Reviews

The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz

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olvsg's review against another edition

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3.0

pardon??

transsiberian's review against another edition

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5.0

This is as if someone wrote the perfect book just for me.

The writing is as dense and rich as that of Marcel Proust. The plot is as abstract and surrealist as that of Italo Calvino. There is the magical realism of Marquez. And, it doesn't overstay its welcome.

bookishblond's review against another edition

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3.0

Bruno Schulz obviously read a lot of Kafka.

Why does everyone love this guy so much? Sure, he writes beautifully and poetically, but he's not saying anything that hasn't been said before (even in 1934). I could be hideously wrong, but it seems to me that the bulk of Schulz's literary fame stems from his death. What a grotesque and lovely picture, that of a gifted writer shot dead by a Nazi bullet.

paromita_m's review against another edition

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challenging inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.25

rbreade's review against another edition

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Is it a short story collection or a novel? I now tend to think of it as a novel, though that's a tenuous decision, at best. With Schulz, forget pigeon-holing. He thought of the book as an autobiographical narrative, the unnamed narrator a Schulz stand-in mythologizing the small town of Drogobych--then in southeastern Poland, now in Ukraine by the magic of partition--via the most marvelous language ever caught between the pages of a book. With this complex, Latinate, super-heated language--yes, he locates his narrator-self in the rare-almost-to-unique-viewpoint that combines first person and omniscience--Schulz remakes Drogobych, utterly erasing the boundary between the real and the imagined: the two so interpenetrate that eventually one gives up trying to keep them separate. It's not the plot, it's not the characters--though the mock-heroic, wildly eccentric father commands center stage--it's the language. Schulz is the Prospero of fiction, creating worlds from words.