It is important  to remember when reading the book is that it is set a few years into the future, when some of the trends Pawel sees in contemporary Polish life have come to fruition.  The book will speak primarily to Poles who are intimately involved in the cultural controversies which the book addresses, although it is interesting to anyone who wants to understand the Polish cultural scene, and in any case, many of its concerns are European in scope rather than being wholly confined within one nation.

Huelle’s story is about twelve men who have been invited to a theatre in Gdansk by the artist Mateusz, to pose for a photograph depicting a modern interpretation of The Last Supper which he will use as a reference for a major new painting.  Mateusz is tired of the modern art scene with its avant garde approach, and wants to show that there is still a place for a painting which will move and inspire people through a finely-executed and inspiring theme.  Each chapter concerns one of the men who have been invited to pose for the photograph and the book comprises a selection of word pictures around these men, each one in some way being characteristic of an aspect of contemporary Polish life.

The book is very concerned with the state of the Catholic Church, which Huelle sees as becoming more nationalistic, fundamentalist and anti-Semitic, partly in response to the   growing influence of Islam (Huelle actually forsees a Mosque being built in Gdansk and also terrorist explosions in the city).  However, wider themes of art and culture are covered, and the writing is in many ways post-modern, notably when it describes the impossibility of finding a middle way between a reactionary traditionalism on the one hand and an absurd avant-gardism on the other.  W B Yeats oft-repeated phrase applies here:  “things fall apart, the centre cannot hold”, for when the fault-lines have been found in comfortable old truths, there is no going back to the security they offered.  When the cultural context of the old truths has disappeared, they struggle like fish on the river-bank.

To Huelle, Polish culture is essentially Christian, but Christ somehow fails to find traction, and prophetic voices are lost among the general cultural chaos.  This theme recurs throughout the book.  Even when a Jewish scroll from the book of Zachariah descends above a Mass being conducted by an anti-Semitic priest, nothing really happens other than a suggestion that genuine judgement may be taking place in some other realm unseen by the participants.  Huelle lives on the edge of dichotomy where faith does not bring peace, and contradiction is everywhere: the gay man who falls in love with a mystical Sufi dancer, the devotion of the masses somehow provoked by an exploitative and corrupt Catholic hierarchy, the “Islamic terrorism” which turns out to be the work of a recovering Polish alcoholic.

Huelle focuses on the work of the 19th century artist David Roberts who followed a devotional path of painting Biblical scenes while on location in Jerusalem.  Roberts’ work is contrasted with avant-gardists who see the destruction of such “kitsch” works of art as an authentic artistic statement in themselves, as valid as the work of creation that went into the original painting.

At one point, Huelle criticises the Turner Prize and artists such as Damien Hirst, perhaps forgetting the success of galleries like London’s Tate Modern which are thronged with people young and old who are hungry to experience new forms of artistic expression.  At this point, Huelle feels a little like the Stuckists who demonstrate outside the Turner exhibition proclaiming that it is radical and progressive to seek a renewal of spiritual values in art and contemporary culture (not realising that to adopt a position of opposition is merely to confirm the ascendancy of the dominant idea).  A return to traditional values is always reactionary, whereas to find a synthesis with the new will result in growth and a new direction more appropriate to the age.

I somehow felt that the author was more at home with his previous styles of writing – at which he is excels.  Castorp for example was witty and a delight to read, but sometimes the writing in The Last Supper felt a little contrived.  For example, in typical post-Modern style, the author’s voice frequently steps out of the pages to speak directly to the reader:

p59:  Is that enough for this chapter?  I tap away at the keys, then I email it to you and I never know what you’ll say

p99:  It’s true. I am not an omniscient narrator.  But as I haven’t yet told you, I did use a recorder to tape conversations that were meant to lead to this book

p151:  I can tell you’re getting impatient at this point . . . at this point I’d prefer not to enter the Free University with Berdo as the door crashes shut behind him

I found this not a little disconcerting.  When reading fiction, surely the reader has to be drawn into the story and when this happens several times in a book, it feels a little like someone who keeps interrupting a DVD in order to have a loo-break or to go and make a cup of coffee.  You need to get back into the story quickly so that you can regain concentration and continue on your way.

This is of course a highly significant new book and essential reading for anyone who follows modern European literature.  It is a challenging read and in my view would benefit from a prologue to set some context for non-Polish readers.  For someone who enjoyed Huelle’s other books, this will be a departure from what is expected, but on the other hand it will stimulate thought and will widen viewpoints.

As with Huelle’s other books, The Last Supper benefits from a stylish and lucid translation by Antonia Lloyd Jones.  I am totally ignorant of the Polish language, but as with all good translations, I forgot that the book was not written in English.  Incidentally, Polish fiction in sorely unrepresented in English translation and I have found the website Polish Writing very helpful in guiding me towards other Polish writers.  The website includes an interesting interview with Antonia Lloyd Jones about translating another Polish book.

I am rediscovering a liking for short stories and it is interesting to read that I may not be alone in this.   As reported in The Times, there is a an upsurge of interest in this genre, and the BBC for example now has an excellent short story website complete with a fascinating search feature.  Pawel Huelle’s short story collection reviewed here is an almost a classic example, reminding me of short stories by Anton Chekhov, Guy de Maupassant,  Gustave Flaubert and others.  It dates from 1991, or for English readers, since 1994 in this flowing and natural translation from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd Jones.

Although apparently dating from about 15 years ago, these stories are rich with the atmosphere of  post-World War II communist Poland.  The characters are still suffering from poverty, their food is simple, they use buses rather than cars, and replacing household items often requires a long search and the assistance of useful contacts.

The first story, The Table, describes such a search for a table to replace one obtained by bartering a pair of army boots and some butter in 1946.  The narrator tells how his parents are continually falling out over this “German table”, much hated by the narrator’s mother.  Eventually they boy’s father sets out on a quest to find a carpenter, Mr Kaspar, who will make a new table, and this takes father and son on a lengthy journey into the countryside.  When Mr Kaspar is found, he involved the boy’s father in slaughtering and butchering a pig long into the night, while the boy is taken to the spare bed-room by a “wrinkle-faced woman” to be put to bed between newly starched sheets.

Pawel Huelle has captured childhood memories  perfectly here.  We can all remember seemingly bizarre episodes from long ago, and perhaps our imperfect recollection gives them an almost magical quality, where it is now difficult to believe the events happened in quite the way we recall them now.  Certainly the quest for a new table evokes remarkable word-pictures here, of the last Mennonites by the River Tuja, of Ukrainians dancing by a bonfire in the moonlight, an imagined voyage “carrying cargoes of apples. plums, barrels with live fish in them, pieces of cloth scented with summer and with herbs”.

Moving House, is another episode from childhood, this time revolving around a house move.  The family live in a large house which has been broken up into apartments, with an elderly German woman, Madam Greta, perhaps the original owner of the house living in the “Great Room”.  The period is evidently again soon after World War II, for the boys mother hates Germans and rails at his father for allowing them to live for five years under the same roof as a German, even though beautiful piano music floats up through the walls from Madam Greta’s apartment (“German music yet again” complains the boy’s mother).

With this atmosphere at home, it is obvious that the boy is forbidden from staring into the windows of the Great Room or making any contact with its occupant.  However, with the disruption of preparing for the house move, the boy is free to wander around the grounds of the house and finds himself staring through the window of the Great Room, where Madam Greta sees him and invites him in, offering tea and cake.  She treats the boy to an impromptu concert, breaking off from time to time to show him illsustrated books showing the stories behind the music, Tannhauser, Siegfried, Parsifal, The Flying Dutchman, the boy entranced by the literary and musical experience.

On returning home, his mother rails against “that old Kraut”, shrieking at her husband, which Huelle commenting on the “evil spirit would not leave her alone”.  The next day the family’s furniture is loaded onto a cart and pulled away by horses to their new home.  The new house is quiet, but the  memory of the music and its stories will remain with the boy and reminding us, the readers, of the power of music to transcend national and cultural barriers.

Other stories are more dramatic than the two summarised above.  “A Miracle” concerns a plane crash at Gdansk airport.  “Uncle Henryk” describes a night-time ski trip through a blizzard and its remarkable outcome.  They all share the authors talent for describing the sometimes life-changing effect of relatively minor events.

I very much enjoyed these stories. They have much of the classical short story about them, each one leaving a lingering wistfulness for a simpler period when community and family were stronger influences than in our more private and fractured times.  I am very pleased that I discovered the books of Pawel Huelle and am no beginning Who Was David Weiser? with a keen sense of anticipation

Pawel Huelle has written a highly effective prequel to The Magic Mountain, in which we see the young Hans Castorp leave his uncle’s home in Hamburg and go to Danzig (Gdansk) to study ship-building.

Castorp’s new life commences on board the ship Mercury as he sails to Danzig, in the company of three other passengers with whom he is obliged to spend an uncomfortable few days, dealing with their eccentricities and awkward conversations.  On arrival at Danzig he is persuaded to delay his onward journey to his lodgings by a Dutch tradesman, Kiekiernix, who despatches his bags on to his new landlady and drags him into an elaborate and time-consuming lunch.  Castorp eventually arrives at his rooms to find no sign of his land-lady or his bags, and determines to avoid all further distractions during his stay in Danzig.

He enrols at the Polytechnic and commences his studies, returning each night to his lodgings where the behaviour of his landlady and her maid cause him some consternation.  He finds comfort in his beloved Maria Mancini cigars and an ample supply of Burgundy wine, and life carries on, amusing and entertainingly for the reader, as the young Hans explores his new surroundings.

I will not go into further detail of the plot for fear of spoiling the book, but needless to say, it involves Castorp’s intense romantic feelings for a remote Polish woman, who he pursues at a distance, unable to carry the relationship further (at least intitally) because of his intense shyness.  There is a denouement, and it is satisfactory as far as this book is concerned, while also leaving themes to be picked up in The Magic Mountain for those who care to read it.

I enjoyed this book greatly and have been asking myself whether it would be readable by someone who had not read the Mann novel.  I have come to the conclusion that it stands very well on its own, and in some ways, I think it would be good to read this prequel first.  It will change one’s understanding of the Mann novel slightly and lead to a sense of recognition of traits in Castorp’s character as he settles into the sanatorium.   Mann purists may disagree, but as both works are after-all fiction, in my view, to read this “introduction” first would not be a bad thing.

For those who come to this book after reading the Mann novel, I think that they would enjoy this harmless speculation on what went before, and it will be an amusing (and brief) read bringing much of The Magic Mountain back to mind, and reinforcing the view that in Castorp, Mann created a strong and memorable character.

Pawel Huelle has captured Mann’s style perfectly, while also adding more humour and direct interest to his story.  Frankly, more happens in these 230 small format pages that in the whole of The Magic Mountain’s 854 and I don’t think this book is impoverished by omitting the lengthy philosophical dialogues to which Mann was so given.  The story of Castorp’s early years is quite consistent with what came next in the sanatorium and one can only congratulate Huelle for inventing an account of which suggest answers to some of the questions arising from Mann’s epic work.

The book is translated in a flowing and easy to read style by Antonia Lloyd Jones and is beautifully presented by the publishers Serpent’s Tail.