In Red

by Magdalena Tulli, Bill Johnston (Translator)

By the Koscielski Prize-winning author of Dream and Stones , In Red is the gripping cautionary tale in which real and unreal combine explosively, making us question the nature of the work itself. Set in an imaginary fourth partition of Poland, In Red retraces the turbulent history of the Twentieth Century in a labyrinth of greed, inheritance, and entropy, enacting—word by tremulous word—the claustrophobia of a small town from which there seems to be no escape. Never have Tulli's trademark precision of language and her crystalline storytelling been put to such brilliant use.

Genres: Fiction, Poland, Polish Literature, Novels, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Literary Fiction

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

In 1995 Magdalena Tulli got Kościelscy Award. She was shortlisted for the NIKE Award two times. Her books were translated to English, German, French, Czech, Hungarian and Latvian. She is a member of Polish Writers Society. In 2007 she got a special award - distinction of Gdynia Literary Award.

She translated a few books: The anger of heaven by Fleur Jaeggy (for this translation from Italian she received the award of Literature of the world magazine), Amerigo's long day by Italo Calvino and Lost by Marcel Proust.

Reviews

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This polish novella from 1998 has now been put into a translation that contains morbid humour, improbable events that suit the environment, and colourful imagery and prose. I don't know how Tulli reads in her original language, but the translator has given us a swift moving book that is easy to read, and fascinating in its broad and fine details, of a mythical town just before the First World War and leading to the Second. Well worth purchasing, for yourself, or if you want to give someone a book that is a little different than the latest Eugenides.

[Jim Elkins]

When the Sublime Needs to be Continuously Recharged

The book is full of beautiful images, and Merwin is right that it has echoes of Michaux, Kafka, Calvino, and Saramango.

But the images just keep coming, as if magic needs to be renewed a half-dozen times on each page, as if each magic thing mustn't be allowed to linger more than a line or two. I can't understand why that should be: why can't Tulli imagine something magical and wonderful, and keep the image going for a page or a chapter? Why does she think magical things need to be so frantically renewed?

Here is an example. On p. 54, a bullet unexpectedly kills someone. It's unexpected because the bullet was fired twenty pages and several years before, and had "circled the earth an unknown number of times since the day" it was fired. The man who has been shot "swayed, his moist hand slid down to his watch chain and stopped at the gold pocket watch, and that very moment black, tainted blood spattered down onto his clothing."

That's the opening magical occurrence, and the opening image, in a chain of images. I'll quote the following passage in full, without omitting anything, but with comments interposed.

"Dash it," he grunted. "This is a new coat!"

(To me, that line is a nice example of black humor: not funny, in the sense that I didn't laugh, but an appropriate contrast to the poetry of the shot that had been circling the world waiting for its target.)

"And he slipped to the ice-covered ground, into a pale blue and purple emptiness."

(This is suddenly sublime.)

"Because of the frost, rigor mortis stiffened his body so quickly that he ended up lying on his catafalque with his dead fingers gripping his watch,"

(A bit of surrealism.)

"which ticked loudly, to the embarrassment of those attending the funeral."

(Suddenly, comedy.)

"One lusterless blue eye peered at the timepiece from beneath a half-closed lid."

(Another visual joke, as if for good measure.)

The entire book goes at this pace: something sublime, a piece of black humor, surrealism, a joke, something beautiful, some poetry, more humor... it's not the images and ideas I don't like, but their relentless rhythm. As if any one idea can't stand by itself, as if a sublime image won't work without support.

Is this what Karsten Harries called the "kitsch economy," the need to accelerate stimuli because each one needs to outdo the last, and they all need to hide their artificiality? Or is that over-reading, and Tiulli's succession of images, poetry, and comedy is more of a writer's tic, a leftover of literary surrealism? The book is like swabs of anesthetic on a painful tooth: the images have to keep coming, in a continuous waterfall of color and imagination, because otherwise something will start to hurt. But can pain be quieted by ornaments like these? Pain, for Tulli, might be something like the drabness or ordinary dullness or lovelessness of the actual world, and she would be driven by that suffering to produce these spectral inventions—but doesn't seem quite right. I think she hasn't actually lived through the pain the book proposes, because she has lived her entire writer's life in a manic state of continuous invention.

