Books: Malgorzata Musierowicz, YA
I made a resolution.
I talk about books fairly often - not surprisingly, seeing as this is a fannish journal dedicated orignally to Harry Potter - but I tend to always say the same things about the same few books (Harry Potter, the Austen novels, the Lucy Maud Mongtgomery novels, the Discworld novels). I mentioned Tom Sawyer in yesterday's post, and sistermagpie said that she doesn't hear about him regularly, and that made me think: None of you probaly know that Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are two of my favourite books ever, frequently re-read and recommended widely to RL friends, because I never mention them here. And so I decided to talk about some of my favourite books and write up some reviews which might help some of you discover a new book you'll love. Let's see how well I'll stick to this plan.
I am a great re-reader. I re-read the books I love fairly regularly, which naturally diminishes the amount of new books I read, but I think that's okay. After all, I always discover something in new on every read. I read fluently in English, German and Polish, and I have been increasingly focusing on books written in one of these languages, because I don't trust translations all that much. (However, my favourite books include The Foucault Pendulum (Italian), Nana (French) and A Heart so White (Spanish), which I did not read in the original.) So, I'll try to introduce some of my favourite German and Polish books to you, because they are sadly underrepresented on this English-language journal that targets an English-speaking audience.
And here we come across the first difficulty: After all the heated discussions of Twilight and its heroine, and whether or not Bella is a good example for young girls to follow, I was planning to review one of my favourite YA series for girls, namely the Jezycjada series by Malgorzata Musierowicz, to add the Eastern perspective to the coming-of-age trope.
Sadly, I don't think it's easily available in any language other than Polish. I know that the books have been translated "into several languages, including Japanese", but I have just tried to google them, and it doesn't look good for English. But you never know. Some of you might come across an old copy somewhere (I know the first two books in the series have been translated into Swedish, though they're out of print now), and it would be a shame to pass it by.
Have an excerpt:
Ida Borejko wasn't pretty.
To be honest, she was considered quite unfortunately looking.
Rather tall for her 15 years, skinnier than average, she had developed a hunched posture to hide the fact that she had breasts, due to which her figure resembled a long hook that ended in large feet at the bottom and at the top - in a frizzy, fiery red messy thatch that covered her eyes, neck, and shoulders very thoroughly. From among that crazy hair, one might catch a glimpse of a very white face covered in countless freckles, amongst which small green eyes and large slightly protruding white teeth were gleaming.
There are some people whose clothes are always a perfect fit, whose scarf never pokes out over their shirt collar, whose zipper never breaks in the most inappropriate moment, and whose coat buttons will never fall off, not even in a tornado. Ida wasn't one of these lucky few. No matter what she pulled on - she always ended up looking the same scruffy self, and her garments displayed the mysterious and unstoppable tendency of dragging, drooping or billowing.
It was early afternoon in August when Ida Borejko was wandering along the Aleja Wielkopolska, dressed in a billowing trenchcoat, with her belt clinging to the loop with one end, while the other end was diving into almost every puddle she passed. A thin, annoying kind of rain was hanging in the air. Ida's bare head was gleaming in the foggy air like a gold-red sphere, and her naked calves were moonly pale and covered in goose bumps.
Ida was obviously gloomy.
There was something about the way she was holding herself and the way she moved that made it clear she was fed up with that kind of life, that she was filled with rebellion and the desire for changes, that she disapproved of the whole world. She had shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets, pushed her head forward an, stalking across the puddles like a stork, she was heading angrily to the street Nad Wierzbakiem.
Uncle Jósef Borejko was living in one of the new buildings there, and his skinny niece was going to pay him a visit. When, in a sharp movement, she leaned against the door frame on the third floor, any onlooker might have thought that the girl was about to pull out a colt from a trenchcoat pocket. But Ida came with peaceful intentions. She was just in a bad mood - and her bad moods were much more vibrant than the average bore's.
Everything about Ida was extremely vibrant.
She was usually brimming with emotions that were sharp and sudden. She exaggerated everything. And her most striking feature was her craving for intensity. Because, as yet, her life had lacked in such, Ida was unconsciously trying to fill her monotonous, grey existance with colours by dramatising each and every occurance and allowing her imagination shape everything in accordance with her purposes.
