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wille44's review against another edition
2.5
It’s difficult to describe and impossible to classify Bruno Shulz’s work. It’s somewhat surrealist, somewhat stream of consciousness, and a lot of the most distinctive, bizarre, and impactful descriptive prose I’ve ever read. Sanatorium is a short story collection, with the loose thematic link of European small town and familial life in the early twentieth century.
Shulz strength lies in his surrealist descriptive work. His imagery is gorgeous and destabilizing, mundane scenery and behavior is described with a violent, kinetic beauty. He consistently reframes the ordinary through a lens of frenzied wonder, his prose layering a feverish, unearthly quality over everything that is a complete joy to read.
The biggest sensation I felt reading Sanatorium was its lack of tether to anything, Shulz writes unanchored by conventional plotting or character progression. A story about the suffering and loneliness of an old man who lives to collect his pension transforms into a tale about his infantilization as he returns to grade school and gets up to mischief with classmates, and ends with him blowing away into an endless sky on a gust of wind.
While I found his surrealist description to be phenomenal, his surrealist characters and their erratic behavior left me a little cold. Shulz excels in microcosm, one specific scene or interaction or moment will be drawn with near magical insight, turned at just the right off kilter angle to make me totally reevaluate how I see the world or people around me. Once he animates the scene, his people start moving and talking, one scene flows into another, I become lost. There is just too little holding even a single short story together for it to really stick with me as a complete work.
His longest story, Spring, is a good example of this. The story has sequences of haunting, gorgeous, and truly eye opening moments of spring, and being young in it. It also has a story made up of non sequiturs, a mythical stamp album that holds the key to reality, a paranoiac love obsession, and wax historical figures brought to life. Schulz’ prose is strong enough to sweep the reader through his scenes, and they wash over smoothly enough, but looking back there is no thematic or ideological or narrative thread holding anything together. Maybe it’s simply a perfect evocation of how Schulz experienced one of the Springs in his life, and this is just my own personal preference that tends to veer away from the surreal when it comes to story structure.
Schulz is a master of imagery and metaphor, and his work is worth reading for this alone. That being said, I find that in Sanatorium the sum is much weaker than its sparkling parts.
szubrur's review against another edition
4.0
Surreal, macabre and dreamy collection of stories; really astonishing land and weather descriptions. Felt some passages in my bones as I read them. I was very engrossed in this reading, looking forward to read The Street of Crocodiles some time in the future.
guilherme_bicalho's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
ladyk23's review against another edition
4.0
I should start by saying I only "read" (listened to) the short story Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, not the whole collection under the paperback with the same title. But I am intrigued enough by this one story that I absolutely want to read more by Schulz, and as I understand that his career was cut short by his untimely death during the Second World War, there really is no reason for me not to read all of his works as I know there aren't that many.
It's really hard to give a synopsis of this story without making it sound incredibly dull, which it ought to be, but Schulz makes the whole thing so magical and dream-like that you find yourself so drawn into this world he has created, and wanting to know so much more about the Sanatorium and the small town that it sits in.
This was another pick from Tony Walker of the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast, and I can see why he chose to cover this story - which is also in the public domain if anyone preferred to read it than listen to a reading - as it's a great one to sink your teeth into as a narrator, and I'd imagine is largely unheard of to most people given the early death of the author, and therefore lack of subsequent works. I certainly had never heard of him, but I will endeavour to seek out more of his writing in the future.
If you like odd, character-driven tales then this is certainly one for you. The fact that this story was translated from Polish, and yet has maintained it's perfectly surreal narrative, I think is also a testament to Schulz skill as a writer. Highly recommended.
It's really hard to give a synopsis of this story without making it sound incredibly dull, which it ought to be, but Schulz makes the whole thing so magical and dream-like that you find yourself so drawn into this world he has created, and wanting to know so much more about the Sanatorium and the small town that it sits in.
