Collected in one volume, Hubert Klimko-Dobrzaniecki's two short stories, Dom Rozy / Rosa's Home and Krýsuvík are a narrative meeting of two unusual life stories: that of a Polish globetrotter, who wanders like Voltaire's Candide, finally to settle in the Icelandic Hyperborea, and an Icelandic woman blind from birth.
Dom Rozy / Rosa's Home is a moving story about old age and dying in one of the world's wealthiest countries. The scenes recorded by Klimko-Dobrzaniecki are worthy of the paintbrush of Goya or Bosch, and Iceland as a condensed image of the West, as the embodiment of Europe's deathly old age - is transfixing. Krýsuvík is a simple and noble northern ballad about building a home, starting a family, and Fate which destroys human aspirations for happiness.
Source of Polish version: www.czarne.com.pl
- Hubert Klimko-Dobrzaniecki
Dom Róży. Krýsuvík / Rosa's Home. Krýsuvík
Wydawnictwo Czarne, Wolowiec 2006
125 x 195, 62+112 pages, paperback
ISBN 83-89755-42-4
www.czarne.com.pl
This book has been nominated for the 2007 Nike Literary Award.
GOD, US AND DRIED FISH
[Excerpts from the described book are translations made for the purpose of this article; for the original text go to the
link*Polish version*http://www.culture.pl/pl/culture/artykuly/dz_klimko_dobrzaniecki_dom_rozy_krysuvik**]**This book comprises two extensive short stories. The first tells the tale of contemporary Icelandic modernity, the other is the opposite - sort of a version of the universal biblical parable of Job.
Dom Rozy / Rosa's Home is the story of a young Polish émigré. The young man tries to write, he even publishes a book of verse on the island, but he has to make a living, he has a wife and a baby and is trying to obtain Icelandic citizenship, so he takes a job in an old people's home. At first he is in training in different places, and then is transferred to a special unit for privileged, wealthy residents.
Krýsuvík, the name of a small Icelandic town, is the monologue of a young man entering adulthood. He is an orphan, but is managing somehow - he finds a wife, builds a house, makes a living catching and drying fish, takes out loans, wants to build greenhouses. He and Karen lead their lives in a natural, primeval, provincial rhythm, as everybody here does: "You cannot achieve anything in life without toil and pain, mother suffered, too, when she gave birth to me, ... and then my father suffered when she was dying, and at the very end I suffered when he was dying, that's how it is, there is no joy unless you suffer", the hero says. They live happily, are hard-working and pious. There are, as the hero says at one point, only "God, us and dried fish". There comes a moment, however, when good fortune deserts them.
Both stories contain some heartbreaking moments, for instance when the hero of Dom Rozy / Rosa's Home reminisces about his childhood friendship, back in Poland, with his school mate Mareczek. There are a few extraordinary characters here as well: the title Rosa - a blind woman peacefully living out her life in the old people's home, Boro - an émigré from Croatia, Boguska - a simple woman from Poland who slogs away to make some money and quickly do a runner to Sweden.
Klimko-Dobrzaniecki lives in Iceland, he is familiar with the reality of this harsh northern island, describes it evocatively and perhaps writes about what he saw or maybe even experienced to some extent. There are probably quite a few autobiographical pointers in his stories, especially Dom Rozy / Rosa's Home, to mention the coincidence of names - the residents of the old people's home call the protagonist Hypert, from the name Hubert.
Even so, playing with the autobiographical formula in Dobrzaniecki's Icelandic stories will not lead to anything significant, because instead of this exotic setting we might just as well be in plain provincial Poland. The value of Klimko-Dobrzaniecki's writing lies in a skilful and mature presentation of fundamental and borderline states - life, death, love, or values and experiences that are unrelated to latitudes and simply don't work as an ordinary travel picture from a faraway land.
All this means that in the end just a minor detail, like the same name of female characters in the two stories - a small child and an old woman - makes these two separate stories suddenly start working together. Coincidence - perhaps. Or, some special, undisclosed meaning?
Author: Marek Radziwon, wiadomosci.gazeta.pl, June 14, 2007 - Polish version