On the wall to her left, the doorbell was a pale white circle. Pressing her finger to it, Ida rang it sharply, like an alarm bell.
Does anyone ever think of the consequences of ringing a doorbell?
Ida was thinking of the smell emitting from behind the door. It was a sweet, sugary-fruity aroma, which was best proof that Aunt Felicja was home and working.
There are at least two common views on the subject of human fate. One states that everything that is going to happen to us is written somewhere above and that happen it will, no matter how much we are trying to change our destiny. The other view is characterised by the faith in a series of interlocking chaotic coincidences; the aspect it's got in common with the first view is the belief that an individual doesn't have much influence over the sequence of events.
Be that as it may, Ida was now standing in front of the door and was ringing the bell for the third time. At last, the sharp signal lured Aunt Felicja from the kitchen. Ida didn't know that it was going to cause a sudden change of her fate.
"Well, I never...!" said Aunt Felicja, appearing in the open door. Her athletic figure was shrouded in a white frilly apron, her head, with its slightly horsey jawline, was covered by a starched white scarf. As always, Aunt Felicja looked cosy, majestic and sumptuous. "What are you doing here? You went to Czaplinek, all of you!"
"We did. But I came back," Ida answered in a voice laden with hidden meanings, and she threw her trenchcoat on some chair in passing.
"Alone?"
"Alone."
"But why?" inquired Aunt Felicja, clothing the door, picking up Ida's trenchcoat and hanging it on the hook, and leading the girl into the kitchen. "Come in here, I'm stirring."
"Stirring what?"
"Cherries, Ida love, cherries."
Ida's empty stomach gave a sudden lurch. So it was cherry jam that gave off that strong, hot, sweet smell!
Good God, wasn't she a lucky one?
Aunt Felicja was standing by the cooker, unshakeable like a mountain. Carefully, she picked up a large silver spoon and stirred slowly the contents of two heavy pots.
"Sit down, love," she said, lowering the flame under the pots. They were full of dark-red, glistening jam, which was rising from time to time and emitting soft popping noises from its crimson depths. In front of Ida, on the oak table, gleamed a long line-up of brim-full jars that were already cooling down. They were wrapped tightly in crinkling cellophane, affixed to the jars with a thin string.
"I wonder you can be bothered, Aunt Felicja," Ida sighed, and added in a worried tone: "Isn't it too sweet, perhaps, the jam?" The word "jam" alone made her mouth water and she swallowed convulsively. She had been living on dry bread and processed cheese of the poorest quality for three days. That had been the occurence that had revitalised her feelings of family affection and caused her to pay her aunt and uncle a visit.
Without a word, Aunt Felicja filled a bowl with hot, glistening cherries. She also put a glass with cherry juice in front of Ida and complemented the meal with a fluffy cherry bun - gold brown, crispy, and still hot.
Ida ravished it all like a hyena.
"Camping holiday!" she muttered with her mouth full. "Camping holiday, huh, huh!"
While she was eating, Aunt Felicja called her husband and Ida's uncle, who had been regenerating his strength by means of an afternoon nap in the bedroom next door, to the tea table. He soon appeared in the warm kitchen, yawning, scratching his neck and patting his chest.
"Ah, Ida," he said, yawning. "Hello, love. What are you doing in Poznan? Didn't you like it at Lake Drawskie?"
"I didn't," Ida said, gulping her tea audibly.
"For what reason?"
"For three reasons. For the reason of my sister Gabriela, for the reason of my sister Nutria and for the reason of my sister Pulpecja."
"Really? For example because...?"
"Oh, I've got plenty of examples," said Ida, madly irritated. "Pulpa is an utterly spoiled brat and I had to take care of her all the time. So that she didn't drown. Nutria, for her part, is obsessed with bathing several times a day, and it's too cold in the lake, so someone had to carry water to the tent and heat it with the gas bottle. And guess who? The Cinderella of the family, meaning me. Always abused. And when it comes to Gabriela, Dad has, unfortunately, proved to be a completely blinded manifestation of subjectivism."
Her aunt and uncle exchanged a stunned glance. That had shut them up! A completely blinded manifestation of subjectivism!
