Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass (Writers from the Other Europe)

by Bruno Schulz

Book Overview

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass is the English title of Sanatorium Pod Klepsydra, a novel by the Polish writer and painter Bruno Schulz, published in 1937. The novel takes the form of a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140052720
• ISBN13: 9780140052725
• Release Date: October 1979
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 178 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 1.0" x 1.0"

Customer Reviews

"Everybody is Talking About it: Dee-Da"

To anyone who has lost their appreciation for pure, mellifluous prose, I refer you to Bruno Schulz. These are our own personal memories as we experience them in dreams. His grasp of the human psyche is dazzling. Every paragraph surges with vitality and wonder. The setting is 1930's Poland, but that doesn't stop Schulz from climbing inside your soul and reconstructing your entire childhood... as he describes phenomena such as a summer night or an excursion through town! My edition is published by Penguin Books and includes the author's own illustrations. These unforgettable drawings are of the characters going about their business, riding horses, and occasionally defying gravity. This is the Mariner edition. Make sure you get an editon with the pictures. Bruno Schulz has one other book, "Street Of Crocodiles." Also recommended!

Beautiful prose

Schulz has an ability to make even the most ordinary event revolutionary and poetic. A book transforms into a magical, almost living entity in the young narrator's mind. A look into a friend's stamp collection draws allusions to Alexander the Great's quest for world domination. His descriptions bring life to every minute detail. I only wish I knew Polish to read the original words.

Impt.: Hourglass alludes to Obitutuary in Polish.

This fiction is like looking out a window at a Las Vegas water show under colored lights: riotious, gorgeous and original. Everything by this Galician Polish Jewish writer/artist is genius.The title story "The Sanitorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass" deals with Schulz's fantastic visit to his deceased father in the afterworld. In Polish the title literally reads "the Sanitorium beneath the hourglass." However, the term Hourglass (klepsydra) is also used for death notices that are posted on bulletin-boards in public squares. Hence the allusion to a death notice in the title.

When They Died

A collection of short stories by the acclaimed Polish author killed by the Nazis during World War II. Unrecognized still even after the war, Schulz is in some circles now considered the finest modern Polish-language prose stylist. His stories are dreamlike reflections on life in the modest Jewish quarter of Drohobycz, the town of his birth. Both his fiction and drawings are notable for their erotic tenor and their acute anticipation of the emptiness produced by modern civilization.