how is horsemouth doing on the nine polish novels you should read before you die challenge?

Street of Crocodiles - Brothers Quay 1986 [alt filmscore by black_ops] from smk on Vimeo.

good morning! good morning! it's sunday. horsemouth has woken up cheerful (but with a slightly blocked nose).  it's a grey morning (but at least it has stopped raining).

he was intrigued enough to click a clickbait list of nine polish novels you should read before you die. 

it begins with the usual suspects henryk sienkiewicz's quo vadis (1896), bolesław prus pharoah (1897), tadeusz borowski. these are the ones horsemouth hasn't read but then it continues on to some he has,  bruno schulz the street of crocodiles (1934), witold gombrowicz ferdydurke (1937), stanisław lem solaris (1961) (ok ok the lem he has read another book of his and has seen the two movies). 

stanisław ignacy witkiewicz sounds like a card and horsemouth will have to investigate him. 

how about horsemouth does you a list of polish authors and books he has actually read.

1. bruno schulz the street of crocodiles. this is just a great magical realist novel from the borderlands between ukraine and poland and was horsemouth's point of entry into polish literature when the brothers quay made a stop motion animation of it. (it was also his point of entry into other east european animation). it's the film clip at the top of the page (but with some kind of synth soundtrack). horsemouth has lent this out.  
2. witold gombrowicz ferdydurke. form deforms mutters gombowicz darkly. horsemouth has also read the diaries. on the run against the infantilising forces of society. gombrowicz himself ended up in latin america. 
3. tadeusz konvicky a minor apocalypse. on being stitched up by other so-called 'radical' intellectuals. on being alive at the lowest moment in polish history. 
4. czesław miłosz - the issa valley  a novel about his growing up in lithuania (the relationship between lithuania and poland is kind of like the one between england and scotland) and an appreciation of his poetry (the poet's work nathan quinn). 
5. wisława szymborska. the fragment of one poem (about finding something at the dump and taking it for reuse - he thinks it is quoted in dubraka ugresic's ministry of pain)
6.  jan potocki the manuscript found in saragossa.  one of those horrific gothic novels where characters in stories start telling stories (and you become convinced that you will never escape). potocki is mainly famous for becoming convinced he was turning into a werewolf and shooting himself in the head with a silver bullet. horsemouth thinks his copy of this has gone west too (though there's a chance it's in the pile with the gothics rather than over with the russians and the east europeans). 
7. stanislaw lem the hospital of the transfiguration.
8. horsemouth  has read more widely than this (honestly). he has the daedalus book of polish fantasy, polish writing today (from 1967) and five centuries of polish poetry. 

horsemouth made a visit to poland in the mid90ies for a week (and like his visit to detroit for slightly over a day , or his visits to spain and portugal for a month) he has dined out long and hard upon this. horsemouth is a literary enthusiast and traveller - if he is going somewhere he will try and find out about the writers and read their stuff (in translation sadly), either whilst there or upon his return. he will also take a phrase book and make an effort to learn at least a few polite phrases. in the old analogue days he would  keep a diary these days he's as likely to blog as well. 

(as a vegetarian it is difficult for him to eat the national dishes etc.) 

later horsemouth travelled to the czech republic a few times (he could do you a similar list of czech writers or indeed pretty much any former east european country). 

his current travel/ literary enthusiasm is for portugal (or will be when international travel returns). 

james meek is in kyiv (kiev for the oldsters) for the LRB. like horsemouth he thinks it's probably a good time (a time of possible invasion) to reread mikhail bulgakov's the white guard. 

what will horsemouth be up to today? not a lot. he must discover a new book to read (or return to the ones he abandoned). last night rice and a peppers, red kidney beans, onion sauce. today he will finish off the rice. last night some tv rather than the usual youtube giallo. 

yesterday he put the vacuum cleaner round and mopped the kitchen floor, the corridors and the living room floor. he had a look at the back garden (but it is too fucked to be dealing with. just like the front garden really). he went for a walk and on his travels he found a low slatted coffee table that he has stored some of the egregious kipple in the front room on. he's going to start sorting out the books from his library and start doing some runs to the charity shops and the book-sharing boxes. 

it is the anniversary (in 1991) of harry everett smith's lifetime achievement award for his anthology of american folk music.