The Doll (Prus novel)

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This article is about the Bolesław Prus novel. For other novels, see Doll (disambiguation) § Literature.
The Doll
Bolesław Prus, by Józef Holewiński. Frontispiece to 1st book edition of The Doll, 1890.
AuthorBolesław Prus
Original titleLalka
CountryPoland
LanguagePolish
GenreSociological novel
PublisherGebethner i Wolff
Publication date
newspaper, 1887–1889; book form, 1890
Media typeNewspaper, hardback, paperback

The Doll (

periodical serialization in 1887–1889 and appeared in book
form in 1890.

The Doll has been regarded by some, including

Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz, as the greatest Polish novel.[1] According to Prus biographer Zygmunt Szweykowski, it may be unique in 19th-century world literature as a comprehensive, compelling picture of an entire society
.

While The Doll takes its fortuitous title from a minor episode involving a stolen toy, readers commonly assume that it refers to the principal female character, the young aristocrat Izabela Łęcka. Prus had originally intended to name the book Three Generations.

The Doll has been translated into twenty-eight languages, and has been produced in several film versions and, most famously, as a television miniseries in 1977.

Structure

The Doll, covering one and a half years of present time, comprises two parallel narratives. One opens with events of 1878 and recounts the career of the

Spring of Nations
."

Interbellum, to precisely locate the very buildings where, fictively, Wokulski had lived and his store had been located on Krakowskie Przedmieście.[2] Prus thus did for Warsaw's sense of place in The Doll in 1889 what James Joyce was famously to do for his own capital city, Dublin, in the novel Ulysses
a third of a century later, in 1922.

Plot

Title page, 1st book edition, 1890

Wokulski begins his career as a waiter at Hopfer's, a

haberdashery. Marrying the late owner's widow (who eventually dies), he comes into money and uses it to set up a partnership with a Russian merchant he had met while in exile. The two merchants go to Bulgaria during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, and Wokulski makes a fortune supplying the Russian Army.[3]

Prince "Loulou"
Julian Ochorowicz

The enterprising Wokulski now proves a romantic at heart, falling in love with Izabela, daughter of the vacuous, bankrupt aristocrat, Tomasz Łęcki.

The manager of Wokulski's Warsaw store, Ignacy Rzecki, is a man of an earlier generation, a modest bachelor who lives on memories of his youth,

Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Hungarian revolution had sparked new hopes of abolishing the reactionary system that had triumphed at Napoleon's fall. Later he had reposed his hopes in Napoleon III. Now, as he writes, he places them in Bonaparte's scion, Napoleon III's son, Prince Loulou. At novel's end, when Rzecki hears that Loulou has perished in Africa, fighting in British ranks against rebel tribesmen, he will be overcome by the despondence of old age. Rzecki is considered a representative of the Romantic era.[6]

For now, Rzecki lives in constant excitement, preoccupied by politics, which he refers to in his diary by the code-letter "P." Everywhere in the press he finds indications that a long-awaited "it" is beginning.[7]

In addition to the two generations represented by Rzecki and Wokulski, the novel provides glimpses of a third, younger one, exemplified in the scientist Julian Ochocki (modeled on Prus' friend,

salesman, whereas some of the latter's colleagues believe first and last in personal gain
.

The Doll's plot focuses on Wokulski's infatuation with the superficial Izabela, who sees him only as a

plebeian intruder into her rarefied world, a brute with huge red hands; for her, persons below the social standing of aristocrats
are hardly human.

Wokulski, in his quest to win Izabela, begins frequenting theaters and aristocratic salons; and, to help her financially distressed father, founds a company and sets the aristocrats up as shareholders in the business. Eventually, Wokulski manages to get engaged to Izabela, but she continues to flirt with Starski. Wokulski gets off the train and decides to commit suicide. He is saved by the railwayman Wysocki and disappears.[8]

Wokulski's eventual downfall highlights The Doll's overarching theme: the inertia of Polish society.

Alter egos

Krakowskie Przedmieście, looking from the Castle Square south toward site of Wokulski's shop.

Wokulski and Rzecki are in many ways

air; in the hands of those who would use it to organize mankind, it could bring universal peace and happiness
. Wokulski is torn between his misplaced, tragic love for Izabela and the idea of settling in Paris and using his fortune to perfect Geist's invention.

The Doll, rich in characters and observations from everyday Warsaw life, in Czesław Miłosz's opinion embodies 19th-century realistic prose at its best. It brings its protagonist to a full awareness of the chasm that stretches between his dreams and the social reality that surrounds him.

Translations

The Doll has been translated into twenty-eight languages: Armenian,[10] Belarusian,[11] Bulgarian, Chinese,[12] Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, French, Georgian, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese (2017),[13][14] Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian,[10] Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Ukrainian.[15]

Films

  • 1968:
    Wojciech Has
  • 1978: Lalka, directed by Ryszard Ber

Notes

  1. ^ ""Boję się twojej trzeźwości"". 24 September 2012.
  2. ^ Edward Pieścikowski, Bolesław Prus, 2nd edition, 1985, pp. 68–69.
  3. ^ "Stanisław Wokulski - charakterystyka - Lalka - Bolesław Prus". poezja.org (in Polish). Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  4. ^ "Charakterystyka Ignacego Rzeckiego – Bolesław Prus, Lalka - opracowanie – Zinterpretuj.pl". zinterpretuj.pl (in Polish). 2021-08-25. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  5. ^ "Ignacy Rzecki - charakterystyka - Lalka - Bolesław Prus". poezja.org (in Polish). Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  6. ^ "Ignacy Rzecki - charakterystyka – Lalka - opracowanie – kochamjp.pl". kochamjp.pl (in Polish). 2022-11-29. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  7. ^ "Charakterystyka Ignacego Rzeckiego - Lalka - Bolesław Prus". poezja.org (in Polish). Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  8. ^ "Lalka - streszczenie - Bolesław Prus". poezja.org (in Polish). Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  9. ^ Prus, during his own later, 1895 visit to Paris, was pleased to find that his descriptions of Paris in The Doll, based mainly on French-language publications, had been quite accurate. (Oral account by Prus' widow, Oktawia Głowacka, cited by Tadeusz Hiż, "Godzina u pani Oktawii" ["An Hour at Oktawia Głowacka's"], in Stanisław Fita, ed., Wspomnienia o Bolesławie Prusie [Reminiscences about Bolesław Prus], p. 278.)
  10. ^
    ISBN 978-83-01-05734-3
    .
  11. ^ Книга «Лялька".
  12. ^ ""Lalka" po chińsku". 21 November 2005.
  13. ^ Andrzej Karcz (review of Magdalena Popiel, Tomasz Bilczewski, and Stanley Bill, eds., Światowa historia literatury polskiej: Interpretacje [World History of Polish Literature: Interpretations], Kraków, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2020, 677 pp.), The Polish Review, vol. 68, no. 4, 2023, pp. 116–20. (p. 119.)
  14. ^ "Wydanie "Lalki" Bolesława Prusa w języku japońskim" (in Polish).
  15. ^ Ludomira Ryll, Janina Wilgat, Polska literatura w przekładach: bibliografia, 1945–1970 (Polish Literature in Translation: a Bibliography, 1945–1970), słowo wstępne (foreword by) Michał Rusinek, Warsaw, Agencja Autorska (Authors' Agency), 1972, pp. 149–150.

References

External links

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