It's clear that the writing is meant to be perceived as condensed poetry. But for whom is poetry an endless succession of isolated insights? I found In Red exhausting, enervating, endless, and timid: it's as if Tulli couldn't get up the courage to let herself tell a story with just one, two, or three absolutely beautiful images. Too much work goes into ensuring that we are never left alone with our thoughts, or with a picture we can really explore, really get to know.

[Nate D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spotted entirely via the lovely Archipelago book design (and the vitriolic strength of Tranquility) and grabbed on impulse, this is the condensed history of Europe told in a notional arctic reach of Poland over the first half of the 20th century, reading with a deft fairy-tale lightness that smooths the bitter realities grinning blackly behind its surrealized story-surfaces. Tulli's narrative attempts to cover an incredible amount into 150 pages, leaving most of the characters stuck via plot mechanics somewhat out of reach of direct empathy, but her prose dances through the levels of the story with a unique grace, smoothing an incredible amount of material into a careful, rhythmically measured, eerily placid (inevitable?) yet tumultuous unspooling of events. Looks like Archipelago has a number of her books in circulation with is excellent news.

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magdalena Tulli celebrates the power of stories to capture a world that is at once magical and a microcosm of the early decades of the twentieth century in her native country. Set in the town of Stitchings in an imaginary fourth partition of Poland, this fable traces the impact of economic, familial, military pressures on a community that exists on the edge of reality. Echoes of Calvino and Saramago can be heard in her work but she is an original Polish voice.

A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2023/08/24/in...

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

At the risk of being thrown out as a judge on Project Runway, I think the emperor is not wearing any clothes here. I didn't understand what was going on, and I pretty sure that nobody else who read the book understood what was going on either, but just didn't want to let on. In particular, on second reading of the review in the New Yorker that initially intrigued me enough to read it, I think the author of the review had no idea what was going on but didn't want to admit it. The review in the New Yorker pointed to the author's "inscrutable but compelling logic." I'll give it inscrutable, but I was not compelled. And now I also don't understand how something that is inscrutible can ever be compelling. The New Yorker points to the "elusive parables." I'll give it elusive, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what it was a parable of. Or how you can even tell it's a parable if it's so elusive. The New Yorker says the author "narrates with total seriousness events that might otherwise seem precious." Translation: It reads like a fairy tale written by an author with extreme Aspergers and no affect.

I usually try to judge the book for what it was, not for what I wanted it to be, but in this case it fails on both grounds. I like the idea of a book steeped in magic realism set in a dirty mid-20th-century Polish factory and mining town, rather than the rural countryside like most magic realism is. But here there was no pattern to the magic realism that marked it as "urban" (or "Polish" or any other overarching theme of magic.) The magical parts were random enough that it just sort of felt like deus ex machina after unrelated deus ex machina plot devices rather than the invisible hand of the uncanny.

I'm pretty sure that there may have been a vampire story in there, too, but if so it was so subtle and unscary that it made Twilight seem like Nosferatu. As best as I can gather, a character's heart stopped beating, but she didn't die. She just hung out in her room for a while. Then, later on, after her character failed to appear for most of the book, the townspeople turn on her for no apparent reason, stormed her room, staked her, and carried her off in a coffin. There might have been a love story involved, but not in the sense of rising to something as tangible as a lost heart/ stopped heart metaphor. It could have just as easily been an aneurysm.

I got the idea that the author had some cool images in her head, and tried to come up with a story that would let her include the images -- but all that I was left with was the "inscrutible" and "elusive." I don't recall having read a novel that short that held together more poorly.

