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In the Memory of the Forest
When the body of Tomek, a young distillery worker, is found brutally murdered in the forest outside Jadowia in Poland, his boyhood friend, Leszek, decides to uncover the mystery behind Tomek's death. Assuming the role of amateur sleuth, Leszek embarks on a clue-finding mission that takes him from country to city, into the grimy offices of once-powerful bureaucrats, and face-to-face with the Catholic Church's pious and impotent priests. And as Leszek moves closer to the truth, he is confronted with another strange mystery: the disappearance of stones from the foundations of the town's oldest houses. The further Leszek is drawn into this mystery, the deeper into the past he must search for answers about his people, the grim tragedy of the Holocaust, and ultimately, his own identity. In the Memory of the Forest is a haunting, evocative novel that explores the impact of a murder on a community, and of history and the fate of the Jews in Poland during World War II on a people.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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630 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
April 9, 2017
There's a lot going on in this story: a village learning a new balance of power after the fall of Communism, the forgetting of a history no one wants to remember, that past not wanting to remain forgotten, guilt, power, the depth of war wounds.
The writing is really good. It has atmosphere and draws one into the stories and characters.
The murder of Tomek is a small part of this book. The book focusses mainly on the history of Jews in this town during WWII and how their story seems to be wiped out of the town's folks memories....but it's not, the memories are festering.
Well written and interesting.
The writing is really good. It has atmosphere and draws one into the stories and characters.
The murder of Tomek is a small part of this book. The book focusses mainly on the history of Jews in this town during WWII and how their story seems to be wiped out of the town's folks memories....but it's not, the memories are festering.
Well written and interesting.
February 28, 2010
It is absolutely tragic that this is the only novel Powers wrote (he died at 53) because the man could write. I read this while I was in Poland and not for a minute did I think that the author wasn't a native Pole. (He was actually the Eastern European bureau chief at the L.A. Times in California.) The book is about a small rural community with a heartbreaking secret and the events that bring that secret into the open. Reading it brought back memories of moldering synagogues with trees growing through the windows and neglected huddles of Jewish tombstones under motorway overpasses. This book urges remembrance of an entire world that was lost and it does so like the sun dancing through leaves. Just beautiful.
March 20, 2019
My second reading for this stunning book, it is another on my Encore list and another definite keeper. How very sad that the author died without writing another book.
As usual when I can't think right away of exactly what to say, I wait a day or so in hopes of letting the book settle a bit in my mind and inspire a decent review. But I am still not sure just exactly what I want to say here, other than PLEASE READ IT.
There are truths buried here that I wish people all over the world could be made to understand.
As usual when I can't think right away of exactly what to say, I wait a day or so in hopes of letting the book settle a bit in my mind and inspire a decent review. But I am still not sure just exactly what I want to say here, other than PLEASE READ IT.
There are truths buried here that I wish people all over the world could be made to understand.
May 9, 2011
I first read "In Memory of the Forest" ten years ago and it has remained one of my favourite books. When we were choosing books for our seniors book club, I suggested "In Memory of the Forest." Everyone in the group found this to be an outstandingly well written novel. Powers' language and description is power and beautiful.
The novel takes place in a small town in Poland during the time Communism is being replaced by a new freely elected government led Leck Walesa as president. There are several mysteries that run throughout the novel. Who brutally murdered Tomek, a young distillery worker and left his body in the forest? Who has been stealing the stones that have been used for foundations of the oldest homes in Jadowia, a small village in Poland. Where is the Jewish cemetery located in Jadowia? Where does Leszek's grandfather go every night and what is he doing?
As these mysteries are resolved we learn the history of Jadowia during World War II - what happened to the Jews who lived there; what Leszak's grandfather did in the forest and what he is doing at night now; where the Jewish cemetery is located and what it means to one of Jadowia's residents, etc. We also learn what communism has done to this village and how this affected the residents' lives.
The forest is a powerful symbol in this novel and comes to represent many different things to many different people in the story. I found this title to be one of the most powerful aspects of the book and is only totally revealed until the reader has completed reading this novel.
I'm sorry that Charles Powers only wrote one novel before he died. I would have loved to read more novel written by him.