"Are you talking about your father and my brother?" Uncle Jósef asked for clarification.
"I do."
"And... he was blinded with regard to what?" Uncle Jósef investigated carefully.
"Janusz Pyziak. That's Gabriela's boyfriend. He followed her there, especially, and Dad thought that it was an amazing coincidence he showed up at the same camping site. And later, no matter where you went, you ended up bumping into Gabriela and Janusz snogging. But Dad stubbornly maintains that Janusz values Gabriela's intellect."
"And he doesn't?" Uncle Jósef asked.
"God!" Ida said, rolling her eyes.
"I can see you're bitter," Uncle Jósef observed, rather amused.
An unexpected outburst was Ida's answer to that statement.
"I am?!" she yelled, punching the table. "Bitter? Why should I be bitter? Just because I'm ugly and no-one follows me all the way to Czaplinek? That's what you mean?" her green eyes were gleaming like electric lights. And she looked like she was really expecting an answer.
Uncle Jósef's thoughts were running in feverish circles as he tried to think of a way of comforting his niece. He was the father of 18-year-old Joanna, and the symptoms demonstrated by Ida weren't new to him. Moreover, he was full of the best intentions.
"Don't worry, love," he said assuringly. "You are really... handsome. Maybe a bit too thin... but you've got plenty of grace and... well... you know..."
Ida deflated like a cooling soufflé.
"I am sick of these meaningless encouragements," she said bitingly. "You better don't say anything at all, really. Let's not talk about it, it's embarrassing for everybody. Anyway... I came back to Poznan, because I could't take camping anymore."
"Only townies and wimps," Uncle Jósef said in a rather different kind of voice, "are unable to cope in the bosom of Mother Nature. There isn't anything better than a nice camping holiday."
"Really," Ida's voice was full of biting sarcasm. "Everything's wet: the sleeping bag, the rugs, the mattresses, the clothes and the shoes. No company at all, because Dad chose a spot of remote solitude so that everybody could leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind them. A couple of bald fishermen, that was all."
"Sounds fantastic!" Uncle Jósef was thrilled. "Where do you say this is? In Czaplinek?"
"I wish!" said Ida. "That's way behind Czaplinek, in complete wilderness, at the most primitive camping site imaginable. There isn't even a shop, every little thing must be bought in Czaplinek. And who was it that was always sent to the shops?"
"You, naturally," Uncle Jósef guessed.
"Not me, naturally, but Gabriela. Because she's older and more prudent. But they did not forget me, oh no! I was allowed to do the dishes. And carry the water. And that was supposed to be a holiday! So, when I woke up on Saturday morning in a sleeping bag drenched with rain water and then couldn't even pull on my jeans cause they were completely stiff due to wetness and cold, I couldn't take it anymore and I exploded. I told them I was going back home. My parents threw a tantrum, there was shouting..."
"Ida," said Uncle Jósef. "Your parents are the last people on earth who'd throw a tantrum and shout. Who shouted?"
Ida cleared her throat. "Okay, say that was me. So what. At least they heard a few words of truth. I left by the morning bus and..."
"Hold on, you left on Saturday? So what have you been doing these four days?"
"What do you mean, what have I been doing?" said Ida annoyed. "What do you think I've been doing? I've been alternately sleeping and soaking myself in hot water. I came back very ill, you know! My kidneys hurt, there's a ringing in my ear, my heart is beating..."
"It's a good thing it's beating," said Uncle Jósef seriously. "I'd get worried if it stopped."
"Very funny!" Ida exploded. "I'm telling you, seriously, that my health is compromised!"
"Nothing new there," said Uncle Jósef.
"Excuse me?"
"You've always been a hypochondriac."
"Jósef, leave her alone."
"Don't defend her, Felicja. It's obvious that she's made a mess of things and is now starting to break down." He gave Ida a stern look. "Did you apologise to your parents?" he asked in the irritating tone of a judge.
Ida stuffed her mouth full of jam and maintained a diplomatic silence, haughtily.
"Aha," Uncle Jósef understood. "I know the next step of your plan. You're going to ask me for cash."
"Who, me?" Ida spat, whose very intention it had been to borrow some money. "I definitely won't. I've got plenty of cash." She had eight Zloty fifty and not a penny more.
