But most remarkable: the poster that hung above the tank, Apocalypse Now in bloody red type, the new film by Coppola. Right behind them a building I recognise with a pain of nostalgia – the Moskwa, a cinema where Karolina and I used to go sometimes. ‘A photo filled the screen for a moment, showing a tank parked on a snowy square, a couple of soldiers climbing out of its hatch. This novel then becomes so much more a story of a nation and its uprising, its refusal to continue to tow the Party line. ‘I pretended not to see the obvious truth: that we had never asked for this system. But his struggle with this to reach the point of action was so intricately wrought, and written with such insight and empathy. Ludwik, on the other hand, feels the weight of socialism, sees the disparity, and the idea of selling out is repugnant to him. Janusz is a sell-out he will work the system until it works for him. Ludwik and Janusz have vastly differing perspectives on their country: the past, the present, and what the future should look like. The Polish Crisis is beginning to unfold within the timeline of this novel. I’d enjoyed it, despite its limitations – we couldn’t read what we wanted and were meant to see the decadence of capitalism in all Western texts, even if most professors barely pretended to care about the Party.’ ‘Work had seemed like the beginning of the end, university a prolonging of youth. But in addition to being a love story, this is a coming of age story for Ludwik, who has just finished university, who is intuitively aware of the problems that exist within his country, and is at a crossroads: Where to now? Who does he want to become? And what would he be willing to sacrifice to get there?
His love affair with Janusz is not just forbidden, it is dangerous for them both. Ludwik is homosexual and this is Poland at the beginning of the 1980s.
On the one hand it is a story of first love forbidden love. This little novel turned out to be quite the sublime reading experience. They’re like guillotines, cutting your life in two, the dead and the alive, the before and the after.’ ‘Some people, like events, make you lose your head. Swimming in the Dark is an unforgettable debut about youth, love, and loss – and the sacrifices we make to live lives with meaning.
Exiled from paradise, Ludwik and Janusz must decide how they will survive and in their different choices, find themselves torn apart. Here he meets Janusz – and together, they spend a dreamlike summer swimming in secluded lakes, reading forbidden books – and falling in love.īut with summer over, the two are sent back to Warsaw, and to the harsh realities of life under the Party. Anxious, disillusioned Ludwik Glowacki, soon to graduate university, has been sent along with the rest of his class to an agricultural camp.
0 kommentar(er)