The novel takes place in a small town in Poland during the time Communism is being replaced by a new freely elected government led Leck Walesa as president. There are several mysteries that run throughout the novel. Who brutally murdered Tomek, a young distillery worker and left his body in the forest? Who has been stealing the stones that have been used for foundations of the oldest homes in Jadowia, a small village in Poland. Where is the Jewish cemetery located in Jadowia? Where does Leszek's grandfather go every night and what is he doing?
As these mysteries are resolved we learn the history of Jadowia during World War II - what happened to the Jews who lived there; what Leszak's grandfather did in the forest and what he is doing at night now; where the Jewish cemetery is located and what it means to one of Jadowia's residents, etc. We also learn what communism has done to this village and how this affected the residents' lives.
The forest is a powerful symbol in this novel and comes to represent many different things to many different people in the story. I found this title to be one of the most powerful aspects of the book and is only totally revealed until the reader has completed reading this novel.
I'm sorry that Charles Powers only wrote one novel before he died. I would have loved to read more novel written by him.
December 28, 2008
Set in a Polish village at the time of the collapse of communism, In The Memory Of The Forest is a novel about a community struggling with the burden of everything it would rather forget: the Jews who were rounded up and sent to Treblinka to be gassed; the betrayals made by partisans fighting against the Nazis; the surveillance of ordinary people under the communist regime; and the everyday compromises that were necessary for survival in the face of enduring hardship. It’s a book, above all else, about resilience.
The story begins with the body of a young man, Tomek, discovered in a clearing in the forest, his head brutally stoved in. A kind of literary detective story, it follows the attempts of his school friend, Lesczek, to understand how Tomek came to meet such a fate. In the process Lesczek picks at a thread of criminality that causes the whole buried history of the village to unravel.
The physical and emotional landscape of newly-post-Communist Poland is evoked with astonishing clarity by Charles Powers’ beautifully turned prose. The character of the village, surrounded by ancient woodland, peopled by individuals who have been shaped into stubborn patterns of wordless defiance through grinding poverty and a system that took no account of the individual; the anarchic effect of the newly-released market forces upon the towns and cities – all of this is rendered with extraordinary solidity and vividness.
The story begins with the body of a young man, Tomek, discovered in a clearing in the forest, his head brutally stoved in. A kind of literary detective story, it follows the attempts of his school friend, Lesczek, to understand how Tomek came to meet such a fate. In the process Lesczek picks at a thread of criminality that causes the whole buried history of the village to unravel.
The physical and emotional landscape of newly-post-Communist Poland is evoked with astonishing clarity by Charles Powers’ beautifully turned prose. The character of the village, surrounded by ancient woodland, peopled by individuals who have been shaped into stubborn patterns of wordless defiance through grinding poverty and a system that took no account of the individual; the anarchic effect of the newly-released market forces upon the towns and cities – all of this is rendered with extraordinary solidity and vividness.
March 3, 2010
This book is like molasses. Or like a Miramax film vying for an Academy Award for Best Picture — beautiful and evocative, but slow-moving toward its riveting denouement. The book is rich on atmosphere and the characters are fully-formed, the story is sweeping. I really mean it: I can picture this book as a film – sometimes as I turned the page, I could hear the strings playing, the gentle thud-thud of a bass informing me that things were not okay.
But it doesn’t have the break-neck speed of your average mystery novel. I think describing it as a mystery is misleading. It’s a multi-faceted piece of literature, with layers upon layers of story and history: Passion, guilt, cover-ups, Communism, redemption.
The book did take me almost a week to read because of its pacing. The last 60 pages are unputdownable…but huge chunks in the middle left me bored and wanting more. As I mentioned in my last post, a story would build and gain momentum and then the author would steal you away from it. But ultimately I like the book as a whole and the ending makes this book recommendable. But beyond me recommending this book, I feel a strong urge to talk about it — discuss the sadness written on its pages, the horrors of Poland: Nazi Occupation, Auschwitz — the slaughtering of Jews in their backyards, then the arrival of Russia and Communism. I was wondering why it was so hard to find a book for Poland that wasn’t about these things. Well, it’s clear: Poland’s history is a sad tale of a people repeatedly oppressed.