[Stacia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this one on my shelf for a bit & tried reading it a couple different times, but just couldn't get into it. I decided to give it one last try & have now read it in one day. It's a strange story, unsettling, though sometimes beautiful too. I like this review/description of it & it describes it better than I can. Even with the unusual & bizarre happenings, I can't really say this story is magical realism, but in a sense, it may be. Partly it reminded me of the old, scary, dark fairy tales from Europe but with a modern edge where the evil beings are war (the two world wars bookend the novel), inertia, & cold-hearted business. There's a coldness & distance in the presentation style, but it is also deeply touching & makes you feel the futility of war (among other things).

I will say that, for some reason, I can see this story as a modern dance ballet with a very neutral color palette (white, gray, black) with symbolic slashes of red throughout. There's definitely a stage/scenery bent to the writing that makes me picture it in motion on stage. I think it could be a grand & dramatic ballet.

I know my review sounds disjointed, but I'm afraid that may the best I can do with this book.

[hence · Rating 5 out of 5]

so awesome like 6/5,, obsessed with the opening lines and feels like a fucked up little baby of dostoevsky and krasznahorkai ; gorg.

[Magdelanye · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Stories are not subject to anyones will,for they have their own;it is unbreakable,like a steel spring concealed in the depths of mechanical instrument...." asserts MT on p158.Not a perfect analogy,for the steel spring requires setting subject to the limits imposed on it by its makers will,and it will sooner or later"play its melody to the end."

Thirty pages earlier she had presented her conclusion"The truth is a fraud",and I can only understand this to refer to the dizzying rate of change her characters are made to undergo. I think she is claiming,not that there is no such thing as truth, but that truth is variable.

In Red is a fable-like presentation of history as stream of consciousness,zooming in on its broad rivers,rushing tributaries,eddies,backwaters and canals,all joining in the illusion of progress.

Her unsentimental,robust lyricism has translated so well,I cannot imagine that the original Polish could be more compelling. Still, I was aware that I was probably missing at least half of the allusions,puns, and context that any Polish reader would inherit.

"The coarse guffaw of drumrolls set the rhythm for the self-assured trombones, the trumpet announced that life was beautiful,while the violin...wept drunkenly that it was too fleeting" p37

[Adam Dalva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely, dark fairy tale of escalation that works a bit like a trade-up sequence, with the action spiraling in an exhilarating, controlled way, always calling back previous sequences and complicating the story of Stitchings, an imagined town. I read this with a lot of pleasure, but was disappointed by the combo breaker two-thirds of the way through, when the book's built-up leads vanish from the scene and a new story-line begins. Tulli is really talented and the descriptions sing, but the last third lacks the heft of the rest of the plot.

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take the history of the twentieth century, roll it up into a map of a small Polish town, and unfurl as one: you've got Magdalena Tulli's In Red, a novel that advertises early on the chilly visage necessary to face its message. A visitor to Stitchings, the Polish town that serves as petri dish, will "take a liking to frost, which conserves feelings and capital, protecting both from the corruptions of decay." Furthermore, the novel's first line selflessly betrays the depreciated nature of Stitchings. "Whoever has been everywhere and seen everything, last of all should pay a visit to Stitchings." Get out now, essentially. Or, better, you've seen it all already. Why bother?

After that gambit, the rest of the novel plays out with cunning and cold affect. Characters (and families) become cyphers for societal segments and historical forces, while suffering is ever-present for all. Expect few human interest stories; you'll find failed brides that refuse to die, porcelain-salesmen reborn in the fires of war as hardboiled fascists, and a poor, hopeless firefighter whose dreams are doomed to being dashed time after time. There are echoes of Bruno Schulz, as indeed there must be, but Tulli's eyes and goals are her own, and the idea of "magical realism" permeating In Red is a touch oversold.

Tulli's prose in Bill Johnson's translation is elegant, unfolding with a dextrous clarity that kept me reading page after page until the whole was done. And given that this is one of the little marvels published by Archipelago Press, I'm happy to have the thing on my shelf. What are we supposed to say about such a book these days - that is gives me joy? Rather: it is an opening into a world, no matter how self-depreciatingly and mordantly the little abyss of Stitchings is described.