Uncle Jósef looked her in the eyes, smiling in disbelief. In fact, Ida had never had plenty of cash. No-one in her family ever had.
"Earning money yourself, are you?" Uncle Jósef asked, smiling a disgustingly all-knowing smile.
It was the smile that decided over the outcome of that conversation.
"What do you think, Uncle Jósef?" Ida said, boiling with anger. "Of course I am! And you don't need to be worried, Uncle, I will never ever ask you for money, ever!"
She wasn't aware that she had just stepped around a decisive bend in the road of her life.
This is an excerpt of the fourth book of the series (I don't have the first three here), all of which play in the city of Poznan, in a district called "Jezyce". The first book was written in the mid-70s, the last one to date was released in 2007. The stories are rather simple: they centre around a young girl and a period of pivotal changes in her life. Mostly, there's also a love story, but the romance is never the one and only plot point. As you can see from the excerpt above, it's about the girl and the problems she's got with herself, her coming to terms with what and who she is and her family. The romance - if there is one - fits in seamlessly into the story and drives it forward.
Family always plays a crucial role. My quibble with the books is actually that they paint family life rather too sweetish for my taste. The books are set in Poland, which means that everyone, of course, is Catholic and believes in family values. However, this is never presented in an obnoxious way. It's just who these people are, and you don't get the feeling that the author tries to preach and evangelise.
Apart from that, the depiction of family life strikes very true - they have rows and they make up, there are misunderstandings and there are family meals where everyone talks at once and no-one listens to the others, because this is what families do.
The girl who is in the centre of the given story has a true and vibrant personality. So far, the author has published 17 books, and each of the girls (plus the supporting cast) is a real person, who has dreams and insecurities and hopes and aspirations, who's really good at something - which she usually discovers in the course of the book dedicated to her - but who also has plenty of weaknesses, and when she cries, her eyes are puffy and swollen and her nose is full of snot.
Despite being contemporary, the books have a rather quaint, old-fashioned charm to them. The girl usually comes from a family of academics/intellectuals, where everyone is well-read and able to quote classical literature. But even though this is hardly terribly realistic, it works perfectly well within the context of the universe the author has created. The protagonist and her family (and friends) seem like a bastion of good sense, intellect and values within the madness of the modern world. Which, by the way, is also very realistically illustrated. The author has the ability to sketch a picture of contemporary Poland, its social and political situation, within a few words. So if you don't know anything about Poland, these books give a good overview of the country's recent history.
The Jezycjada series can most likely be compared with Anne of Green Gables, in that there isn't much darkness going on in the books themselves. There is plenty of tragedy hinted at and going on behind the scenes, but the books are kept pretty clean. And speaking of clean: There isn't any sexual contents at all. The love stories are sweet and romantic, there are a few kisses, but nothing graphic, and especially in the early novels, the girl ends up marrying the boy she fell in love with at the age of 15. But as I said, the romantic aspect, though an important part of the books, is not what makes the books what they are.
Often, the individual book is an homage to a piece of classical literature, which serves as meta commentary and as a red thread that drives the plot. The excerpt above comes from a book which uses Jane Eyre to characterise the protagonist, but it comes with a twist.
The protagonist, Ida, reads and cries over Jane Eyre. When she takes up a summer job, she is confronted with the Mystery of a Locked Room, in which a boy her age has locked himself up and is unwilling to come out. Her imagination naturally runs wild, and she suspects a deep and romatic secret behind all this. And then she meets the boy:
An extraordinarily handsome boy who looked just like Mr Rochester.
Just like Mr Rochester, he had dark, burning eyes.
And he even had a lean, swarthy face.
And a square jaw.
And chiselled lips and an aristocratic nose.
And above his eyebrows, a mop of short dark hair.
Ida's head spun with delight and embarrassment.