Much of the narrative is focused on the obliteration and subsequent forgetting of the Jews. There is an undercurrent of fear from those who survived World War II and Communism that the Jews will return to reclaim their houses. Not only was 10% of the Polish Jewish population exterminated, but (in the novel) those left behind did all they could to erase their memory there. One particular image is of people covering up the mezuzahs on the door-frames or ripping them off after they occupied an abandoned home that used to belong to a Jewish family. I remember when my grandfather first explained to me what a mezuzah was and he showed me how he kissed his fingers and then touched the mezuzah (a case that holds a verse from the Torah). Learning that custom from him had a big impact on me as a child — I was proud to share that custom with him when I visited.
And the images in this book of people actively destroying anything that reminded them that a now-dead Jewish person lived in that house? It was jarring. I thought of my grandfather a lot. He passed away in 2006 and I miss him. I miss him because I still exist and can honor his memory — but when an entire population is killed from a country? Who then is left to carry on those stories and traditions? That is only one story thread in this novel…but it is a powerful one.
But it doesn’t have the break-neck speed of your average mystery novel. I think describing it as a mystery is misleading. It’s a multi-faceted piece of literature, with layers upon layers of story and history: Passion, guilt, cover-ups, Communism, redemption.
The book did take me almost a week to read because of its pacing. The last 60 pages are unputdownable…but huge chunks in the middle left me bored and wanting more. As I mentioned in my last post, a story would build and gain momentum and then the author would steal you away from it. But ultimately I like the book as a whole and the ending makes this book recommendable. But beyond me recommending this book, I feel a strong urge to talk about it — discuss the sadness written on its pages, the horrors of Poland: Nazi Occupation, Auschwitz — the slaughtering of Jews in their backyards, then the arrival of Russia and Communism. I was wondering why it was so hard to find a book for Poland that wasn’t about these things. Well, it’s clear: Poland’s history is a sad tale of a people repeatedly oppressed.
Much of the narrative is focused on the obliteration and subsequent forgetting of the Jews. There is an undercurrent of fear from those who survived World War II and Communism that the Jews will return to reclaim their houses. Not only was 10% of the Polish Jewish population exterminated, but (in the novel) those left behind did all they could to erase their memory there. One particular image is of people covering up the mezuzahs on the door-frames or ripping them off after they occupied an abandoned home that used to belong to a Jewish family. I remember when my grandfather first explained to me what a mezuzah was and he showed me how he kissed his fingers and then touched the mezuzah (a case that holds a verse from the Torah). Learning that custom from him had a big impact on me as a child — I was proud to share that custom with him when I visited.
And the images in this book of people actively destroying anything that reminded them that a now-dead Jewish person lived in that house? It was jarring. I thought of my grandfather a lot. He passed away in 2006 and I miss him. I miss him because I still exist and can honor his memory — but when an entire population is killed from a country? Who then is left to carry on those stories and traditions? That is only one story thread in this novel…but it is a powerful one.
November 11, 2011
Not sure how this ended up on so many year's-best lists. It was okay. Nothing special. I think the critics liked it because it was Holocausty and the ending was as clichéd as a Spielberg movie.
June 27, 2024
I’ve carried this book around for years, and am so pleased to have finally read it. It’s a sad tale of a sad Polish village, trying to cope with the end of communism and the slow resurfacing of its older history. I loved the careful attention to detail about that time and place, which I know a bit. There is a brilliant scene where a character needs to buy a battery, and goes on a quest through the neighboring market town to find one; it’s so dead on it leapt off the page for me.
This is perhaps the only caveat - I appreciated the author’s ability to capture the details of that life, but I’m not sure all readers would savor the small observations in which the book is so rich. If you have any interest at all in the time and place, I strongly recommend this fine novel. If not, your mileage may vary.
This is perhaps the only caveat - I appreciated the author’s ability to capture the details of that life, but I’m not sure all readers would savor the small observations in which the book is so rich. If you have any interest at all in the time and place, I strongly recommend this fine novel. If not, your mileage may vary.
February 24, 2021
I was reminded of this book, which I read over 20 years ago, when I read of a recent Polish law, currently being applied, that forbids anyone from "unjustly" blaming Poles for anything they might have done to help the Germans do their horrid deeds during WWII. That I can remember a contemporary work of fiction after so many years tells me how much of an impact it made on me then, so (pending a re-read) it gets 5 stars.
In the framework of a murder mystery, it looks at the historical relationship between Poles and their Jewish countrymen during those dark times. Very moving, to my recollection. And, as memory begets memory, I'll throw in a recommendation for Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, with similar subject matter in a very different narrative, at times slow-going, at times LOL hilarious. (The movie was well done, also, although it only covered the current portion, less than half of the book.)
