theme; the English translator has gone for that quirk instead.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really debating whether to rate this 2.5 stars or 3 stars, but ended up settling for 3 stars because Wioletta Greg's novella Swallowing Mercury is an easy and for the most part entertaining read. I mean, there are some real little gem chapters in here. But overall, this just wasn't what I was hoping it would be, and although it was never a drag to read, that little niggling feeling in the back of my head while reading led to a lot of disappointment.

The novella is told in more of a series of vignettes than anything else, short little chapters that follow the character Wiola and her life growing up in a more rural area of Poland during the 1970s/1980s (I believe this is modelled on Greg's own experiences growing up). The book focuses heavily on Wiola and her family's Catholicism, as well as your general coming-of-age fodder (sexuality and first sexual experiences, dealing with grief, bodily development, etc.).

I think I would have got a lot more out of this book if I a) was Polish or b) had any prior knowledge of the state of Poland in the 1970s and 1980s politically. The translator Eliza Marciniak touches on the state of affairs at the time at the end of the book in her translator's note, but I would have benefited more from having read that at the start, as I feel I would have had my eyes opened to a lot more context than I did while reading. To me, this novella didn't feel like a novella as such but more a collection of short stories based in part on memoir. And although I like all those aspects, and a lot of the chapters were funny and enjoyable, it just didn't really feel like a novella or all that cohesive to me.

It was a quick read, and is definitely one to check out, but I'm not sure if I think this will end up on the shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize this year. I haven't read a lot of the longlisted books yet to be fair, but I felt like although it was entertaining and a quick read, it didn't do enough for me to deserve a shortlist nomination.

[Olga Kowalska (WielkiBuk) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Po "Gugułach" pozostają wrażenia, niezatarte ślady pewnych kolektywnych doświadczeń dzieciństwa i młodzieńczych lat. Wspomnienia nie jednej dziewczynki, ale dziewczynek i chłopców, którzy dzisiaj liczą swoje pierwsze siwe włosy, z nostalgią spoglądają wstecz i w tej prostocie gugułowych smaków i zapachów odnajdują swoją niezawodną kotwicę, coś, czego zawsze można się uchwycić i do czego zawsze można wrócić. Świat może pędzić naprzód w kosmicznym, terabajtowym tempie w jedynie sobie znanym kierunku, życie mijać jak za dotknięciem czarodziejskiej różdżki, ale nasz początek pozostanie. Nieco cierpki, lepkawy, miejscami słodkawy – taki jak powinien być, by od czasu do czasu dawać ukojenie.
Wioletcie Grzegorzewskiej należą się brawa, a "Gugułom" Man Booker Prize International, bez dwóch zdań.

[Miglė · Rating 5 out of 5]

Atrodo, jau visi parašė apie augimą / brendimą 90-aisiais, o vis dar galima atrasti kažką naujo, netikėto, skaidraus ir tamsaus.

Trumpais skyreliais pasakojama vaikystė Lenkijos kaime, kaip kažkas iš reviewerių pastebėjo, kiek Bruno Schulziškai, bet su savu balsu.

Kai parėjome namo, saulė jau švietė virš Kolonijos. Artinosi vidudienis. Mieguistos musės zujo virš garuojančios mėšlo krūvos. Vandens upeliai bėgo lietvamzdžiais nuo stogo, plakdami narcizų pumpurus. Po purviną šlapią mazgotę primenantį kiemą vaikštinėjo sniego baltumo karveliai. Pro tvoros plyšius, likusius po to, kai pristigęs anglių senelis sukapojo kelis mietus, ryškiai švietėsi užlietų laukų lopiniai. Prie tvoros leido paskutines dienas krosnelė su pratrūkusiu vamzdžiu ir byrančiais vario rūdžių gabalais. Iš po brezento tarp jaunų dilgėlių kyšojo surūdijusių akėčių blauzdikauliai.

