Synopsis "The Possessed"
From "a master ofverbal burlesque [and] a connoisseur of psychological blackmail" (John Updike), Witold Gombrowicz's harrowing and hilarious pastiche of the Gothic novel, nowin a new, authoritative English translation Witold Gombrowicz is considered bymany to be Poland's greatest modernist, and in The Possessed, hedemonstrates his playful brilliance and astonishing range by using the familiartropes of the Gothic novel to produce a darkly funny and lively subversion ofthe form. With dreams of escaping his small-town existence and the limitationsof his class, a young tennis coach travels to the heart of the Polishcountryside to train Maja Ocholowska, a beautiful and promising player whosebourgeois family has fallen upon difficult circumstances. Yet as Maja and theyoung man are alternately drawn to and repulsed by the other, they findthemselves embroiled in the fantastic happenings taking place at thedilapidated castle nearby, where a mad prince haunts the halls, and bewitchedtowels, conniving secretaries, famous clairvoyants, and uncanny doubles conspireto determine the fate of the lovers. Serialized first in Poland in the dayspreceding the Nazi invasion, and now translated directly into English for thefirst time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, The Possessed is a comic jewel, ahair-raising thriller, and a provocative early masterpiece from the acclaimedauthor of classics like Pornografia and Cosmos.