[Kaja · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jedyne, co mi się podobało to konstrukcja na początku kolejnych 'rozdziałów'

[Monica Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone who makes it to Stitchings appreciates its promising misty grayness and the moist warm breeze in which desires flourish so handsomely. A wide choice of furnished rooms with all the modern conveniences, and homemade meals available just around the corner, cheap and filling. Daybreaks and sunsets at fixed times. A moderate climate, flowers throughout the year. It's well worth making the long steamboat journey, putting up with seasickness, till the port of Stitchings comes into view crowded with freighters flying various flags. Or for the same number of days rattling along in a train, dozing form tedium, rocking to the rhythmic clatter of the wheels. The visitor--for instance a traveling salesman with a valise bursting at the seams, as if instead a few samples he had stuffed it with all of his possessions--can choose to come by land or by sea, restricted only by the properties of the place form which he sets out. But his choice of route determines the fate that awaits him upon his arrival.

Magadalena Tulli's In Red is a read worth your time. And your thought. Known for her prose works, In Red shows her talent for a surreal and encompassing narrative that, at 160 pages, is a workhorse of a novel. The reader is instantly thrown into the story of the town of Stitchings, a small town in the imaginary fourth partition of Poland. Set in an indeterminate time, the disembodied narrator swiftly takes through the lives of inhabitants and the main character, which is the town itself.

Not that this is a novel of fireside chats, but a novel of mendacity via greed, jealousy, neglect and imprisonment. Centered around three businesses--Strobbel's factory, Neumann's factory and Loom and Sons. These business keep the town afloat but eventually competitiveness and greed destroy in one way or another each one. A love affair begins between a young general and Emilka, only daughter of the Looms. Unfortunately, she is killed, yet her heart continues to beat on. This is where the novel begins it's teetering between worlds--the real and the unreal. It carries over into the narrative as well, wondering exactly what we are reading, but always wanting to continue.

There are many imaginable oddities amidst the rotating cast of characters who all seem to intertwine in some way. Emilka, young girl dead with a beating heart, wants to go dancing, a man is shot and the bullet boomerangs around the world only to come back and hit him again, and an celebrated singer who disappears forever in an air balloon. Throughout the novel, characters die but don't seem to fade away. This is best said by townspeople when sipping coffee at the local cafe:

"The dead are running the show."

And this permeates the novel making it feel ominous tonally and with their lives caught in the space between life and death. Stylistically, Tulli incorporates her gift for metaphor and a well-bred distant voice meant for story-telling. Everything seems to wrap back around again, like the ways out of Stitchings:

Merchants locked themselves in their storerooms along with their wives and children, barricading the door, so as to wait out the worst and then simply flee--to the port or the train station. But what port were they talking about! They must have dreamed it. See--there was nothing but a boarded-up harbor building, the narrowest of jetties with a dilapidated bench at the end, over which a hurricane lamp hanging from a pole was lit after lunch and put out come what may after supper. By the landing stage, a peeling fishing boat rocked on the waves, its skipper afraid to take it out to sea. A real ship could surely only enter this harbor by mistake. And what kind of train station was that, it's ticket offices bolted shut, the chintz curtains drawn from inside, with scraps of timetables blowing about the waiting room by the unlit stove.

A Polish writer of note (paired with a translator of note Bill Johnston), Tulli continues to showcase her growth as a writer. Weaving the fantastical fairy tale about the impossible fate of its habitues indelibly marked by the fate of the town. Tulli knows that there is beauty in tragedy and sets it before us beautifully.

[Daniel Gargallo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magdalena Tulli seems like an author that writes effortlessly well. If you write and find it difficult to look at any story without seeing the technical dimension you may find that reading this book is a lot like watching somebody lift weights.

The big deal that people make about this book, which is superficially about a fictional town, is that the story shape-shifts very seamlessly from one form to another. In no way is it a series of short stories or an anthology precisely because it is one singular “organism” adapting into different forms.