Kai jau ima užsupti šviesi nostalgija kaimui, artimiesiems etc., prasimuša ir traumos, ir purvas:

Man vos keleri metai, ir nesugebu pasislėpti. Visi stipresni už mane, mosikuoja rankomis, lyg norėtų išplėšti iš manęs ką nors sau. Tėvas šaukia, kad esu išpera, ir dar pragaro. Nesuprantu tų žodžių, taip pat ir to, kodėl per atostogas po atlaidų kruvinai sučaižė mane karišku diržu. Galbūt ką nors ne taip padariau, išmėčiau jo plūdes, o gal taip pasielgė iš baimės, kad netyčia girtas išplepėjo man savo paslaptį? Močiutė muša mane šiaip dėl visa ko, šluoste, vytele, bet kuo, kas pakliuvo po ranka, apdujusi nuo sutrikusios skydliaukės. Mokytoja talžo liniuote per pirštus, plaštakas, nes neapkenčia savo darbo, berniukai kaišioja kojas, čaižo vytelėmis, grabinėja mokyklos katilinėje, aikštyne priešais mokyklą trina sniegu veidą, nes esu bejėgė mergaitė. Tik senelis, kuriam teko žudyti per karą, nebelinkęs nieko mušti: jis pasiima laužtuvą, lopetą, kastuvą ir pasislepia akmenų skaldykloje už daržinės, o tenai, išsiterliojęs iki ausų purvu ir dulkėmis, valandų valandas kasa kalkakmenį.

Daug visko, nors mes dabar daugiausia apmąstom sovietmetį, kai kurių knygos personažų atmintyje dar labai gyvos ir nacių padarytos traumos žmonėms, visuomenei, bet kam. Kita vertus, aukos vaidmenyje toli gražu neužsibūnama, o tos pavienės istorijėlės gale susiriša į visai nuoseklų patirties gniutulą.

[Gabrielė || book.duo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5
Nors ir neaugau aprašomu laikotarpiu, „Neprinokusių vaisių“ Lenkija man pažįstama – apsupta šios tautos tradicijų esu nuo pat gimimo, todėl viskas – nuo volokardino lašiukų iki itin specifinio santykio su Dievu –nuo pat pirmųjų puslapių krito į širdį, privertė šyptelėti ir pritariamai linkčioti. Autorė kažko naujo čia gal ir neatranda, mat pasakojimas apie mažo Lenkijos miestelio gyvenimą komunizmo laikais turi daug panašumų tiek su tam tikrais lietuvių, tiek ir kitų kaimyninių šalių kūriniais, o didžioji dalis tos patirties buvo bendra ir lengvai atpažįstama. Visgi šis romanas bent jau pirmoje pusėje sužavi subtiliu humoru, ryškiais personažais ir labai įdomia Violkos vaikyste – norėjau dar daugiau sužinoti apie jos polinkį menui, dienas mokykloje ir santykį su tėvais. Visgi pati kūrinio istorija pasirodė kiek fragmentiška, nes vos jausdavausi įsivažiavusi į ritmą, viena pasakojimo linija nutrūkdavo ir prasidėdavo kita, o bendros gijos tarp jų dažnai nebuvo labai stiprios.

Antroji kūrinio pusė kur kas tamsesnė, joje daugiau melancholijos, susigūžimo į save, savirefleksijos. Ją ir skaityti buvo sunkiau – ne dėl to, kad autorė kažkaip tyčia murkdo purve, bet gal todėl, kad neužmezgus to itin tvirto ryšio su veikėja nuo pat pradžių, visas jos skausmas paliečia kiek kitaip. Kažko man čia pritrūko, nors apčiuopti tą kažką ir labai sunku – gal kaltas nevientisumas, gal mano išsiblaškymas, o gal bandymas į trumpą kūrinį sudėti labai daug, kiekvieną tų istorijų tarsi paliekant atvira pradžia ir pabaiga ir įmetant skaitytoją tik kažkur pakeliui. Itin gražus stilius, nuostabūs aprašymai ir, neabejoju, kūrinį tik pačia geriausia prasme praturtinantis vertimas. Bet visgi likau mažiau sujaudinta, nei jaučiu, kad turėjau būti.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of a story cycle than a single-plot novel, Wioletta Greg’s book bewitched me from page one with its charming and slyly humorous quotidian tales of a girl coming of age in late Communist Poland during the 1980s. Wiola lives in a rural village, only tangentially touched by the shifting political winds sweeping the country, but not without its own curious types of drama. It’s a mildly anachronistic life that Wiola and her intergenerational household lives—a melding of old world beliefs and practices with more modern conveniences tempered by the realities of communist rule. Even through the veil of translation (capably managed by Eliza Marciniak), Greg’s skill as a poet suffuses the prose, with its easy lyrical flow and finely detailed storytelling style. Everything she describes immediately came alive in my mind. I’m always pleased to discover books like this, where the first-person voice is so homey and engaging, very plausibly representative of the character, and where the chapters are just the right length, easily standing alone yet also subtly connected through the ongoing physical and emotional growth of the narrator. Though it lacks this book's unifying effect of a central narrator, I was reminded at times of Andrzej Stasiuk’s Tales of Galicia, another equally mesmerizing story-cycle novel set in rural southern Poland around the same time period. I would love to read more books like this. For some reason, the literary portrayal of rural life amidst collapsing communist rule in Poland is an irresistible combination for me.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the way this book was written (and translated). The author is a poet and that shows in the language used which captivated me all the way through. I think I enjoyed the language more than I enjoyed the story.