In the framework of a murder mystery, it looks at the historical relationship between Poles and their Jewish countrymen during those dark times. Very moving, to my recollection. And, as memory begets memory, I'll throw in a recommendation for Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, with similar subject matter in a very different narrative, at times slow-going, at times LOL hilarious. (The movie was well done, also, although it only covered the current portion, less than half of the book.)
September 28, 2015
At a very slow pace, Powers tells us the story of a backward village in Poland struggling with its past, present and future. And he does it in such a beautiful and profound way, that it’s hard to believe that Powers is actually American. This is not a page turner full of action. The story meanders its way to some sort of climax that goes not with a bang, but a whimper. The everyday life, and the dealing with the past, is more important than the murder of Tomek. Those in power during the socialist regime struggling for survival, the ambiguous position of the church, the Jews erased from the earth and from the collective memory.. this setting makes this book so brilliant for me.
This book made me feel sad. Sad because of its content, but also sad because it’s the only book Powers wrote.
This book made me feel sad. Sad because of its content, but also sad because it’s the only book Powers wrote.
October 8, 2024
This book features some very interesting (and sad) history, and the main character is pretty likable. Aside from that, this book was a jumble of names and subplots that often went nowhere. The book’s central mysteries have either no resolution or a very obvious/anticlimactic one.
One more thing that irked me: editing. I recall several typos of basic words/phrases throughout this novel. C’mon.
One more thing that irked me: editing. I recall several typos of basic words/phrases throughout this novel. C’mon.
April 19, 2022
A work of genius. This book left me speechless, mostly because of the incredible beauty of the writing, the turns of phrase . The story is complex, set in a Polish village in the early 1990s, shortly after the break up of the Soviet Union. Things are changing in the Poland of Lech Walesa, but old, secretive, and corrupt ways of surviving don't disappear overnight. A young man is found murdered in the woods, his head smashed. His friend and neighbor, at the request of the unfortunate boy's father, sets out to find out what happened. We follow him as he encounters people and places way out of his comfort zone, and as he slowly uncovers generational secrets leading way back to "the war", WWII, which may or may not shed a light on what happened to so violently snuff out his friend's life. In the mean time, stones are disappearing from the foundations of public buildings and homes!
The forest is full of atmosphere and mystery, whispers of the gritty survival of the past, for Pole and Jew alike. The characterization and settings in this book are masterful. I found myself rereading passages just to savor the language. Charles T. Powers, an American journalist very familiar with Eastern Europe, wrote only the one book in the five years after he retired and before he died. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but for me it was stunning.
The forest is full of atmosphere and mystery, whispers of the gritty survival of the past, for Pole and Jew alike. The characterization and settings in this book are masterful. I found myself rereading passages just to savor the language. Charles T. Powers, an American journalist very familiar with Eastern Europe, wrote only the one book in the five years after he retired and before he died. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but for me it was stunning.
December 27, 2022
I savored every word. But note this is not a quick read.
Published in 1997, I don't even know if it is still in print. I picked it up at our local booksale. It was highly acknowledged but sadly this is Mr. Powers only book. He passed away shortly after publication.
Set in Poland in the 1980s as Communism has ceased and Lech Walesa is now President, the small town is coming to terms of what Communism has left in its wake, a rapidly changing world and the haunting history of WWII and the loss of all of their Jewish citizens.
A worthy read.
Published in 1997, I don't even know if it is still in print. I picked it up at our local booksale. It was highly acknowledged but sadly this is Mr. Powers only book. He passed away shortly after publication.
Set in Poland in the 1980s as Communism has ceased and Lech Walesa is now President, the small town is coming to terms of what Communism has left in its wake, a rapidly changing world and the haunting history of WWII and the loss of all of their Jewish citizens.
A worthy read.
August 27, 2020
Au-delà de l'intérêt historique, de la beauté et de la puissance de l'écriture, du poignant de l'histoire, c'est l'humanité de chacun des personnages qui fait que ce livre est exceptionnel. Ils pourraient être catalogués comme arrivistes, magouilleurs, corrompus, lâches mais chacun suit ses convictions, ses ambitions, essaye de réparer ses erreurs. L'histoire ne doit pas être oubliée, mais chacun ici est digne de pardon.
