“The narrator in A Treatise works year-round as a caretaker at a forest resort, his salary paid by the absent and mysterious owner, Mr. Robert. The novel begins with a plaintive and absurd question: “You’re here to buy beans, sir? From me?” The caretaker is ostensibly addressing an out-of-season visitor, but the interlocutor’s presence is minimal. The caretaker replies to his questions (which we, as readers, never hear). This long apostrophe will eventually encompass his unsettled, pain-ridden life, a life rich in historical connection to Szymon Pietruska’s but radically different in coloring.”
Read here: The Novels of Wiesław Myśliwski