I say "story", but it is actually a collection of episodes capturing the narrator growing up in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s. There is a sense of progression and characters make multiple appearances, but it isn't really a story.

The narrator grows up in a world where religious faith, superstition and the Soviet regime interact to create an environment that starts off quirky and gradually turns darker as the chapters progress.

I wasn't sure whether I would like this book from the brief details given in the description, but the writing and the likeable narrator won me over quickly and I was pulled into it to the extent that I sat and read it in a single sitting (it is not a long book).

[Fantastiškų KŽL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dar viena puiki lenkų autorė.

https://knyguziurkes.com/2022/07/26/n...

[Barbarzynka · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Nawet nie zdążyłem się obejrzeć, już nazywają mnie starym, a przecież w środku jestem jak te guguły".

Bardzo piękny zapis czasów, które bezpowrotnie odeszły. Dla mnie wzruszająca podróż sentymentalna do dzieciństwa i opowieści rodziców, i dziadków o niby nieodległej przeszłości, a jednak z perspektywy pokolenia lat 2000 w górę - prehistorii.

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this, both for Gregg's style and her depiction of life in rural Poland during the last decades of Communist rule. It's a semi-autobiographical piece revolving around a heroine, also called Wioletta (Wiola), who's growing up in a small and isolated village. It has an episodic structure that consists of scenes from Wiola's life, from early childhood through to her teens, these are full of wonderful images that sometimes reminded me of reading Bruno Schulz's stories. Wioletta's coming-of-age coincides with huge upheavals in Poland's political landscape, so there are tantalising glimpses of what it was like to live through such a turbulent era and the impact of this on individuals and on communities. It's a really impressive novel, vivid, powerful, lyrical and evocative. Highly recommended.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love childhood memories and this was a particularly enjoyable read. Told by young Wiola at various points in her childhood and adolescence, we get to see the world through her eyes. Her voice seemed authentic and I found this snapshot of Polish life in the 80s fascinating. Each chapter has it’s own story or theme, it was good to see how Wiola’s perspective changed as she grew older. I was glad of her final decision at the bus stop. Having felt worried for Wiola at several times, although quite usual for the time I expect, children seemed to be fed and little more really, the rest was up to them for good or bad, but I was left feeling this determined and likeable young person would be okay and would even do well for themselves.

The cover is beautiful and perfect for this book. I appreciated the end notes about the period of history this book covered.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book about growing up in Poland in the 80's. Wioletta grows up on a farm and she seems to have a good childhood, full of running around in the fields, going to church, and being with her family. Its not all sunshine and roses, though, as the title "swallowing mercury" suggests.

Each chapter is a memory, one slice of time, good or bad. The descriptions are vivid, down to the smells. The characters in the village are wonderfully portrayed. And, like most childhood memories, the resolution to to the problems are left hanging. What exactly did the adults do in these cases? Who knows, the memories are those of the young girl, strong and confident or bewildered and confused.

I wanted more and was sad the book was over.

[Kamil · Rating 4 out of 5]

To understand, shown only as glimpses in the background, historical nuances you'd either have to know Polish history or be Polish. Regardless of that though it reads so pleasantly. Life showcased in this book is marked by folklore and religious traditions, which also helps in deepen reading if you understand them, if not it's a great example of good folklore oriented writing. Quirky stories with a touch of fable feeling. Very well translated with a great translators note at the end explaining a bit of historical background...