December 9, 2021
If I could give this book ten stars I would. A well told story beautifully written, it pays homage to innocent Polish Jews, friends and neighbors.
January 20, 2015
This is a novel about rural Poland as it emerges from the clutches of the Soviets. It is very much a transitional period in which Poles struggle to find their way. The small farming town of Jadowia is riddled with secrets, many of which are the result of forty years of Communist control. Administrators were corrupt. People adapted to a system that was inherently bankrupt. The Church played along. People survived.
When the system collapses it exposes villains and informers. But deeper, darker secrets fester in the forests Jadowia. No one ever speaks of the Jews because they are all dead, exterminated, gassed at Treblinka fifty years earlier. A lone Jew who survived by posing as a Christian brings attention to an old Jewish cemetery. An old priest near the end of his career reminds his congregation of a certain missing community. Christians pray for Jews.
Crimes abound in this book. But it seems to be a novel that embraces the spirit of forgiveness. If the people of Jadowia are not eager to remember the Holocaust, they nevertheless recite the Lord's Prayer at the old Jewish cemetery.
This is an ambitious, well written novel that is long on remembrance and short on anger. People are tired of strife and are eager to move on. A sense of indulgence is almost palpable. But given the new waves of anti -Semitism racing across Europe, I wonder if this is a novel of wishful thinking. Christians praying for dead Jews-- is it just pretty to think so?
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January 6, 2017Although "In the Memory of the Forest" by Charles T. Powers did not sound that interesting to me, I gave it a chance. I really liked the cover (which surly got my attention) and once I picked it up, the mystery behind it made me slightly curious. I started reading a few pages and found that it picked up pretty quickly following the case of the murder of Tomek, a friend of of Leszek (a farmer in Poland). In an attempt to find out who murdered his friend, Lesek uncovers some history about his small town of Jadowia. He finds out that his town was once almost completely destroyed during the Holocaust in World War II. Although the murder of Tomek seems like the main focus, it quickly shifts to the secrets of this little countryside town and the significance the war had on it. I think switching the main focus of this book worked really well for me because I love history. I was really glad that the topic switched from the murder of Tomek, to the history and secrets of Jawdoia. But at the same time, I also think that this was a little disappointing. I was not expecting this, and I assume that other people would feel the same way. Yes, this changed worked out well for me, but it might not for everyone. Also, there were many characters that were brought up often with very difficult names to pronounce and very little relevance to the story. Sometimes I wondered what the point of all these characters were, but at the end they did not have a very big role. But if you like the genre of mystery (and also history with some secrets) then this book is perfect for you!
June 23, 2011
Eloquent, distinctive, sophisticated take on the suppressed traces of Jewish citizenry in a Polish village, slightly post-Glasnost. Unafraid of the complications of politics, and attuned to the fatal and unavoidable compromises made as human beings deal in the unappetizing choices offered in the small horizons of the world they know. Brilliantly conceived on many levels and full of characters that are sympathetically viewed despite their multiple bouts of shameful action and guilty conscience.
December 9, 2011
Wow! Amazing the way the author captures the dreariness of post-war Poland and the guilt or lack thereof over what happened to the Jewish people when the Nazis took over. One of the best I have read this year (or perhaps, ever).
April 18, 2011
Haunting and beautiful, this novel tells the story of a small Polish village coming to terms with the Communist and previous regimes. It is a small story, but a touching one.
March 27, 2012
One of my favorite books of all times yet hardly known by anyone. The writting is beautiful and the tale is haunting.
July 5, 2016
Hab ich vor einigen Jahren gelesen und war beeindruckt von der Geschichte. Schuld spielt eine wichtige Rolle und ist nicht eindeutig zu fassen.
March 17, 2009
One of the best books ever written, that nobody has heard of.
