Jerzy Pilch (1952–2020)

Episodic, fictionalised memoir of alcoholism (or "alcohology" as it's referred to at one point), at first frustratingly disconnected and annoyingly self-aware (one early chapter is simply a grab bag of quotes from a hit parade of rummy writers), but which gradually coheres as (maybe) a path to, or glimpse of, sobriety comes into view. Like many an alcoholic, the author knows himself both too well and not at all, and this is reflected in the elegant self-flagellations of his prose style. It must have been tricky to translate, but Bill Johnston's English version reads flawlessly.

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.… (mehr)

La desesperación y el alcohol corren por la garganta de Jorge hasta alcanzar el núcleo reparador, el sosiego. La vida le ha extirpado la voluntad y ya son dieciocho las veces que ha estado ingresado en la unidad de alcohólicos. Entre el reportaje y la ficción novelesca, su día a día fluye y se transforma de un continuo letargo de ebriedad en una afirmación vitalista. La pregunta «¿por qué no bebes?» encuentra su respuesta en el bálsamo del que Jorge toma sus fuerzas para abandonar la bebida, su «último amor antes de morir».… (mehr)

Normally, reading about alcoholism is about as interesting as watching other people getting drunk, so I wasn't really in a rush to read this book. However, when I finally got around to it, I found that Pilch does a pretty good job of explaining the appeal of alcohol. His narrator may be detached and satirical enough to demand our attention, but at th same time he's implicated so deeply in his alcoholic persona that we can follow him some way along the road. I wasn't quite at the point of searching the bathroom cabinet for untapped bottles of after-shave as I read it, but I had the feeling that I could begin to see why someone might want to do that. Pilch shows us a sort of Catch-22 of drinking: you have to be mad to destroy your life with alcohol, but with the world in its current state you would have to be mad not to...… (mehr)