A Thousand Peaceful Cities by Jerzy Pilch

Author : Jerzy Pilch
Title : A Thousand Peaceful Cities
Piblished : 1997
Publisher : Open Letter
Pages : 148
Genre : Contemporary Fiction

     Set in 1963, in the latter days of the Polish post-Stalinist thaw. Jerzyk is a teenager who is keenly interested in the life of his father, a retired postal administrator, and his father's closest friend, Mr. Traba, a failed Lutheran clergyman, alcoholic and would be Polish insurrectionist. One drunken afternoon, Mr. Traba and the narrator's father decide to take charge of their lives and do one final good turn for humanity, travel to Warsaw and assassinate the Polish head of state and they decide to involve Jerzyk in their plan.

     I go through fazes of reading books from certain countries, it's something I have done for quite some time now. I binge them until I get bored and move onto the next. There is one exception to this rule and that comes in the form of books from Poland. Now, this is not to say I will read anything that has been translated but I do keep an eye on it just in cases. Now when it comes to A Thousand Peaceful Cities it is a book that has been on my list for quite some time. Somehow it managed to slip through the cracks. But when I was scanning through my shelf for my next read I found it tucked up the back. So what better time than now to delve between its pages and see what it was all about. 

     When you scan the blurb this book would seem fairly straight forward, a group of friends and a plan to assassinate a prominent member of the head of state. But things are never that simple. This book jumps about giving us little snapshots of our hero's life, some of these are connected to the main plot others seem to be there for many other reasons. From stories to help us better understand our heroes to amusing little tales that come out of nowhere and seem to have the sole purpose of making the reader smile. Whilst the plot may seem dastardly to us they always come off as lovable buffoons never quite rising up to where they aim. It is also worth taking into context when the book takes place. During this time there was a great deal of hatred toward the Communist government. So I find my self believing that at the time their plot was probably held by a great deal of the population. 

    The author delves into so much more than just the assassination plot in the course of the book. We get to see there hopes and dreams of a country trying to find it's place in the world. He looks at how whilst something changes a great many remain the same much to the annoyance of our heroes. And that greatest of literary pursuits the need to bask in the light of love. When you take all of this into consideration the relatively short page count seems to imply a rushing of all of the above. And I have to hand it to Pilch he does an astounding job of juggling all these balls and never seeming to drop one.  Mabe this is down to his style, as I said this feels a lot like a collection of short story all be it about the same group of people. But at the end of the day, he delivered a book that I read in one sitting, and that for me is a rare thing. 

      Whilst this book does have a beginning middle and end for me this was much more about the ride. Our hero's stories are ones that would never normally be told they are the conversations had between friends that make you laugh or cry but you kind of had to be there. And in writing this book the author allows us to be there with them. To share a small part of there lives and better understand a time and place that for most reading this review were not privy to. If you are looking for something a bit different then I can recommend this book.