March 1, 2025
Un villaggio nella foresta, a poche ore di viaggio da Varsavia: poco più di un crocevia di strade, una realtà contadina dove il tempo sembra essersi fermato da decenni, almeno dal dopoguerra e invece il vento del cambiamento è arrivato portando novità e incertezze. Sono i primi anni 90, il muro di Berlino è caduto, Solidarnosc è al governo, l’Unione Sovietica non è più il gigante di prima ma le ex repubbliche e l’occidente non sono mai stati così vicini. Al villaggio un ragazzo, un ribelle dedito a strani affari, viene trovato morto con la testa sfondata; il padre reclama giustizia e Lezsek, un giovane agricoltore amico da sempre e vicino di casa, si improvvisa investigatore per scoprire la verità. La vecchia nomenclatura del villaggio si rivela corrotta e disposta a qualsiasi traffico pur di arricchirsi, il nuovo che avanza ha il volto di un giustizialismo intransigente e senza freni. Gli armadi e la foresta custodiscono molti segreti a cominciare dalla rete di connivenze e delazioni del socialismo, fino a quello più nascosto relativo agli ebrei, perché, fino all’ultima guerra mondiale, il villaggio era abitato da tanti ebrei, portati via dai tedeschi e mai più tornati. Tante vecchie storie e se è giusto ridare spazio e ricordo ad alcune, altre è meglio cancellarle definitivamente .Nonostante quanto faccia pensare la quarta di copertina non è un thriller ma un viaggio nella memoria alla ricerca di una identità all’interno di una comunità che si ritrova smarrita in un momento di forte transizione. Scritto da un americano, corrispondente da Varsavia più o meno nel periodo in cui è ambientato il romanzo, ha un impianto da romanzo corale, alternando capitoli con la voce in prima persona di Lezsek e capitoli dove è il narratore esterno a raccontare, con un buon intreccio di eventi e relazioni personali, ma il ritmo è tratti lento. La copertina fa pensare a una foresta cupa e misteriosa, io l’ho trovata un po' sonnolenta. Tre stelle e mezzo
March 20, 2018
This is a book with great writing, about an area of then world I was quite unaware of the history, and a good mystery also.This book was a NYT Notable Book LAtTimes one of the years best books. NYPublic Library one of 25 best books of the year. The author was a journalist and the Los Angeles Times Eastern European Bureau chief, so he knew the area this book is placed in. Charles Powers died in died in 1996 and this book was first published in 1997.
Synopsis: When the body of Tomek, a young distillery worker, is found brutally murdered in the forest outside Jadowia in Poland, his boyhood friend, Leszek, decides to uncover the mystery behind Tomek?s death. Assuming the role of amateur sleuth, Leszek embarks on a clue-finding mission that takes him from country to city, into the grimy offices of once-powerful bureaucrats, and face-to-face with the Catholic Church?s pious and impotent priests. And as Leszek moves closer to the truth, he is confronted with another strange mystery: the disappearance of stones from the foundations of the town?s oldest houses. The further Leszek is drawn into this mystery, the deeper into the past he must search for answers about his people, the grim tragedy of the Holocaust, and ultimately, his own identity.In the Memory of the Forest is a haunting, evocative novel that explores the impact of a murder on a community, and of history and the fate of the Jews in Poland during World War II on a people.
Synopsis: When the body of Tomek, a young distillery worker, is found brutally murdered in the forest outside Jadowia in Poland, his boyhood friend, Leszek, decides to uncover the mystery behind Tomek?s death. Assuming the role of amateur sleuth, Leszek embarks on a clue-finding mission that takes him from country to city, into the grimy offices of once-powerful bureaucrats, and face-to-face with the Catholic Church?s pious and impotent priests. And as Leszek moves closer to the truth, he is confronted with another strange mystery: the disappearance of stones from the foundations of the town?s oldest houses. The further Leszek is drawn into this mystery, the deeper into the past he must search for answers about his people, the grim tragedy of the Holocaust, and ultimately, his own identity.In the Memory of the Forest is a haunting, evocative novel that explores the impact of a murder on a community, and of history and the fate of the Jews in Poland during World War II on a people.
June 8, 2025
I am still haunted, in a melancholy way, with my thoughts about this beautiful gem of a book. I read this book nearly a quarter of a century ago, starting it on a long series of flights from Missoula, Montana, to London. It was winter, and there was a long delay between flights, either in Minneapolis or New York. A marriage was failing, and I was traveling too much. I was working for a company that was involved with the world's largest criminal fraud -- though at the time I was not aware of that -- and everything in my life felt like fog mixed with uncomfortable grit. The sensation of sand against damp skin at the wrong places. Then someone gave me this book, "In the Memory of the Forest," and since I had no idea what it was about, I started it. On that long flight, during a journey that I did not want to be part of. And the words, the perfect sentences, the absolutely correct mood of the story, got to me. Broke me down, really, and made me think of my Ukrainian ancestors who died during the Tsars' pogroms, and the relatives I have lost -- like all of us have -- contact with. Grave stones used as house foundations. Unmarked memories. Lost stories... I think I need to find this book again and re-read it, to see how much of who I used to be is still around. This is a great book.
