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Undula
Hidden in the pages of Dawn: The Journal of Petroleum Officials in Boryslav for nearly a century, the short story "Undula" represents the likely literary debut of Bruno Schulz. Published under the pseudonym Marceli Weron, "Undula" teems with Schulz's unmistakble voice, offering an important look into the nascent workings of his writing mind. Long thought to have been a literary late-bloomer, this breathtaking story—risque even by his standards—provides a glimpse of the formative period of one of the twentieth century's great prose stylists.
- GenresFictionShort Stories
42 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2020
138 people want to read
About the author
Bruno Schulz
121 books723 followersBruno Schulz was a Polish writer, fine artist, literary critic and art teacher of Jewish descent. He was regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century.
At a very early age, Schulz developed an interest in the arts. He studied at a gymnasium in Drohobycz from 1902 to 1910, and proceeded to study architecture at Lwów University. In 1917 he briefly studied architecture in Vienna. After World War I, the region of Galicia which included Drohobycz became a Polish territory. In the postwar period, Schulz came to teach drawing in a Polish gymnasium, from 1924 to 1941. His employment kept him in his hometown, although he disliked his profession as a schoolteacher, apparently maintaining it only because it was his sole means of income.
The author nurtured his extraordinary imagination in a swarm of identities and nationalities: a Jew who thought and wrote in Polish, was fluent in German, and immersed in Jewish culture though unfamiliar with the Yiddish language. Yet there was nothing cosmopolitan about him; his genius fed in solitude on specific local and ethnic sources. He preferred not to leave his provincial hometown, which over the course of his life belonged to four countries. His adult life was often perceived by outsiders as that of a hermit: uneventful and enclosed.
Schulz seems to have become a writer by chance, as he was discouraged by influential colleagues from publishing his first short stories. His aspirations were refreshed, however, when several letters that he wrote to a friend, in which he gave highly original accounts of his solitary life and the details of the lives of his fellow citizens, were brought to the attention of the novelist Zofia Nałkowska. She encouraged Schulz to have them published as short fiction, and The Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy Cynamonowe) was published in 1934; in English-speaking countries, it is most often referred to as The Street of Crocodiles, a title derived from one of the chapters. This novel-memoir was followed three years later by Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą). The original publications were fully illustrated by Schulz himself; in later editions of his works, however, these illustrations are often left out or are poorly reproduced. He also helped his fiancée translate Franz Kafka's The Trial into Polish, in 1936. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy of Literature's prestigious Golden Laurel award.
The outbreak of World War II in 1939 caught Schulz living in Drohobycz, which was occupied by the Soviet Union. There are reports that he worked on a novel called The Messiah, but no trace of this manuscript survived his death. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, as a Jew he was forced to live in the ghetto of Drohobycz, but he was temporarily protected by Felix Landau, a Gestapo officer who admired his drawings. During the last weeks of his life, Schulz painted a mural in Landau's home in Drohobycz, in the style with which he is identified. Shortly after completing the work, Schulz was bringing home a loaf of bread when he was shot and killed by a German officer, Karl Günther, a rival of his protector (Landau had killed Günther's "personal Jew," a dentist). Over the years his mural was covered with paint and forgotten.
Source: wikipedia.com
At a very early age, Schulz developed an interest in the arts. He studied at a gymnasium in Drohobycz from 1902 to 1910, and proceeded to study architecture at Lwów University. In 1917 he briefly studied architecture in Vienna. After World War I, the region of Galicia which included Drohobycz became a Polish territory. In the postwar period, Schulz came to teach drawing in a Polish gymnasium, from 1924 to 1941. His employment kept him in his hometown, although he disliked his profession as a schoolteacher, apparently maintaining it only because it was his sole means of income.
The author nurtured his extraordinary imagination in a swarm of identities and nationalities: a Jew who thought and wrote in Polish, was fluent in German, and immersed in Jewish culture though unfamiliar with the Yiddish language. Yet there was nothing cosmopolitan about him; his genius fed in solitude on specific local and ethnic sources. He preferred not to leave his provincial hometown, which over the course of his life belonged to four countries. His adult life was often perceived by outsiders as that of a hermit: uneventful and enclosed.
Schulz seems to have become a writer by chance, as he was discouraged by influential colleagues from publishing his first short stories. His aspirations were refreshed, however, when several letters that he wrote to a friend, in which he gave highly original accounts of his solitary life and the details of the lives of his fellow citizens, were brought to the attention of the novelist Zofia Nałkowska. She encouraged Schulz to have them published as short fiction, and The Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy Cynamonowe) was published in 1934; in English-speaking countries, it is most often referred to as The Street of Crocodiles, a title derived from one of the chapters. This novel-memoir was followed three years later by Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą). The original publications were fully illustrated by Schulz himself; in later editions of his works, however, these illustrations are often left out or are poorly reproduced. He also helped his fiancée translate Franz Kafka's The Trial into Polish, in 1936. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy of Literature's prestigious Golden Laurel award.
