Possessed: The Secret of Myslotch

By Witold Gombrowicz

Book Overview

From "a master of verbal burlesque and] a connoisseur of psychological blackmail" (John Updike), Witold Gombrowicz's harrowing and hilarious pastiche of the Gothic novel, now in a new, authoritative English translation

Witold Gombrowicz is considered by many to be Poland's greatest modernist, and in The Possessed, he demonstrates his playful brilliance and astonishing range by using the familiar tropes of the Gothic novel to produce a darkly funny and lively subversion of the form. With dreams of escaping his small-town existence and the limitations of his class, a young tennis coach travels to the heart of the Polish countryside to train Maja Ocholowska, a beautiful and promising player whose bourgeois family has fallen upon difficult circumstances. Yet as Maja and the young man are alternately drawn to and repulsed by the other, they find themselves embroiled in the fantastic happenings taking place at the dilapidated castle nearby, where a mad prince haunts the halls, and bewitched towels, conniving secretaries, famous clairvoyants, and uncanny doubles conspire to determine the fate of the lovers. Serialized first in Poland in the days preceding the Nazi invasion, and now translated directly into English for the first time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, The Possessed is a comic jewel, a hair-raising thriller, and a provocative early masterpiece from the acclaimed author of classics like Pornografia and Cosmos.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802162525
• ISBN13: 9780802162526
• Release Date: March 2024
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Gothic Gombrowicz

This is a delightful pre-war Gombrowicz concoction. Underneath the Gothic exterior, those who have read his other novels will find familiar themes, such as the attraction and conflict between youth and maturity. In my opinion, Pornographia is the most "perfect" of the novels, but this one is the most delightful, dispite its minor flaws. It was written for publication in serial form in a newspaper, and I think it would have benefited if the author had revised it for publication as a book. I especially appreciate the ending, where Gombrowicz lays out all the pieces of the puzzle in order, but leaves it up to the reader to put them together to see the amazing results. I have known some people who did not "get" the ending; but I found it tremendously satifying to draw the conclusions myself. I think it would have been even better if the last few paragraphs of Chapter 21 had been reworked and put at the very end. One can even imagine "And they lived happily ever after" as a conclusion. - J. Cooper

High art meets pulp fiction

Gombrowicz's second novel was quite a departure from his first, Ferdydurke, but it retains some similar imagery and themes, such as old world Poland versus the new (in the context of the interwar years and an independent Polish state) and immaturity in the male psyche. It was perhaps fortuitous or extremely clever to release it under a pseudonym, in order to avoid inevitable and unfair comparisons.Possessed's subtitle gives away more of the story; a gothic novel that plays with the "Wlad the Impaler/Dracula" kinds of historical myth from central Europe, with props such as dark, semi-abandoned castles and eccentric if not deranged aristocrats. It's a genre with which Gombrowicz easily engages, and the results are both chilling and amusing.Possessed is ideal material for a Polanksi film - as a fellow Pole with anti-establishment tendencies I believe he would understand the humour and his comic and surrealistic vision would be a perfect fit for the material.

A Masterpiece!

Although this book is currently "unavailable," do everything in your power to find it, read it, marvel at it- become possessed.