March 16, 2024
Though beautifully written, this became an (imo) overwritten slog. The scene-setting was marvelous; I really felt that I lived in that dank, dark village. I didn't mind those lengthy descriptions of farm and forest because they were evocative. The novel's message was important, and such good questions posed, for example why were Catholic Poles simply Poles, but Jewish Poles Jews? Well, antisemitism of course and Christianity dominated, but that doesn't seem like enough of an answer.
More editing might have helped weed out the excessive descriptors when it came to character; why 5 details when 3 would be more evocative? All of that went on too long, dulling suspense and blurring several characters because though painterly, those descriptions did not serve to differentiate Powierska from grandpa from Czarnek, so far as their interior voices were concerned (as a result, Czarnek's behavior made no sense to me). Leszek stood out, but that might have been because his was the only 1st person voice.
I'm glad to have read this, but found myself doing something I rarely do during the last 30 or so page: skimming.
More editing might have helped weed out the excessive descriptors when it came to character; why 5 details when 3 would be more evocative? All of that went on too long, dulling suspense and blurring several characters because though painterly, those descriptions did not serve to differentiate Powierska from grandpa from Czarnek, so far as their interior voices were concerned (as a result, Czarnek's behavior made no sense to me). Leszek stood out, but that might have been because his was the only 1st person voice.
I'm glad to have read this, but found myself doing something I rarely do during the last 30 or so page: skimming.
May 5, 2020
*3.75 stars.
"There was always someone here, always some token, some footstep left in the soft accumulation of seasons, in the generations of leaves and decay" (11).
"...it was early March and tattered snow still lay across the fields..." (19).
"instinctively, Jablonski dressed in the colors of a city pigeon and trod the twilight corridors of higher authority on the whispering treads of crepe-soled shoes" (51).
"He was around all the time, as common as a lamppost though perhaps less useful" (57).
"The faded ink whispered to him from the brittle papers..." (82).
"...and pawed through the mess of foamy pellets that attached themselves, with a maddening defiance of gravity, to the back of his hand" (99).*So perfect in its specificity and relatability.
"It was morning, the mood among the passengers sour as a growling stomach" (105).
"And he would go out, the door hinge singing its bird's call behind him" (136-137)
"...his life boiled down to a residue of incapacity, anger, and incomprehension" (151).
"...her mother, having lived much of her life facing down the sour, whiskered face of drunkenness..." (215).
"...television sets flickering in the windows like blue hearth fires..." (219).
"...but his perspective with short-range and foreclosed" (230).
"I woke in the night with the shards of a dream in my head..." (239).
"...each mouth jeweled with the glitter of a single gold tooth" (321).
"Bits of blackened paper caught the heat, flew up like a broken crow's wings, fell apart and vanished" (367).
"There was always someone here, always some token, some footstep left in the soft accumulation of seasons, in the generations of leaves and decay" (11).
"...it was early March and tattered snow still lay across the fields..." (19).
"instinctively, Jablonski dressed in the colors of a city pigeon and trod the twilight corridors of higher authority on the whispering treads of crepe-soled shoes" (51).
"He was around all the time, as common as a lamppost though perhaps less useful" (57).
"The faded ink whispered to him from the brittle papers..." (82).
"...and pawed through the mess of foamy pellets that attached themselves, with a maddening defiance of gravity, to the back of his hand" (99).*So perfect in its specificity and relatability.
"It was morning, the mood among the passengers sour as a growling stomach" (105).
"And he would go out, the door hinge singing its bird's call behind him" (136-137)
"...his life boiled down to a residue of incapacity, anger, and incomprehension" (151).
"...her mother, having lived much of her life facing down the sour, whiskered face of drunkenness..." (215).
"...television sets flickering in the windows like blue hearth fires..." (219).
"...but his perspective with short-range and foreclosed" (230).
"I woke in the night with the shards of a dream in my head..." (239).
"...each mouth jeweled with the glitter of a single gold tooth" (321).
"Bits of blackened paper caught the heat, flew up like a broken crow's wings, fell apart and vanished" (367).
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