But of course, life being more prosaic than a classical romance novel, the boy turns out not to be Mr Rochester. Ida gets her happy ending, though, and now, thirty years later, she is a delightful, self-assured woman with a career and a family she loves, and it really feels like the reader has witnessed her coming-of-age and coming-to-terms and growing up, which is probably the greatest thing about this series. Which, I hope, is available somewhere in some languages other than Polish *keeps fingers crossed*
I talk about books fairly often - not surprisingly, seeing as this is a fannish journal dedicated orignally to Harry Potter - but I tend to always say the same things about the same few books (Harry Potter, the Austen novels, the Lucy Maud Mongtgomery novels, the Discworld novels). I mentioned Tom Sawyer in yesterday's post, and sistermagpie said that she doesn't hear about him regularly, and that made me think: None of you probaly know that Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are two of my favourite books ever, frequently re-read and recommended widely to RL friends, because I never mention them here. And so I decided to talk about some of my favourite books and write up some reviews which might help some of you discover a new book you'll love. Let's see how well I'll stick to this plan.
I am a great re-reader. I re-read the books I love fairly regularly, which naturally diminishes the amount of new books I read, but I think that's okay. After all, I always discover something in new on every read. I read fluently in English, German and Polish, and I have been increasingly focusing on books written in one of these languages, because I don't trust translations all that much. (However, my favourite books include The Foucault Pendulum (Italian), Nana (French) and A Heart so White (Spanish), which I did not read in the original.) So, I'll try to introduce some of my favourite German and Polish books to you, because they are sadly underrepresented on this English-language journal that targets an English-speaking audience.
And here we come across the first difficulty: After all the heated discussions of Twilight and its heroine, and whether or not Bella is a good example for young girls to follow, I was planning to review one of my favourite YA series for girls, namely the Jezycjada series by Malgorzata Musierowicz, to add the Eastern perspective to the coming-of-age trope.
Sadly, I don't think it's easily available in any language other than Polish. I know that the books have been translated "into several languages, including Japanese", but I have just tried to google them, and it doesn't look good for English. But you never know. Some of you might come across an old copy somewhere (I know the first two books in the series have been translated into Swedish, though they're out of print now), and it would be a shame to pass it by.
Have an excerpt:
Ida Borejko wasn't pretty.
To be honest, she was considered quite unfortunately looking.
Rather tall for her 15 years, skinnier than average, she had developed a hunched posture to hide the fact that she had breasts, due to which her figure resembled a long hook that ended in large feet at the bottom and at the top - in a frizzy, fiery red messy thatch that covered her eyes, neck, and shoulders very thoroughly. From among that crazy hair, one might catch a glimpse of a very white face covered in countless freckles, amongst which small green eyes and large slightly protruding white teeth were gleaming.
There are some people whose clothes are always a perfect fit, whose scarf never pokes out over their shirt collar, whose zipper never breaks in the most inappropriate moment, and whose coat buttons will never fall off, not even in a tornado. Ida wasn't one of these lucky few. No matter what she pulled on - she always ended up looking the same scruffy self, and her garments displayed the mysterious and unstoppable tendency of dragging, drooping or billowing.
It was early afternoon in August when Ida Borejko was wandering along the Aleja Wielkopolska, dressed in a billowing trenchcoat, with her belt clinging to the loop with one end, while the other end was diving into almost every puddle she passed. A thin, annoying kind of rain was hanging in the air. Ida's bare head was gleaming in the foggy air like a gold-red sphere, and her naked calves were moonly pale and covered in goose bumps.
Ida was obviously gloomy.
There was something about the way she was holding herself and the way she moved that made it clear she was fed up with that kind of life, that she was filled with rebellion and the desire for changes, that she disapproved of the whole world. She had shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets, pushed her head forward an, stalking across the puddles like a stork, she was heading angrily to the street Nad Wierzbakiem.
Uncle Jósef Borejko was living in one of the new buildings there, and his skinny niece was going to pay him a visit. When, in a sharp movement, she leaned against the door frame on the third floor, any onlooker might have thought that the girl was about to pull out a colt from a trenchcoat pocket. But Ida came with peaceful intentions. She was just in a bad mood - and her bad moods were much more vibrant than the average bore's.
Everything about Ida was extremely vibrant.
She was usually brimming with emotions that were sharp and sudden. She exaggerated everything. And her most striking feature was her craving for intensity. Because, as yet, her life had lacked in such, Ida was unconsciously trying to fill her monotonous, grey existance with colours by dramatising each and every occurance and allowing her imagination shape everything in accordance with her purposes.