This is not like Cloud Atlas where you, the reader, draw connections between several different narratives and identify a larger narrative as if you were reading tarot cards. Does that make any sense? It’s like putting on a piece of classical music. Sometimes it will demand your attention and cohesive themes tie it together. Sometimes you will just be reading and may even wonder why you continue onward. When you reach the end I hope that you will feel rewarded and be able to look back with perspective positively on the piece as a whole.

[Corinne Wasilewski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tulli writes about life in a town where time stands still -- it is always winter there and even death is not guaranteed. The cast is large and the pace frantic, and yet, Tulli deftly fills in her large brush strokes with the minutest details. The effect is like close ups of a carnival ride at full speed -- beautiful, but, also disorienting. Obviously, Tulli likes the effect. She is a stylistic at heart, and not particularly concerned with traditional plot development. Her prose reads like poetry, her word choice (even in translation) is delightful and her work is dense with imagery and metaphor. There is a rhythm to her writing and her use of motif is very effective. Her work is highly recommended for those who love beautiful writing and do not require a connect-the-dot reading experience.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

A more depressing book I don't believe I've read in a long while. Tulli describes the ebb and flow of a fictitious town in Poland through the lives of certain high profiled individuals over time. Her intent, I think, is to emphasize greed and war destroy the fabric of humanity, and while her prose is certainly evocative and at time delicate, the overall tone of the book is dark. The Grim Reaper plays a central figure in this book, taking for himself, many an agonized soul.

[Wally Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because Bill Johnston led the workshop I attended at the Bread Loaf Translators' Conference, I bought his translation of In Red by Magdalena Tulli. Johnston has published over thirty book-length translations from the Polish, including poetry, prose, and drama. He teaches literary translation at Indiana University.

Magdalena Tulli is a Polish novelist and translator and is one of Poland's leading writers. She's won the Gdynia Literary Prize and been short-listed five times for the Nike Award, Poland's most prominent literary prize. While her own novels have been translated into a number of languages, she has translated Proust, Calvino, and Fleur Jaeggy into Polish.

Tulli's novel In Red is a physically small paperback, a five-and-a-half by six-and-a-half-inch rectangle, 158 pages, around 46,000 words. More than a short story. A novella. But rich in image, rich in language, rich in vision.

It is—more or less—the modern history of a fictional Polish town somewhere on the Baltic coast, close to Sweden, but too close to Germany, too close to Russia. It begins:

"Whoever has been everywhere and seen everything, last of all should pay a visit to Stitchings. Simply take a seat in a sleigh and before being overcome by sleep, speed across a plain that's as empty as a blank sheet of paper, boundless as life itself. Sooner or later this someone—perhaps a traveling salesman with a valise full of samples—will see great mounds of snow stretching along streets to the four corners of the earth, toward empty, icy expanses. He'll see pillars made of icicles, their snowy caps lost in the dark of a wintry sky. He'll draw into his lungs air as sharp as a razor that cuts feeling away from breath. He'll come to appreciate the benefits of a climate forever unencumbered by restless springtime breezes, by the indolence of summer swelter, or the misty sorrows of autumn. He'll take a liking to frost, which conserves feelings and capital, protecting both from the corruption of decay."

Before WWI, Stitchings' three main industries were Loom & Son, merchant and manufacturer of ladies' corsets, Strobbel's porcelain factory, and Neumann's phonograph-record factory. During the war, an enemy plane managed to bomb both Strobbel's and Neumann's warehouses. Although the colonel in charge of the town's defense emptied his pistol at it, "the airplane taunted the colonel. Time and again it appeared out of the blue, only to soar upward at the last minute, before the very noses of the artillerymen. The cannon was hurriedly reloaded and fired again. The aircraft, its undercarriage in shreds, went spinning halfway across the sky, trailing clouds of smoke as black as pitch, and crashed into the black rotunda of the municipal gas works. There was an explosion, and gas lighting went out across the entire town."

