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The King of Warsaw

Szczepan Twardoch,

Sean Gasper Bye (Translator)

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Mar 24, 2021 Marta Tycner rated it it was amazing

The only book by Twardoch - in my view, the best Polish living author - available in English.

'The King of Warsaw' ('Król') is in my view Twardoch's second or third-best book and you'll find everything there that makes his novels unique and memorable: action and politics, oddity and grotesque, phenomenal social observation, precisely built, realistic world, brilliant yet tragic twists. Like in all of Twardoch's books, in 'The King of Warsaw' individuals struggle against fate - and fail, as histo The only book by Twardoch - in my view, the best Polish living author - available in English.

'The King of Warsaw' ('Król') is in my view Twardoch's second or third-best book and you'll find everything there that makes his novels unique and memorable: action and politics, oddity and grotesque, phenomenal social observation, precisely built, realistic world, brilliant yet tragic twists. Like in all of Twardoch's books, in 'The King of Warsaw' individuals struggle against fate - and fail, as history, narrated as a living character on its own, smashes them slowly, surely and without mercy.
The book is a story of a Jewish boxer and mafioso and is set in 1937 when Warsaw was the second biggest Jewish city in the world, already doomed and slowly getting aware of it. Politics is racing, tensions grow, socialists, fascists, communists clash on the streets, crime is booming, brothels are full and poverty makes people desperate.
I read the book in Polish so I can't vouch for the translation but Twardoch is an excellent stylist. His books impress me so much party because of the way he uses the language, with convoluted but powerful sentences and ruminations, mimicking what the narrative is supposed to be: a long train of thoughts and memories of a troubled mind.
'The King of Warsaw' is brilliantly researched, with most of the main characters modelled on real-life pre-war gangsters, sportsmen, politicians and madames. Every scene brings remarkable little details from pre-war Warsaw with a noticeable predilection for guns, cars and boxing but stretching far beyond it.
My friends sometimes complain that Twardoch is unable to write convincing female characters. It may be true, and like most of his books, this one is also about men, their motivations, their choices and their tragedies. I don't mind. Complex, vivid male characters with well-developed backstories are not that easy to find either. Twardoch specializes in showing what war makes to men and in an artful way this pre-war book also gives insight into the mind of a man broken by the war.
Twardoch's political profile is not an obvious one: as a young author he was cherished by the conservatives and there is still something in his writings left from this period: obsession with history, very strong patriotic context, the focus on the men's world. Twardoch's views evolved strongly over time and even though I never read him saying this, he now seems rather close to old-school socialism. You can also sense it in his books, with inequalities, exploitation and class struggle at the forefront of the narrative. But it is not so much politics but psychology, historiosophy and superb storytelling which make his books so good.
I wish I could recommend Twardoch's other books, 'Morfina' or 'Drach' to my English speaking friends but I can assure you that this read will be worth it. ...more

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Mar 26, 2021 Osman Ülke marked it as to-read

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