[Sub_zero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parte de la arrebatadora personalidad de Tragar mercurio reside en el lirismo de su prosa, consecuencia de la formación de Wioletta Greg como poeta, y en la naturaleza episódica de los acontecimientos, recuerdos apenas hilvanados entre sí que, no obstante, adquieren una sorprendente solidez observados como conjunto. Tragar mercurio da la sensación de ser un afectuoso homenaje a la persona que fuimos en la niñez, un cálido abrazo que enviamos desde el futuro a alguien que nunca lo recibirá. Ese mismo sentimiento entre melancólico y desgarrador, ese deseo de entender las experiencias vividas desde la perspectiva que otorga el paso del tiempo, aun sabiendo que no podemos hacer nada para remediar sus efectos, es una constante que guía el desarrollo de la historia y que acompaña al lector en su viaje por las páginas de Tragar mercurio. Este viaje es, en gran medida, uno de autodescubrimiento. Como fogonazos de luz, los capítulos de Tragar mercurio iluminan de un modo u otro resquicios por los que se vislumbra el inquietante mundo de los adultos. Visiones catárticas, impúdicas, indescifrables al principio, pero que la niña protagonista continúa rumiando hasta otorgarles significado. Tierno y brutal, sobrio y elegante, pero cargado de intrincadas sutilezas, Tragar mercurio es una lectura bastante recomendable que atrapa sobre todo por su aparente sencillez. Una máscara que, espero, no impida a nadie reconocer el valor de un libro que no debe pasar desapercibido.

RESEÑA COMPLETA: http://generacionreader.blogspot.com....

[Teleseparatist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tak szczerze, to do 2/3 nie byłam do końca pewna, czy te niewyobrażalne piękno użytego języka mi wystarczy. Brakowało mi jakiejś takiej mocniejszej kreski, postawienia kropki nad i - i chociaż trochę to oczywiście było celowe, bo wcześniejsze teksty to świetne oddanie ulotnej natury wspomnień z dzieciństwa, które zostają nam czasem bez sensu i kontekstu, zawieszone - to jednak wydawało mi się, że ten zabieg, powtarzany w kolejnych miniaturkach, traci na sile. Ale potem okazuje się, że jednak zmierzamy w dość konkretnym kierunku (oczywiście) i tam autorka stawia kropki i wszystko nabiera znaczenia.

Myślę, że nie są te poszczególne fragmenty równe, niektóre pozostawiły mnie obojętną, ale całość i najlepsze z tekstów, za sam język zasługują na przeczytanie, a na szczęście mają też coś więcej.

Może jednak się za jakiś czas skuszę na te "Stancje"...

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

These short stories come together as a rather quirky loosely written novella. Many lovely passages & a wonderful story about her father in "Unripe".

[Wendelle]

A wonderfully immersive and descriptive short recollection of girlhood in rural Poland during the turn away from Communism, showing a bucolic place where time seems to stand still amid village life, while at the same time also capturing its toughness and contradictions

[Elisabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

In dem Roman befinden wir uns insbesondere in den 80er Jahren im ländlichen Schlesien, was ich ganz spannend fand, nicht zuletzt, weil das Setting aus meiner Sicht nicht fürchterlich verbreitet ist. Wir begleiten die autobiografisch angelegte Wiola ab ihrer Kindheit und erfahren einzelne Episoden aus ihrem Leben bis in die späte Teenagerzeit - diese liegen oft Monate oder gar Jahre auseinander. Leider entzerrt das die Geschichte teils zu sehr, es fiel mir schwer, eine Beziehung zu dem sich so schnell entwickelnden Charakter aufzubauen. Das ist aber auch der Tatsache geschuldet, dass wir oft eine ganze Menge über all die anderen Menschen in Wiolas Leben erfahren, aber wenig über Wiola selbst. Insbesondere ihr Innenleben kommt mir viel zu kurz und gerade weil Wiola teils doch extreme, traumatische Situationen erlebt, sollte es doch eine ganze Menge davon geben. Immerhin kommt ordentlich Atmosphäre rüber, aber vollkommen war das Werk für mich leider nicht, deshalb gibt es 3 Sterne.