On the wall to her left, the doorbell was a pale white circle. Pressing her finger to it, Ida rang it sharply, like an alarm bell.
Does anyone ever think of the consequences of ringing a doorbell?
Ida was thinking of the smell emitting from behind the door. It was a sweet, sugary-fruity aroma, which was best proof that Aunt Felicja was home and working.
There are at least two common views on the subject of human fate. One states that everything that is going to happen to us is written somewhere above and that happen it will, no matter how much we are trying to change our destiny. The other view is characterised by the faith in a series of interlocking chaotic coincidences; the aspect it's got in common with the first view is the belief that an individual doesn't have much influence over the sequence of events.
Be that as it may, Ida was now standing in front of the door and was ringing the bell for the third time. At last, the sharp signal lured Aunt Felicja from the kitchen. Ida didn't know that it was going to cause a sudden change of her fate.
"Well, I never...!" said Aunt Felicja, appearing in the open door. Her athletic figure was shrouded in a white frilly apron, her head, with its slightly horsey jawline, was covered by a starched white scarf. As always, Aunt Felicja looked cosy, majestic and sumptuous. "What are you doing here? You went to Czaplinek, all of you!"
"We did. But I came back," Ida answered in a voice laden with hidden meanings, and she threw her trenchcoat on some chair in passing.
"Alone?"
"Alone."
"But why?" inquired Aunt Felicja, clothing the door, picking up Ida's trenchcoat and hanging it on the hook, and leading the girl into the kitchen. "Come in here, I'm stirring."
"Stirring what?"
"Cherries, Ida love, cherries."
Ida's empty stomach gave a sudden lurch. So it was cherry jam that gave off that strong, hot, sweet smell!
Good God, wasn't she a lucky one?
Aunt Felicja was standing by the cooker, unshakeable like a mountain. Carefully, she picked up a large silver spoon and stirred slowly the contents of two heavy pots.
"Sit down, love," she said, lowering the flame under the pots. They were full of dark-red, glistening jam, which was rising from time to time and emitting soft popping noises from its crimson depths. In front of Ida, on the oak table, gleamed a long line-up of brim-full jars that were already cooling down. They were wrapped tightly in crinkling cellophane, affixed to the jars with a thin string.
"I wonder you can be bothered, Aunt Felicja," Ida sighed, and added in a worried tone: "Isn't it too sweet, perhaps, the jam?" The word "jam" alone made her mouth water and she swallowed convulsively. She had been living on dry bread and processed cheese of the poorest quality for three days. That had been the occurence that had revitalised her feelings of family affection and caused her to pay her aunt and uncle a visit.
Without a word, Aunt Felicja filled a bowl with hot, glistening cherries. She also put a glass with cherry juice in front of Ida and complemented the meal with a fluffy cherry bun - gold brown, crispy, and still hot.
Ida ravished it all like a hyena.
"Camping holiday!" she muttered with her mouth full. "Camping holiday, huh, huh!"
While she was eating, Aunt Felicja called her husband and Ida's uncle, who had been regenerating his strength by means of an afternoon nap in the bedroom next door, to the tea table. He soon appeared in the warm kitchen, yawning, scratching his neck and patting his chest.
"Ah, Ida," he said, yawning. "Hello, love. What are you doing in Poznan? Didn't you like it at Lake Drawskie?"
"I didn't," Ida said, gulping her tea audibly.
"For what reason?"
"For three reasons. For the reason of my sister Gabriela, for the reason of my sister Nutria and for the reason of my sister Pulpecja."
"Really? For example because...?"
"Oh, I've got plenty of examples," said Ida, madly irritated. "Pulpa is an utterly spoiled brat and I had to take care of her all the time. So that she didn't drown. Nutria, for her part, is obsessed with bathing several times a day, and it's too cold in the lake, so someone had to carry water to the tent and heat it with the gas bottle. And guess who? The Cinderella of the family, meaning me. Always abused. And when it comes to Gabriela, Dad has, unfortunately, proved to be a completely blinded manifestation of subjectivism."
Her aunt and uncle exchanged a stunned glance. That had shut them up! A completely blinded manifestation of subjectivism!
"Are you talking about your father and my brother?" Uncle Jósef asked for clarification.