After the war, Neumann's works convert to manufacturing radio sets; Strobbel's porcelain factory—now Slotsky & Co—begins producing commodes and sanitary appliances; and Loom, which had survived the war on military contracts manufacturing shoddy uniforms, becomes a munitions plant.

Aspiring writers are told (I was told; I tell aspiring writers): Read the best stuff you can get your hands on. Read In Red because it demonstrates how much can be said with relatively few words. It opens possibilities for fiction. We learn about the town; we follow its history through the war and into the post-war period; we meet a number of vivid characters: Emilka, the Loom daughter who refuses to die properly; her suitor, Kazimierz, the town counselor's haughty son; Felek Chmura, Kazimierz's orderly, who returns from the war to become the town's leading citizen; Madam at the bawdy house that services both the town's leading citizens and the sailors from the port; Natalie Zugoff, a chanteuse so imperious, so extraordinary. and so captivating she can fill Jacques Rauch's theater night after night, and more and more.

Toward the end of the novel, Tilli writes, "Whoever wishes to leave Stitchings can avail himself of two methods. If he is an outsider—for example, a traveling salesman of his own virtues, obliged to compete for a favorable market, or a collector of experiences whom life has taught humility—without a second thought he ought to ascend at dawn in a passenger cabin suspended beneath a dirigible balloon. For it's easy to sail among the clouds, where the sun casts its pink rays over the cranes of the port and the docks, over the roofs of the banks, over the stock exchange . . ." If this person wishes to leave by ship or train, "he'll quickly realize that the desire to leave bears no relation whatsoever to the calendar or the clock. The right moment never comes at any time." Without a balloon, we are stuck in Stitchings forever.

[Cerisaye · Rating 3 out of 5]

A magic realist fable that's really a concise history of Poland during its turbulent twentieth century. I enjoyed this short book though, despite its brevity,but seemed stretched out and might've worked more effectively as a novella or short story. Blackly funny, weird, baffling, insightful, it is all of these and more, yet in the end, for me, the whole was less than the sum of its parts. Characters appear and then leave the stage-some literally disappear- and things that happen early in have later consequences. I think the more you know about Polish history and politics, the more you will get out of reading the book, and I readily admit my lack of detailed knowledge probably negatively impacted upon my enjoyment. I'm glad to have read it all the same. There's some beautiful, clever writing, and it's an intriguing read, one that requires effort and makes you think, not always easy if you just want to be entertained and what you get instead concerns personal tragedies, economic collapse, war and totalitarianism.

EDIT: actually, the book is short enough to be a novella in length, but is so crammed with story (odd characters, weird happenings) it seems much longer than it is...or something. I did enjoy reading it but was never sure I was understanding the author's intentions. My fault, not hers.

[Asaria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jaka piękna wydmuszka, w zasadzie dwa opowiadania. Pierwsze jest o ciemnych interesach Feliksa i jego nieudanym małżeństwie ze Stefanią. Ostatnie o losach śpiewaczki Natalii Zugoff.

Cóż można powiedzieć? Zgrzyta język (prosiłoby się o XX wieczną polszczyznę), miejsce akcji słabo wykreowane. Dziwi mnie, że została przełożona na angielski.

[Jo-Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like in a long dream, characters and landmarks shift and change and time advances unevenly in this town of stark beauty/ugliness. I loved it but I can't see it appealing to everyone.

[Szczupak · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Mikołaj · Rating 4 out of 5]

mamy marqueza w domu i guess

[chhaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nem tudom eldönteni teljes bizonyossággal, mit gondolok a könyvről. A mágikus realizmus (ha ez annak minősül) nem az én műfajom, és ha előre tudom, nem olvasom. Ennek ellenére sodort magával a történet. Sajátos hangulata van ennek a folyton alakuló kisvárosnak, ami egyszer északon fekszik, a hideg és havas kietlenségben, máskor a poros és szürke mérsékelt övben, aztán a szikkadt trópusi forróságban… És ennek megfelelően pörögnek vagy csordogálnak az események, élnek a lakosok, alakítják saját maguk és városkájuk sorsát… Zajlik a történelem. És mire eljutnánk valahová, kezdődik minden elölről.

