Amazon.fr :Commentaires en ligne: Swimming in the Dark: ‘One of the most astonishing contemporary gay novels we have ever read … A masterpiece’

Commenté en France 🇫🇷 le 17 décembre 2021

The story line is well described and the characters are credible. The interesting part is the fact that the story takes place beyond the iron curtain, in a country where stigma of homosexualilty is even higher because of its very religious culture.

L'histoire est bien décrite et les personnages sont crédibles. La chose intéressante est le fait que cela a lieu d'hier le rideau de fer, dans un pays où la stigmatisation de l'homosexualité est même plus haute à cause de sa culture très religieuse.

Utile

DAE

Swimming in the Dark

Commenté aux États-Unis 🇺🇸 le 19 janvier 2023

Achat vérifié

Two things strike me. The alien world of communist Poland when it comes to the fear facing homosexuals. The other is the utter control and arbitrariness of the government in keeping citizens oppressed. Two gay men trying to have some sort of relationship in a country where you couldn’t have one. One believes in staying in the system while working your way up the power ladder. The other sees no hope in it. To have success he sees you must sacrifice your principles. The other says give it time. Trust me. We’ll get what we want. The other sees the inevitable loss of who they are during the process of using people to get to the end goals. They go their separate ways. By the end you never get a clear view on what became of either man. The one being aligned with the communist Polish government could have come to a tragic end when they were ousted. The other was in America but did not seem happy. No sense of trying to make a new life for himself. Going to the west was to find freedom. Did he?

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Eclectic Reader

“Nothing Ever Gets Better Here”

Commenté aux États-Unis 🇺🇸 le 26 février 2021

Achat vérifié

In his debut novel, SWIMMING IN THE DARK (2020) author Tomasz Jedowski (born in 1985 in the Federal Republic of Germany) writes of first love set during the political turmoil of Poland in the early 1980s as Communist leaders began an increasing desperate and despotic attempt to hold on to power. The political setting of the novel plays an important role in the events surrounding the lives of the novel’s two main characters: twenty-two-year-old Ludwik Glowacki and a fellow student, Janusz. The two first meet as university students at a summer agricultural camp and although gay and closeted, pretty much inexperienced, and more than a bit cautious, Ludwick immediately is attracted to the masculine Janusz who Ludwik sees as “a prophecy I was unable to read.”

Jedowski adopts an interesting and telling narrative technique for SWIMMING IN THE DARK. Ludwik is the book’s first-person narrator throughout and the novel is written as a letter to Janusz describing Ludwik’s life before meeting Janusz and, more importantly, detailing their lives after they meet. As early as the second page of the novel Jedowski lets readers know the relationship between the two central characters is, for one reason or another, doomed as he has Ludwik write, “I don’t know whether I ever want you to read this, but I know that I need to write it. Because you’ve been on my mind for too long. Ever since the day, twelve months ago, when I got on a plane and flew through the thick layers of cloud across the ocean. A year since I saw you, a year that has felt like limbo…”

As stated earlier, politics plays an important role in the novel as Ludwik finds himself growing more and more incensed over state of affairs thrust upon the Polish people by the regime of Edward Gierek. Ludwik desires greater freedom, not less, and is curious about the West where “it seems like everything is better… more beautiful. More free.” When he tries to imagine his life “in the future, in a year or so,” he can’t see anything. Janusz, however, labels Ludwik a “dreamer” and is quite content with the Communist system. He believes “there are so many chances” in Poland and “the Party cares about us,” convinced he will “figure things out” and find a way to work the system to his advantage.

Along with the politics of 1980s Poland, James Baldwin’s novel, GIOVANNI’S ROOM (1956) plays an important role in SWIMMING IN THE DARK. Unpublished in Poland at the time but a work the scholarly and inquisitive Ludwik has heard of, the youth obtains an underground copy of the book and immediately identifies with the characters and the same-sex relationships of which Baldwin daringly (for the times) writes. When Janusz asks to borrow the book and Ludwik hesitantly agrees to loan it to him, the novel helps bring the two young males together even though Baldwin’s theme of the need for freedom affects Ludwik in ways it does not Janusz.

Jedowski writes in a lyrical fashion while exploring the budding romantic relationship between Ludwik and Janusz as well as describing the culture of Poland at the times. Food (from the simple to the elegant), music, and the many vast social discrepancies between the haves and the have-nots are clearly on display for the reader. What is curiously lacking in the book is real passion or at least explicit descriptions of Ludwik and Janusz’s physical interactions. Ludwik’s “letter” makes it clear that the love between the two is fervent and does involve love-making, but the narrative is quick to fade out as such intimacy is about to begin and Ludwik only returns to his account after the two have consummated their various sexual interactions. Readers may be struck by this approach and are likely to wonder if the author is consciously recreating Ludwik’s timidity, whether the author is subtly signaling the eventual fate of the two, or has other rationale in mind. As beautiful and engaging as Jedowski’s writing is, it is clearly not a weakness but a deliberate choice by the author not to include the usual modern-day, no-holds-barred approach toward modern male-male romanticism or eroticism.

As their lives become more and more complicated and more people become a part of their world and decisions have to be made, Jedowski keeps his novel true to life and engaging. As more challenge and danger becomes a part of the story along with some unexpected situations, so does a greater sense of melancholy and inevitability. In spite of this, there is, however, a sense of strength and determination in the final pages of SWIMMING IN THE DARK which runs counter to and overcomes any sense of sadness to the novel which is a tribute to the author’s vision for his creation. Following the novel’s end, in his Acknowledgements, Jedowski concedes writing SWIMMING IN THE DARK “was a seven-year journey.” Readers are likely to readily feel the intensive thought and labor Jedowski put into the book considering the fascinating finished product he produced and will look forward to future efforts by the author.