"I do."
"And... he was blinded with regard to what?" Uncle Jósef investigated carefully.
"Janusz Pyziak. That's Gabriela's boyfriend. He followed her there, especially, and Dad thought that it was an amazing coincidence he showed up at the same camping site. And later, no matter where you went, you ended up bumping into Gabriela and Janusz snogging. But Dad stubbornly maintains that Janusz values Gabriela's intellect."
"And he doesn't?" Uncle Jósef asked.
"God!" Ida said, rolling her eyes.
"I can see you're bitter," Uncle Jósef observed, rather amused.
An unexpected outburst was Ida's answer to that statement.
"I am?!" she yelled, punching the table. "Bitter? Why should I be bitter? Just because I'm ugly and no-one follows me all the way to Czaplinek? That's what you mean?" her green eyes were gleaming like electric lights. And she looked like she was really expecting an answer.
Uncle Jósef's thoughts were running in feverish circles as he tried to think of a way of comforting his niece. He was the father of 18-year-old Joanna, and the symptoms demonstrated by Ida weren't new to him. Moreover, he was full of the best intentions.
"Don't worry, love," he said assuringly. "You are really... handsome. Maybe a bit too thin... but you've got plenty of grace and... well... you know..."
Ida deflated like a cooling soufflé.
"I am sick of these meaningless encouragements," she said bitingly. "You better don't say anything at all, really. Let's not talk about it, it's embarrassing for everybody. Anyway... I came back to Poznan, because I could't take camping anymore."
"Only townies and wimps," Uncle Jósef said in a rather different kind of voice, "are unable to cope in the bosom of Mother Nature. There isn't anything better than a nice camping holiday."
"Really," Ida's voice was full of biting sarcasm. "Everything's wet: the sleeping bag, the rugs, the mattresses, the clothes and the shoes. No company at all, because Dad chose a spot of remote solitude so that everybody could leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind them. A couple of bald fishermen, that was all."
"Sounds fantastic!" Uncle Jósef was thrilled. "Where do you say this is? In Czaplinek?"
"I wish!" said Ida. "That's way behind Czaplinek, in complete wilderness, at the most primitive camping site imaginable. There isn't even a shop, every little thing must be bought in Czaplinek. And who was it that was always sent to the shops?"
"You, naturally," Uncle Jósef guessed.
"Not me, naturally, but Gabriela. Because she's older and more prudent. But they did not forget me, oh no! I was allowed to do the dishes. And carry the water. And that was supposed to be a holiday! So, when I woke up on Saturday morning in a sleeping bag drenched with rain water and then couldn't even pull on my jeans cause they were completely stiff due to wetness and cold, I couldn't take it anymore and I exploded. I told them I was going back home. My parents threw a tantrum, there was shouting..."
"Ida," said Uncle Jósef. "Your parents are the last people on earth who'd throw a tantrum and shout. Who shouted?"
Ida cleared her throat. "Okay, say that was me. So what. At least they heard a few words of truth. I left by the morning bus and..."
"Hold on, you left on Saturday? So what have you been doing these four days?"
"What do you mean, what have I been doing?" said Ida annoyed. "What do you think I've been doing? I've been alternately sleeping and soaking myself in hot water. I came back very ill, you know! My kidneys hurt, there's a ringing in my ear, my heart is beating..."
"It's a good thing it's beating," said Uncle Jósef seriously. "I'd get worried if it stopped."
"Very funny!" Ida exploded. "I'm telling you, seriously, that my health is compromised!"
"Nothing new there," said Uncle Jósef.
"Excuse me?"
"You've always been a hypochondriac."
"Jósef, leave her alone."
"Don't defend her, Felicja. It's obvious that she's made a mess of things and is now starting to break down." He gave Ida a stern look. "Did you apologise to your parents?" he asked in the irritating tone of a judge.
Ida stuffed her mouth full of jam and maintained a diplomatic silence, haughtily.
"Aha," Uncle Jósef understood. "I know the next step of your plan. You're going to ask me for cash."
"Who, me?" Ida spat, whose very intention it had been to borrow some money. "I definitely won't. I've got plenty of cash." She had eight Zloty fifty and not a penny more.