[Lori]

from publisher


Read 7/11/12 - 7/21/12
3.5 - Recommended to readers who don't mind not knowing where the story is taking them
Pgs: 158
Publisher: Archipelago Books

Whoever has been everywhere and has seen everything, last of all should pay a visit to Stitchings.


The first line of Magdalena Tulli's novel, In Red, seems innocuous enough at first glance. Go, see the world, do all the things in life you've dreamed of, then come chill with us, but only then - it appears to be saying.

And why, exactly, do you think anyone would say such a thing about their own town? Perhaps they think you won't be terribly impressed. Or the opposite, they know it's the best town you'll ever visit so they want to save it for last? Or maybe, just maybe, that first line is a warning to the weary traveler. Stay away - it implies. Danger - it suggests.

Let's pretend we are that weary traveler. It would appear there are only a few ways into this imaginary polish town - by sleigh if it's winter time, by boat or by train in the spring. None of them appear to be very favorable, as the book warns us that we will fall victim to pickpockets and street urchins at each point.

The town itself seems to change and flicker right before our eyes. There is war, and then there is not war. It is under German possession, and then... it is not. It is an industrial town with prosperous family-owned businesses, and then those businesses are vacant, destroyed. It is winter, and then it is perpetual spring. It is starving and poor, and then it is rich with counterfeit money. It is a town that is, and that is not.

What are those red strings that float in the air. There, do you see it? Make sure one does not land on your shoulder, it appears to bring death to those it touches. Keep your heart beating at all times, it seems that death is not allowed to rest here. Be wary of your neighbors, the crowds on the streets, because they cannot be trusted and may not trust you. Don't try to leave, the schedules for docking and departing are illegible, changeable, they only appear to bring travelers in. They are empty otherwise. If you were to try to leave, something will end up calling you back before you got away, anyway.

This is a book that I've had to let percolate for awhile. I was never one hundred percent certain of what was taking place. Tulli seemed to enjoy toying with me, as a cat with a mouse. Just when I thought I was getting my bearings, she would swat me on the back of the neck and spin me around, and I'd find myself slightly disoriented again.

After reading In Red cover to cover, I still struggled to reconcile that first line. Is it heavy with foreshadowing or have I misread it? Is it a subtle warning to those who might be considering a visit to Stitchings? Is the book what I've made it out to be? Or is Tulli playing with smoke and mirrors? Perhaps you'll just have to trust me. Or maybe, it would be best for you to read it for yourself.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tulli engages torment by disengaging. A young maiden, pursued simultaneously by the town's two most eligible bachelors, has her heart suddenly stop beating yet continues to live and holes up in her father's house reading French romance novels never having to decide between the two. A father of a newly married bride drops mid-meal. Occupying German commanders from the first World War die without ever carrying out their purposeful plans for the conquered town of Stitchings. Tulli does not spend more than a single sentence on a given death. This keeps In Red moving quickly and darkly comedic. The rampant deaths (on par with a Shakespearean tragedy) are also always punctuated by a new paragraph. Her writing is poetic in this way. She uses the page break much the way a poet uses line breaks to force new evaluations of the words. In this case, their quick passage.

Her words, too, are poetic. Expressing all the beauty and nervousness of the desire, the voice of a new lover "follow[s] him down the stairs in a warm cascade of colorartura, finally flowing down the middle of the street quiet as a memory, freezing in the chill and marking the way from Neumann's house to the barracks with an icy trail, so that in the evening, when Kazimierz returned beneath Stefania's window, he slid and had to take care that the ground didn't slip from under his feet." (25)
Tulli's use of the seasons is a particular tour de force aptly accompanying the wars that beleaguer the Polish village. The first World War takes place entirely in winter. Reconstruction begins in spring and the eventual rise of the Nazis is an uncharacteristically warm summer brought to a very sudden end by the return of snow.