[Babette Ernst · Rating 2 out of 5]

Schnell und nicht ungern las ich dieses Buch, bei dem es sich laut deutscher Übersetzung um einen autobiografischen Roman handelt. Andere Ausgaben bezeichnen die Kapitel als Erzählungen, was es aus meiner Sicht besser trifft. Alle Geschichten werden von Wiolka, einem Kind erzählt, das in den 80er Jahren in einem polnischen Dorf in der Nähe von Tschenstochau aufwächst. Mit wenigen Worten und ohne große Erklärungen malt die Autorin ein stimmungsvolles und treffendes Bild des Dorflebens. Einige Szenen sind absurd, manche schräg, viele belanglos. Der Stil hält einige schöne Sätze bereit, aber für mich krankte es oft an der Kindersicht. Ein Kind in der ersten Person erzählen zu lassen, ist schwierig, hier ist es nicht gelungen, finde ich. Warum spricht die Ich-Erzählerin von Dingen, die sie nicht wissen kann (Ereignisse als sie erst zwei war, Gedanken des Vaters…), als wenn sie sich daran erinnert? Die leicht naive Sicht auf das Leben damals, mag vielleicht das Lebensgefühl der Autorin zu dieser Zeit gut wiedergeben, nur trifft das nicht mein Interesse. Mir fehlte irgendein Zusammenhang der Geschichten, eine Entwicklung, eine Botschaft, einfach irgendetwas, das mich anspricht. Es ist kein schlechtes Buch, war aber eindeutig nicht für mich gemacht.

Die Übersetzung von Renate Schmidgall hatte meiner Meinung nach einige Schwächen, die meine Einschätzung womöglich beeinflussten. Oder sollte es die Kindersprache sein, die von „halb lebigen“ Maikäfern erzählt oder vom „Moschustier“, das eigentlich eine Bisamratte ist?

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully quirky little gems of stories about growing up in the Polish countryside at the end of the Communist era. While I did think on occasion that the quirkiness of these characters was emphasized at the expense of relatability, at no point was I anything other than riveted. Incredible writing. An audacious debut.

[Kamil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly charming stories of life on Polish village during 20 last years of communism. "Surprisingly", as I feel that folklore with a fables-que touch is recently explore to maximum and being honest I'm a bit tired of its simplicity.
Here though, Wioletta Grzegorzewska (Wioletta Greg - English pen name) creates a realistic, life-small-moments stories, that have just a tiny, charming feeling of that fable to it...
I'm planning to read at least a few stories in English translation as would like to see how much is lost (if anything). Suspect though that even if translation is perfect this book speaks more to those in whom she was able to evoke the memories of life on Polish villages in that period or a bit later, regardless if seen by yourself (I've seen 90s only) or through the eyes/tales of ones mothers or other family members...

[Abbie | ab_reads]

Swallowing Mercury, translated from the Polish by Eliza Marciniak, is a series of vignettes charting the life of one young girl from childhood to adolescence. Set in a fictional village in the Polish Jurassic Highland in the 80s, Greg weaves the political background of the country (the last decade of the communist regime) at the time into the personal narrative. I'm always a fan when an author can blend the personal and political effectively, and these stories were no different. There's also a four-page translator's note at the end which is brilliant and highly insightful!
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Most of the vignettes are no more than 10 pages, so I was expecting Greg's prose to be extremely stark and barebones. I was surprised then when her eye for miniscule detail was what stood out the most. The vignettes are mere flashes of life, but extremely vivid flashes at that. I really enjoyed the way Greg was able to build up such intense snapshots of Wiola's life in so few pages. There are also a few sombre, disturbing episodes from her adolescence, which are made all the more sobering by the brevity with which they're presented.
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But there's humour too! One of my favourite stories was where a very young Wiola is thought to be a threat to the regime after an unfortunate incident with an ink-spill during an art competition where contestants had to depict their version of Moscow. Other hints at the communist regime are similarly brief but noticeable if you know what to look for - which I did half in retrospect after reading the translator's note!
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I'd recommend it to those looking to try some Polish lit, obviously, but more to fans of short story collections, as otherwise I think some readers might find the brief vignettes a bit dissatisfying.