Uncle Jósef looked her in the eyes, smiling in disbelief. In fact, Ida had never had plenty of cash. No-one in her family ever had.
"Earning money yourself, are you?" Uncle Jósef asked, smiling a disgustingly all-knowing smile.
It was the smile that decided over the outcome of that conversation.
"What do you think, Uncle Jósef?" Ida said, boiling with anger. "Of course I am! And you don't need to be worried, Uncle, I will never ever ask you for money, ever!"
She wasn't aware that she had just stepped around a decisive bend in the road of her life.
This is an excerpt of the fourth book of the series (I don't have the first three here), all of which play in the city of Poznan, in a district called "Jezyce". The first book was written in the mid-70s, the last one to date was released in 2007. The stories are rather simple: they centre around a young girl and a period of pivotal changes in her life. Mostly, there's also a love story, but the romance is never the one and only plot point. As you can see from the excerpt above, it's about the girl and the problems she's got with herself, her coming to terms with what and who she is and her family. The romance - if there is one - fits in seamlessly into the story and drives it forward.
Family always plays a crucial role. My quibble with the books is actually that they paint family life rather too sweetish for my taste. The books are set in Poland, which means that everyone, of course, is Catholic and believes in family values. However, this is never presented in an obnoxious way. It's just who these people are, and you don't get the feeling that the author tries to preach and evangelise.
Apart from that, the depiction of family life strikes very true - they have rows and they make up, there are misunderstandings and there are family meals where everyone talks at once and no-one listens to the others, because this is what families do.
The girl who is in the centre of the given story has a true and vibrant personality. So far, the author has published 17 books, and each of the girls (plus the supporting cast) is a real person, who has dreams and insecurities and hopes and aspirations, who's really good at something - which she usually discovers in the course of the book dedicated to her - but who also has plenty of weaknesses, and when she cries, her eyes are puffy and swollen and her nose is full of snot.
Despite being contemporary, the books have a rather quaint, old-fashioned charm to them. The girl usually comes from a family of academics/intellectuals, where everyone is well-read and able to quote classical literature. But even though this is hardly terribly realistic, it works perfectly well within the context of the universe the author has created. The protagonist and her family (and friends) seem like a bastion of good sense, intellect and values within the madness of the modern world. Which, by the way, is also very realistically illustrated. The author has the ability to sketch a picture of contemporary Poland, its social and political situation, within a few words. So if you don't know anything about Poland, these books give a good overview of the country's recent history.
The Jezycjada series can most likely be compared with Anne of Green Gables, in that there isn't much darkness going on in the books themselves. There is plenty of tragedy hinted at and going on behind the scenes, but the books are kept pretty clean. And speaking of clean: There isn't any sexual contents at all. The love stories are sweet and romantic, there are a few kisses, but nothing graphic, and especially in the early novels, the girl ends up marrying the boy she fell in love with at the age of 15. But as I said, the romantic aspect, though an important part of the books, is not what makes the books what they are.
Often, the individual book is an homage to a piece of classical literature, which serves as meta commentary and as a red thread that drives the plot. The excerpt above comes from a book which uses Jane Eyre to characterise the protagonist, but it comes with a twist.
The protagonist, Ida, reads and cries over Jane Eyre. When she takes up a summer job, she is confronted with the Mystery of a Locked Room, in which a boy her age has locked himself up and is unwilling to come out. Her imagination naturally runs wild, and she suspects a deep and romatic secret behind all this. And then she meets the boy:
An extraordinarily handsome boy who looked just like Mr Rochester.
Just like Mr Rochester, he had dark, burning eyes.
And he even had a lean, swarthy face.
And a square jaw.
And chiselled lips and an aristocratic nose.
And above his eyebrows, a mop of short dark hair.
Ida's head spun with delight and embarrassment.
But of course, life being more prosaic than a classical romance novel, the boy turns out not to be Mr Rochester. Ida gets her happy ending, though, and now, thirty years later, she is a delightful, self-assured woman with a career and a family she loves, and it really feels like the reader has witnessed her coming-of-age and coming-to-terms and growing up, which is probably the greatest thing about this series. Which, I hope, is available somewhere in some languages other than Polish *keeps fingers crossed*