The outbreak of World War II in 1939 caught Schulz living in Drohobycz, which was occupied by the Soviet Union. There are reports that he worked on a novel called The Messiah, but no trace of this manuscript survived his death. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, as a Jew he was forced to live in the ghetto of Drohobycz, but he was temporarily protected by Felix Landau, a Gestapo officer who admired his drawings. During the last weeks of his life, Schulz painted a mural in Landau's home in Drohobycz, in the style with which he is identified. Shortly after completing the work, Schulz was bringing home a loaf of bread when he was shot and killed by a German officer, Karl Günther, a rival of his protector (Landau had killed Günther's "personal Jew," a dentist). Over the years his mural was covered with paint and forgotten.
Source: wikipedia.com
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 16, 2021
More a fragment than a fully realised piece, this strange, hypnotic story, published under a pseudonym in the early 1920s, has been attributed to the unique vision of Polish-Jewish artist and author Bruno Schulz, raising intriguing questions about writing and provenance. It's a tortured, feverish sketch hinting at thwarted desires and the kind of anomie long associated with writers like Rilke and Kafka, with a style that lies somewhere between the decadent and the surreal. If this is by Schulz it's by no means his finest work but its dense, atmospheric and sinuous sentences contain a host of marvellous, memorable images. I cheated and read this online in a translation by Stanley Bill, which is accompanied by a useful overview and introduction.
Rating: 3.5
Rating: 3.5
December 4, 2021
“Debo llevar semanas, meses encerrado en esta soledad. Vivo en una constante duermevela en la que las alucinaciones de la vigilia se enredan con las oscuras fantasías de los sueños.”
No conozco la obra de Bruno Schulz así que no me puedo hacer una idea sobre si lo que aborda en Undula es típicamente suyo o no, pero sí que he ido viendo algunos de sus dibujos en la red y tanto en ellos como en este breve relato hay mucho de compulsión y tensión sexual, de obsesión por un ¿¿ideal femenino?? imposible de atrapar,.
Es un relato que me remite al cine de Jean Epstein por lo denso, atmosférico y por ese sonambulismo acechante, y algunas imágenes de sus películas se me confundian con este relato fantasmagórico que no he podido quitarme de la cabeza mientras lo he devorado primeramente y lo releído más despacio. Es cierto que me ha sabido a poco, ¡¡cómo no!!, pero al releerlo hay una cierta fascinación en ser testigo de esa doble capa donde ese protagonista vive atrapado en la habitación perseguido por sombras y alucinaciones, fantaseando con esa ¿bailarina? que es Undula:
“...yo la seguí, con una dulce y ardiente pasión en el corazón, hasta que las piernas, desfallecidas, no pudieron sostenerme más, y el carnaval me escupió...”
El narrador vive atrapado entre realidad y sueño ¿puede ser el mismo Schulz?? No lo sé, pero es interesante comprobar cómo a través de sus dibujos hay una especie de conexión con este relato, o puede que no sea un relato completo, sino un fragmento… pero este narrador roto, sonámbulo, perdido en el tiempo sin distinguir la noche del dia, o las estaciones del año, me recuerdan a esa búsqueda eterna y universal de algo que que sabe que nunca podrá tener o volver a vivir.
El prólogo de esta delicia de edición (perteneciente a la serie éLIte) de Pálido Fuego documenta quién fue Bruno Schulz y cómo fue encontrado este relato perdido en un principio y aparecido bajo seudónimo, así que no entraré en detalles pero tengo que decir que la cubierta está perfectamente elegida, porque Undula podría perfectamente ser una de esas chicas Ziegfeld retratadas por Cheney Johnston... y después de Undula necesito seguir indagando en la breve obra de Bruno Schulz. Una joyita.
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2021...
No conozco la obra de Bruno Schulz así que no me puedo hacer una idea sobre si lo que aborda en Undula es típicamente suyo o no, pero sí que he ido viendo algunos de sus dibujos en la red y tanto en ellos como en este breve relato hay mucho de compulsión y tensión sexual, de obsesión por un ¿¿ideal femenino?? imposible de atrapar,.
Es un relato que me remite al cine de Jean Epstein por lo denso, atmosférico y por ese sonambulismo acechante, y algunas imágenes de sus películas se me confundian con este relato fantasmagórico que no he podido quitarme de la cabeza mientras lo he devorado primeramente y lo releído más despacio. Es cierto que me ha sabido a poco, ¡¡cómo no!!, pero al releerlo hay una cierta fascinación en ser testigo de esa doble capa donde ese protagonista vive atrapado en la habitación perseguido por sombras y alucinaciones, fantaseando con esa ¿bailarina? que es Undula:
“...yo la seguí, con una dulce y ardiente pasión en el corazón, hasta que las piernas, desfallecidas, no pudieron sostenerme más, y el carnaval me escupió...”
