european Book Club 

Saturday, April 18 - 02:30pm
Liu Institute, UBC Campus

Organized by the Consulate General of Poland in Vancouver and EUNIC Canada-Vancouver, the next appointment with the EU Book Club will be with a 2002 Polish novella

His Current Woman (Inne rozkosze) recounts the comic misadventures of a philanderer and the angry lover in his attic; Dr. Pawel Kohoutek, veterinarian and womanizer, looks out the window one morning to see his mistress approaching his house. That's bad. She is hauling her suitcase (containing her books) and her backpack (containing everything else she owns). That's worse. So Kohoutek does the only thing he can: He hides his current woman in the attic of the family slaughterhouse. Farce ensues as Kohoutek attempts to hide the woman from his eccentric family, the family's lodgers, and various offbeat visitors. The woman, expecting love and children and a future, does not make things easy. As he frantically runs around trying to keep her a secret, Kohoutek's memories - mostly involuntary and (in true postmodern fashion) of questionable accuracy - reveal in hilarious detail the lifeand crises of a hapless libertine and the forces that created him.
A bestseller in the author's native Poland, His Current Woman is a delightful comedy of manners and of what often passes for love. A gorgeous, dreamlike depiction of a world that is unreal, yet strangely familiar and utterly convincing.

The Book Club meeting will be preceded by a talk by Prof. Bill Johnston (Indiana University), who is also the translator of Pilch's novel.
Prof. Johnston will give a talk on contemporary Polish literature and will present his new translation of what he considers to be the most accomplished Polish poem of the 21st century: "Dwanaście stacji" ("Twelve Stations") by young Polish poet Tomasz Różycki.
The talk will be followed by a short Q&A session.
 

Registration on eubookclub.vancouver@shaw.ca