Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Józef Czapski, recovered

I'm a sucker for NYRB books.
...a SMALL sampling...
They're just so purty I could go on a tear and fill a bookcase with 'em, if only to please my eye.

I don't, of course — we (VERY POINTEDLY) do not have the shelf space. My parameters of purchase are: was I previously aware and desirous of this particular author/book? Do I enjoy the work of the person selected for the introduction? There are more than a few NYRB editions that I've bought solely for the intro. Sometimes that is as far as I read.

Until this morning, I was not at all aware of Józef Czapski — but with this excellent introduction and this celebration, I have now put Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp and Inhuman Land: Searching For The Truth In Soviet Russia, 1941-1942 on my list of purchases for my next visit to BMV's flagship store in Toronto's Annex.


4 comments:

pdb said...

Just getting to that LARB article today. Well worth (so far) the read — thanks!

‘Merezhkovsky told Czapski that the path to heaven was muddy, that God most valued those who besmirched themselves while trying to do right.’ Damn poets!

pdb said...

Should add that I was halfway through it before bothering to look at writer’s name. If I’d paused a second further to think about it, could probably have guessed at that point. Grateful for the connections he draws.

pdb said...

(Partly an admission that I barely looked at what specifically I was clicking on in your post, of course, and of some failure in general to be all that observant a reader.)

Whisky Prajer said...

I'd be a poor one to judge anyone else for paying closer attention upon a second read. ;)