El narrador vive atrapado entre realidad y sueño ¿puede ser el mismo Schulz?? No lo sé, pero es interesante comprobar cómo a través de sus dibujos hay una especie de conexión con este relato, o puede que no sea un relato completo, sino un fragmento… pero este narrador roto, sonámbulo, perdido en el tiempo sin distinguir la noche del dia, o las estaciones del año, me recuerdan a esa búsqueda eterna y universal de algo que que sabe que nunca podrá tener o volver a vivir.
El prólogo de esta delicia de edición (perteneciente a la serie éLIte) de Pálido Fuego documenta quién fue Bruno Schulz y cómo fue encontrado este relato perdido en un principio y aparecido bajo seudónimo, así que no entraré en detalles pero tengo que decir que la cubierta está perfectamente elegida, porque Undula podría perfectamente ser una de esas chicas Ziegfeld retratadas por Cheney Johnston... y después de Undula necesito seguir indagando en la breve obra de Bruno Schulz. Una joyita.
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2021...
March 30, 2022
"Now you are like the scroll of an umbilical cord, twisted and pulsating…"
March 28, 2021
Purchased on impulse, read past midnight, did not find Schulz's lost novel under any floorboards in the morning. . .
December 29, 2020
Beautifully presented little short story introducing the major themes in Bruno Schulz's work: jumbled interiors congested with furniture as real analogue for a mind riddled with doubts and fantasies; domineering matriarchs who somehow preserve a childish grace, and a sort of animistic perception of enduring objects, because, after all, anything can become a musical instrument if struck, and the sputtering of an oil lamp really is the commentary of the universe. As for the translation, it reads very smoothly without losing its weird decadent tones (Poe meets Masoch, as proposed by another reviewer), and Frank Garrett's translator's afterword is a model example of how it should be done: historically informed without being cumbersome, precise without being technical, and Garrett manages to justify his own interpretation of the story without foreclosing alternatives or leading astray the general reader. This is the best way into Schulz's writing that I know.
Ps. Did anyone mention the demonic blowjob?
Ps. Did anyone mention the demonic blowjob?
December 21, 2020
By weird alignment of the stars, an early story by Bruno Schulz was rediscovered a few years ago—perhaps Schulz’s first published story—but published (a) under a pseudonym in (b) The Journal of Petroleum Officers in Boryslav. “Undula” is an atmospheric sketch, a cross between Poe and the later Decadents, a mournful, dream-like musing over one Undula, a sort of dance-hall entertainer of easy virtue whose pure essence only the narrator sees.
But decadence requires things go wrong, and they do. The narrator realizes that, despite Undula’s degraded life, to her the narrator is nothing, which the narrator is only too eager to accept as proof of her perfection: “Now it’s time for me to return to the threshing floor from which I had left only an impetuous miscarriage. I shall follow through to the end so as to atone for being my Maker’s mistake.” The rest of the story takes us back to where it begins—in a room, alone, drifting in and out of consciousness, mulling over the homunculus that is his soul.
But decadence requires things go wrong, and they do. The narrator realizes that, despite Undula’s degraded life, to her the narrator is nothing, which the narrator is only too eager to accept as proof of her perfection: “Now it’s time for me to return to the threshing floor from which I had left only an impetuous miscarriage. I shall follow through to the end so as to atone for being my Maker’s mistake.” The rest of the story takes us back to where it begins—in a room, alone, drifting in and out of consciousness, mulling over the homunculus that is his soul.
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November 11, 2020Pretty cool, like Ligeia meets Venus in furs.
February 17, 2024
bugs ✅
nightmares ✅
dommy mommy ✅
great first story, very excited to dig deeper into schulz! I love his ability to create a hallucinatory rendering of everyday life
nightmares ✅
dommy mommy ✅
great first story, very excited to dig deeper into schulz! I love his ability to create a hallucinatory rendering of everyday life
February 7, 2025
Schulz nigdy nie zawodzi, nawet jeżeli to Marceli Weron
March 4, 2021
Cost about $11 and took approximately as many minutes to read but well worth it for Schulz fans -- and worth multiple reads, thereby reducing substantially the dollar/reading-minute ratio. Typical Schulz dreaminess, a touch more Romantic than his later stories. Interesting for me at least to learn in the translator's afterword that he lived not so far from my maternal descendants' Old Country homeland in southeastern Poland. Recommended for fans of small slim books.
March 4, 2021
ok, but too short to qualify as a book: https://5cense.com/21/858.htm
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December 19, 2022read online (translated by stanley bill): https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/07/1...
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews