Slight Exaggeration
An Essay
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
A new essay collection by the noted Polish poet
For Adam Zagajewski—one of Poland’s great poets—the project of writing, whether it be poetry or prose, is an occasion to advance what David Wojahn has characterized as his “restless and quizzical quest for self-knowledge.” Slight Exaggeration is an autobiographical portrait of the poet, arranged not chronologically but with that same luminous quality that distinguishes Zagajewski’s spellbinding poetry—an affinity for the invisible.
In a mosaic-like blend of criticism, reflections, European history, and aphoristic musings, Zagajewski tells the stories of his life in glimpses and reveries—from the Second World War and the occupation of Poland that left his family dispossessed to Joseph Brodsky’s funeral on the Venetian island of San Michele—interspersed with intellectual interrogations of the writers and poets (D. H. Lawrence, Giorgos Seferis, Zbigniew Herbert, Paul Valéry), composers and painters (Brahms, Rembrandt), and modern heroes (Helmuth James Graf von Moltke) who have influenced his work.
A wry and philosophical defense of mystery, Slight Exaggeration recalls Zagajewski’s poetry in its delicate negotiation between the earthbound and the ethereal, “between brief explosions of meaning and patient wandering through the plains of ordinary days.” With an enduring inclination to marvel, Zagajewski restores the world to us—necessarily incomplete and utterly astonishing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It's hard to categorize Polish poet Zagajewski's (Unseen Hand) luminous book, perhaps best characterized as an extended meditation on life and art. No chapters or titles anchor readers, though there are breaks between sections. But despite the text's diffuse quality, distinct themes emerge. First, it's a meditation on displacement: shortly before the poet's post-WWII birth, the Soviets annexed the Polish city of Lvov and sent Zagajewski's family to Gliwice, a city recently transferred from German to Polish control. Throughout the book, he wanders frequently: to France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the U.S. Second, Zagajewski insists on the importance of history, a touchstone pulling him ever backward to WWII and the period immediately prior. Third, he insists on the particular rather than grand theory: "All systems are finally a mental poison, the rotten apples of the mind's life." Not until two-thirds of the way through does the title's meaning emerge: it's how Zagajewski's engineer father once summed up a passage of his son's poetry, and Zagajewski celebrates this phrase as a definition for poetry in general. This rich, insightful book has a depth that pulls the thoughtful reader in, and it offers the welcome perspective of an unabashed intellectual with a lifetime of experience to share.