In Red reminds much of Safran-Foer's Everything is Illuminated. Both are set in Slavic Europe and unite otherwise disparate stories by lineage and love while remaining fixed (in Tulli's case) entirely on one location. Tulli invests more in language than sex, Safran-Foer's main appeal. The transient feel of Everything is Illuminated sits well next to In Red. Description is heavy and conversation is terse and the theme of war sets this novel near to A Farewell to Arms. Again though, Tulli steers clear of the sexual moments Hemingway was wont to and uses infinitely more poetic verbiage.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

i copy pasted this excerpt from monica carter's fantastic gr reivew
"Anyone who makes it to Stitchings appreciates its promising misty grayness and the moist warm breeze in which desires flourish so handsomely. A wide choice of furnished rooms with all the modern conveniences, and homemade meals available just around the corner, cheap and filling. Daybreaks and sunsets at fixed times. A moderate climate, flowers throughout the year. It's well worth making the long steamboat journey, putting up with seasickness, till the port of Stitchings comes into view crowded with freighters flying various flags. Or for the same number of days rattling along in a train, dozing form tedium, rocking to the rhythmic clatter of the wheels. The visitor--for instance a traveling salesman with a valise bursting at the seams, as if instead a few samples he had stuffed it with all of his possessions--can choose to come by land or by sea, restricted only by the properties of the place form which he sets out. But his choice of route determines the fate that awaits him upon his arrival."

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

a book packed to overfull about this place, stitchings. a place that would be the equivalent of booking a package tour to triest, with topor as your agent AND guide
or maybe going to sicily with sciascia http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints...

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at early 20th century Polish history (or it could be set anywhere in that boundless plain between Russia and Germany). Supposedly set during a mythical "fourth partition" of Poland, the "story" chronicles daily life among a handful of the residents of Stitchings, a seemingly magical place where time and space mean nothing, and one cannot escape this cursed place no matter how hard they try (unless they find a dirigible or a hot-air balloon).

An interesting read, but even more interesting, I read this just after Attila Bartis' Tranquility and both are published by the always-amazing Archipelago Books but both books have at their center a Dostoevskian thesis that mankind does not deserve or know what to do with freedom, as in the closing pages of In Red: "The world has no need of freedom. It needs purity, it needs rules, it needs boundaries." I think Archipelago is up to something.

[Laurel Narizny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love subtle, poetic writing such as Tulli's, so it came as a surprise that I found this book very difficult to get into. It's well worth the effort, though. Tulli's language is masterful, effectively creating a surreal multi-generational story of a town in Poland. The description on the book jacket that calls the town "claustrophobic" is dead on, though the suffocating atmosphere is somewhat mitigated by threads of magical realism. The story flows effortlessly from one tangentially related character to another, interweaving details that echo through the years; this creates a sense of fate, as if the actions of the pre-war characters set into progress a series of events that could not be stopped.

[Jaclyn Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://wineandabook.com/2011/12/29/re...

Translated from Polish by Bill Johnson, the main character in Tulli's In Red is the fictional town of Stitchings. Part portrait, part magical realism, Tulli creates a town from which there may be no escape, chronicling the life and death of an ensemble of the town's figureheads. Chaotic, claustrophobic, and intensely lyrical, Tulli's strength lies in her insane command of language to create the mood and atmosphere of the piece.

Rubric rating: 7

[Aaron (Typographical Era) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tedious. If I were being forced to write a one word review Magdalena Tulli’s In Red that’s the one I’d pick. Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you look at it) I’m not. Therefore I shall press forward and explain just why this particular novel bored me to tears, but before I do I shall spend a few brief moments praising the pieces of the story that I thoroughly enjoyed.

READ MORE:
http://www.opinionless.com/book-revie...

[Kris Fernandez-Everett · Rating 2 out of 5]

I understood the theme of this book loud and clear... but its pointless convolutions and frayed character edges were sloppy to me, not artistic or symbolic of transience... the longest 158 pages I've read in a while -- it's what happens when fantasticism and the post modern deviation from the linear story line run amok... I'll chalk it up to translation, but I think I'm being generous...