House on the Oniego

I don't know for sure whether the last book from Wilk was translated in English...but if it wasread it...If yes, read it...I would really like to know how readers outside Europe feel about it.

No Tammy dear, I read it in French, but many words are still in Russian or Polish with a little explanation and I like the special music it gives the language...

Why did I chose it ?

It was in the public library among new books...It was not fiction, I'm not very keen on fiction...

I knew nothing about the writer, very little about Polish litterature...

It was talking about the north, the north of Russia, a very remote part of Europe , a land that fascinates me...

There's the beauty and mystery of a language so complicated, so sophisticated to me...I spent three weeks in Poland some years ago and was unable to speak a word...I visited some countries and always managed to communicate a bit with people, learn a few sentences, a song...but in Poland it was impossible...my friends couldn't either...but when we arrived the first night , when we went to the huge dining-room where so many people where having dinner, when we saw on the table the big dish full of potatoes, a little fat bacon and the jugs of buttermilk we were struck deep inside, we were back to Brittany, real Breton meal, the meal our ancestors shared over the years, the meal I share with hubby, the meal many young ones never tasted...the meal of poor people, the buttermilk we shared with people in Algeria and Marocco served with sweet couscous and honey...and the potatoes of the country people...

I didn't know some American women would one day send me the recipe of chicken and buttermilk...but that's another story...a nice one...

So I wanted to share more with somebody writing in Polish, and I was right...It's deep, poetic, sarcastic...I hear some beautiful voices I love, Thomas Merton for instance...japenese, russian, all sorts of great writers...

It's a kind of journal, because it gives a writer much freedom but much distance...you're always responsible of what you write...in a novel you may invent whatever you like...your characters may use your voice or the contrary...in a journal YOU speak your own truth...

and that man takes his time...no need to hurry in that village so far away, with no tv, no radio, no central heating...

I was very crossed to read a critic saying: "a very fashionable story...he's living a hippy life...trying to be so and so..."

No, Mariusz went over there to listen to the voice of the lake, of the land, of the people, to listen to his own voice as well...it's something you live deep inside...you're here to listen to the questions, to live the questions...( Thank you Mr Rilke !!!)

The way the Russian country is painted, the politics or the lack of politics in such a romote land, is so interesting...Where is the truth ? is there a truth ? or plenty little truths according to the people you meet...

and extraordinary characters cross the book, the pope educated in France, the old women from the choir, the drunk ones, the stove, this so peculiar Russian stove, huge made of wood and clay, like in China...it makes a kind of platform where people sleep in winter...and the ice, the wind, the snow, the wolves...the religion as a quest for friendship ? to keep things alive ? to avoid dying all alone in these villages deserted by most people, forgotten by governements, but not by those seeking for uranium , wood or...

the paintings of icons, the colours, the singers and the poets...misery, death, alcohol, boredom and beauty, freedom and the Oniego that lake giving food and life...

I don't know why I chose "la maison au bord de l'Oniego" in a few seconds, but I am so happy I did...