This was another pick from Tony Walker of the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast, and I can see why he chose to cover this story - which is also in the public domain if anyone preferred to read it than listen to a reading - as it's a great one to sink your teeth into as a narrator, and I'd imagine is largely unheard of to most people given the early death of the author, and therefore lack of subsequent works. I certainly had never heard of him, but I will endeavour to seek out more of his writing in the future.
If you like odd, character-driven tales then this is certainly one for you. The fact that this story was translated from Polish, and yet has maintained it's perfectly surreal narrative, I think is also a testament to Schulz skill as a writer. Highly recommended.
chaffinch_22's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
sloatsj's review against another edition
I expected to be blown away. Instead I ended up giving up. I have long hoped to go back to it, bit life might be too short.
bluishgreen12's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Surrealism galore in the book. I think the intense use of metaphors and figures of speech is good, it's dark, very much a product of a wild imagination. Some of the descriptions are incredibly beautiful and I think that is defining for the author, he just has a unique style of describing common things and experiences in incredible ways. The lack of plot and absurdity in the book however made it a really slow read, at times boring, I just had a hard time going through it and staying engaged. Glad I read it, but I would not re-read it ever.
rhexis's review against another edition
5.0
Surreal brilliance from Schulz. My first time reading this author and it will not be the last.
romrosp's review against another edition
5.0
S. 22
Denn gewöhnliche Bücher sind wie Meteore. Jedes von ihnen hat nur eienen einzigen Moment, einen Augenblick, in dem es wie ein Phönix mit einem Schrei in die Lüfte emporsteigt und alle seine Seiten in Flammen stehen. Für diesen einen Moment, für diesen einzigen Augenblick lieben wir sie später, auch wenn sie dann nur noch Asche sind.
S. 191
"Der ganze Trick ist der, daß wir die Zeit zurückgestellt haben. Wir hinken zeitlich um ein bestimmtes Intervall hinterher, dessen Ausmaß unmöglich genau bestimmt werden kann. Das ganze wird auf einen simplen Relativismus zurückgestellt. "
S. 207
Schuld an allem ist der rasche, von niemandem gleichbleibend aufmerksam überwachte Zerfall der Zeit.
Wir alle wissen, daß sich dieses disziplinlose Element eigentlich nur mit unablässigen Züchtungen, fürsorglicher Pflege, sorgfältiger Regulation und der Korrektur seiner Mutwilligkeiten notdürftig unter Kontrolle halten läßt. Ohne diese Betreuung neigt es sofort zu Überschreitungen, zu wilden Aberrationen, zu unberechenbaren Streichen...
Die Zeit meines Vaters und meine eigene Zeit paßten nicht mehr zusammen.
Denn gewöhnliche Bücher sind wie Meteore. Jedes von ihnen hat nur eienen einzigen Moment, einen Augenblick, in dem es wie ein Phönix mit einem Schrei in die Lüfte emporsteigt und alle seine Seiten in Flammen stehen. Für diesen einen Moment, für diesen einzigen Augenblick lieben wir sie später, auch wenn sie dann nur noch Asche sind.
S. 191
"Der ganze Trick ist der, daß wir die Zeit zurückgestellt haben. Wir hinken zeitlich um ein bestimmtes Intervall hinterher, dessen Ausmaß unmöglich genau bestimmt werden kann. Das ganze wird auf einen simplen Relativismus zurückgestellt. "
S. 207
Schuld an allem ist der rasche, von niemandem gleichbleibend aufmerksam überwachte Zerfall der Zeit.
Wir alle wissen, daß sich dieses disziplinlose Element eigentlich nur mit unablässigen Züchtungen, fürsorglicher Pflege, sorgfältiger Regulation und der Korrektur seiner Mutwilligkeiten notdürftig unter Kontrolle halten läßt. Ohne diese Betreuung neigt es sofort zu Überschreitungen, zu wilden Aberrationen, zu unberechenbaren Streichen...
Die Zeit meines Vaters und meine eigene Zeit paßten nicht mehr zusammen.