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Towards the end of his life Stanisław Lem was asked about Tokarczuk (the recent Polish Nobel prize winner) and said the following: "Tokarczuk offended my ratio
by fishnchips 5y ago
Towards the end of his life Stanisław Lem was asked about Tokarczuk (the recent Polish Nobel prize winner) and said the following:
"Tokarczuk offended my rationality to such an extent that I wanted to write a polemic, but I decided that it wasn't worth it, because it would mean I have to read her entire book."
- briga 5y agoFunny how famous writers often seem to be each other’s harshest critics. Was this in reference to any particular book of hers? I read Drive Your Plow and it seemed like fairly standard mystery noir fiction, certainly nothing to write a polemic about
- mathteddybear 5y agoHe said that about a non-fiction book by her, an essay about a school reading realist Polish novel from XIX century. In Poland, being a good fiction writer is correlated with being a good literary critic as much as in any other country. DYPOtBotD on the other hand is pretty much a whodunit, as such there is a certain threshold to impress book club readers, I guess
- zukzuk 5y agoFlights is a great piece of writing though. Definitely not for the Lem crowd, but I guess there are weirdos like myself who like both.