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R. M. Ettinger

Enjoyed

Commenté aux États-Unis 🇺🇸 le 28 novembre 2022

Achat vérifié

Clearly, you can write a book about what I didn't remember (or paid attention to) regarding Poland in the early '80s.

I liked 'Swimming in the Dark'. I didn't love it. It moved along a good clip, as I finished it in one sitting. I liked the characters but I never felt completely attached to them either. I think part of this was, Ludwik and Janus didn't seem fully attached to each other.

I felt how they connected was beautiful, yet how to maintain that was tricky - for them and for the reader. Navigating a relationship in a communist government could be construed as a metaphor for the barriers to any relationship, let alone your first one.

Characters develop, so that is fine. Few are stagnant, but most of them have no clear conclusion. While, that is indeed life, it can make for a frustrating read.

I wasn't sure why Ludwik even wrote to Janus in the first place, or why the inclusion of short tale of Ludwik's childhood friend even was included, other than to talk about Jews in communist Europe. There is no connection later to this, but, I might be quibbling.

The book is well constructed and easy to read. It held my attention, and in today's fiction, sometimes that is the best thing that can be said.

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Luke Moreland

Incredible read

Commenté au Royaume-Uni 🇬🇧 le 13 janvier 2023

Achat vérifié

Loved this book, finished it in a few days.

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Addi126

Hauntingly Beautiful

Commenté au Royaume-Uni 🇬🇧 le 14 décembre 2022

Achat vérifié

Hooked, from start to finish. A wonderfully told tale, familiar in it's joy and woe. One to be shared and one to be shelved, for a cold winter day and a need for a smile. 5* indeed.

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Girolamo

This guy is something else!

Commenté aux États-Unis 🇺🇸 le 5 mai 2021

Achat vérifié

As the teacher of a course that deals, in part, with the rhythm and movement of prose, I was already intrigued in the first couple of pages of this small novel by just how inviting and engaging its prose was. By its third page, I'd stopped reading to investigate who might have done such a splendid job of translating the young Polish author's original into English.

Well, NOBODY did! He did it himself, right from the get-go; he wrote it in English - which just happens to be his own FIFTH language!! (Now, how does that work exactly? How can it even be the case?) The English prose is not competent, not adequate, not merely good - it's beautiful: there's not a poor or dull sentence in it anywhere - and I've read it twice.

The story itself is a gut-punch, and a hard one at that. The novel has 4-5 pages of blissful happiness when two young, very poor gay guys find themselves in each other and go camping. The rest of the book is about their trying to find ways just to survive and be themselves in those last wretched years of the Soviet control of Poland. Because the story itself is so convincing and the language's rhythm and flow so engaging, there's no partial investment in this story; if you're there with them at all, you're there 100% - which makes the experience of reading it better and the realities it depicts worse. READER: be advised!

I consider the book something of a minor miracle. I don't know that it's "perfect" (whatever that might mean, exactly), but it's so good that what I feel most towards it (and its author) is gratitude. Of the many good things art can do for us, reminding us that there's still more possible than we'd imagined is, for me, the best one. The author said in an interview that he'd taught himself English because, while he didn't "need" it at the time, he wanted to have it as his 'special' language, one he could escape to - and in.

All I can say to that is how very glad I am that he's not keeping it for himself anymore!

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Timothy

A heartfelt story

Commenté aux États-Unis 🇺🇸 le 22 mai 2022

Achat vérifié

Great book about two guys in love in early 80’s Poland when it was very much in a state of transition out of communist socialism. Both guys share a lot of love but different thoughts on how their love for each other should be handled and dealt with in terms of their careers and where they should live. They clearly have differing priorities. The implied bisexuality involving one of them, whether natural or forced, is disappointing and the reason I gave the book four stars instead of five. I felt myself compelled to order a used copy of Giovanni’s Room after finishing this book in order to further connect all the dots. I have yet to read that book. All in all, well written, very descriptive and enjoyable. One can marvel at the adoration between these two clear to the end.

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Amazon Customer

Unforgettable!

Commenté en Inde 🇮🇳 le 24 janvier 2022

Achat vérifié

Oh God!!!!this was heart-wrenchingly painful.i know this is not a young adult kind of "expect a sequel ",we are talking good fiction here but i would really love to see our main character coping with the heartb.....or if they have any*spoiler*
chance of getting back together you know??

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Souradipto Ghosh Dastidar

Fabulous, marvelous and a portrayal extraordinaire!

Commenté en Inde 🇮🇳 le 21 juin 2021

Achat vérifié

Have you ever felt very sad after reading a book? Not just sad, real sad; so sad that you paused reading somewhere near the final pages to stop the heart ache that was growing as you neared the end— the end of the book and of the life that became yours over the weeks of reading. Well, some books definitely leave you in a joyous frame of mind, books on self-help, or on a war that was won. Some books, however, end differently. Rather they make us end that one self we related so much with differently; the self that we started believing to be ourselves, whose mother became mine, whose neighbour seemed strangely resembling my own, dreams, friends, pets— all mine. All my own. It leaves you helpless, and yet, hopeful. Hopeful that someday things will improve for "you". This is really not the end. It can't be. One moment you are optimistic for "yourself" when you suddenly start smiling. Smiling because you realise how much you have fallen in love with the book. You finally manage to finish it eventually. You smell the pages, close the book and kiss the cover. You know you have fallen in love. 🌼

A wonderful page turner and a coming of age gay novel that teenagers and adults will love alike. If you loved Call me by your name, I definitely suggest you to read this!

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5 étoiles		68%
4 étoiles		23%
3 étoiles		6%
2 étoiles		1%
1 étoile		1%

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