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"Pilch's prose is masterful, and the bulk ofThe Mighty Angel evokes the same numb, floating sensation as a bottle of Zloldkowa Gorzka."--L Magazine The Mighty Angel concerns the alcoholic misadventures of a writer named Jerzy. Eighteen times he's woken up in rehab. Eighteen times he's been released--a sober and, more or less, healthy man--after treatment at the hands of the stern therapist Moses Alias I Alcohol. And eighteen times he's stopped off at the liquor store on the way home, to pick up the supplies that are necessary to help him face his return to a ruined apartment. While he's in rehab, Jerzy collects the stories of his fellow alcoholics--Don Juan the Rib, The Most Wanted Terrorist in the World, the Sugar King, the Queen of Kent, the Hero of Socialist Labor--in an effort to tell the universal, and particular, story of the alcoholic, and to discover the motivations and drives that underlie the alcoholic's behavior. A simultaneously tragic, comic, and touching novel,The Mighty Angel displays Pilch's caustic humor, ferocious intelligence, and unparalleled mastery of storytelling. Jerzy Pilch is one of Poland's most important contemporary writers and journalists. In addition to his long-running satirical newspaper column, Pilch has published several novels, and has been nominated for Poland's prestigious NIKE Literary Award four times; he finally won the Award in 2001 forThe Mighty Angel. His novels have been translated into numerous languages. Bill Johnston is Director of the Polish Studies Center at Indiana University and has translated works by Witold Gombrowicz, Magdalena Tulli, Wieslaw Mysliwski, and others. He won the Best Translated Book Award in 2012 and the inaugural Found in Translation Award in 2008.… (more)
User reviews
Jerzy was a moderately successful writer,
Jerzy writes about several characters who are also "frequent fliers" in the alco ward, which becomes their preferred residence. They give each other hilarious nicknames, such as The Most Wanted Terrorist in the World, the Hero of Socialist Labor, and Don Juan the Rib. Their stories are both funny and tragic, with hilarious experiences and lost love. However, their individual spirit and love of life, along with the group's support, allow each of them to go on.
This novel was very good, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to, ergo the moderate rating.
I bought this book by mistake. I got it in my mind that it was the source story for Wojciech Has's 1950 masterpiece of alcoholic cinema The Noose, and only when it arrived at my door did I notice it was published 50 years later than that film. But I'm glad I read it. The best bit is the haunting, lyrical digression into the narrator's grandfather's story of frostbitten vodka-tinctured self-destruction, but I also really like how the book ends, with an apparently genuine encomium to the transformative power of love. Not easy to pull off.