She came out of the kitchen and draped her jacket over the arm of a chair. She had large breasts. Something loud was going on in the next apartment.Descriptive powers such as these - She had large breasts - are a rare gift. One wonders if it flew like a spark from the author's imagination, a minimalist sleight of hand, or whether he toiled over just the right congregation of four words, a sweat-beaded testament to the writer's craft. No matter; because tucked away inside the narrative we find the essence of a character. She had large breasts. But he's not done:From time to time she glanced at him as if to check that he wasn't the radio but a real person. She had zits.A classic example of the Slow Reveal. Now we know she had zits AND large breasts.I would like to say that the size of the breasts was important, that maybe they got in the way and deflected a gun; or that the zits were the key to her low self-esteem or suggestibility. But, no. Because experimental reader that I am, I tried to imagine the whole vignette with the character having very small breasts. And it worked very well. Maybe better, if you know what I mean.Perhaps I missed the allegory, of large breasts in a Polish noir.Pawel, our principal protagonist, is in some kind of trouble when he meets the girl with the large breasts. She is into plant-based diet and ritual cleansing. Before Pawel talks her into giving him a Thai massage, he says this to her:"The problem is, I borrowed money and now I have to pay it back. But I don't have it. Brussels sprouts won't help.""If you started right, you never would have ended up in a situation like this. Me, I divided my body into seven zones, and every day I nourish myself with vegetables from one of the seven groups. In this way I live in total harmony. I mean, we're cosmic beings, aren't we?""Gagarin?""What?""The cosmonaut.""Oh, you mean those fascist technocrats. You know what Lao-tzu said?""Yeah, you can't jump higher than your prick." "What?"While there is much truth in what you say, Grasshopper, I'm afraid I will not read far enough to find out why the title is Nine or whether size really matters.
The geography of Warsaw overlays this novel like...well, not a street map, but a transit map, with many details left dark but with the useful routes marked in bright lines. Ways of escape and ways of survival underlay the action. I'm reminded of "System D" in Eva Hoffman's memoir, Lost in Translation, which is not so much a system as an attitude. (Suddenly I remember that I first heard of Nine by reading Eva Hoffman's review of it.) So the overlay and underlay together give this novel a consuming atmosphere, though "consumptive" may be a better way to put it. In particular, the acts perpetrated against women during the course of the book are as horrible to us as they are invisible to the male characters. The narrator turns aside from the worst of them, not to ignore their brutality but to spare us from gratuity. This is not to say that detailed acts of violence must necessarily be gratuitous, but that Stasiuk has such control over the focus of his book that he knows what must be left out to keep the novel from becoming a thriller (or even a cousin to a thriller, such as No Country for Old Men). Nine is also notable for its portrayal of male friendship, and the cronyism that too often accompanies it. This would seem to be a thought disconnected from the above paragraph, but I think that what Nine makes clear is that the tacit arrangements between its men make the violence against its women inevitable.
Do You like book Nine (2007)?
I couldn't even finish this book, it was so awful. I tried my best to get through the whole thing, but I eventually gave up and just started skimming. The novel had absolutely no plot... and the few instances that I found myself thinking I'd found one, the author ruined it by darting away on some random description of the surroundings. The details of the characters fell flat, and the wording about the surroundings were vague and confusing. The lack of chapters or divisons were probably due to the author's attempt to give a fast-pace, sweeping feel about the book, or perhaps, I am giving too much credit in that assumption. Regardless, this aspect made everything feel unorganized.I am unsure what anyone would gain from this book. I've read reviews about the novel, suggesting that it properly shows a specific time period of Polish culture and society. If this is the case, I completely missed it. As much as I tried to gain some sort of redeeming bit of information from this book, I'm afraid I just couldn't find it. So, as far as I'm concerned... I'd only recommend this if the person already had a strong understanding of modern culture and society in Poland. Otherwise, I doubt anyone would find this novel enlightening or even entraining.
—Elle Drue
I can't say I enjoyed this all that much and by the time I got to the end I was skimming a lot. I couldn't really agree with the positive reviews I've read that enthused about the writing. I found the prose dull and repetitive and the characters weren't really adding much. Plotless novels are fine with me - I just finished reading the excellent Ice by Anna Kavan which probably made about as much sense on the surface - but where that felt like it had something going on underneath this felt like a very long series of descriptions leading nowhere. The odd phrase or sentence was interesting but then again some phrases in ad campaigns can be interesting too and I wouldn't spend hours watching adverts.
—Lochlan
Warsaw post communism is the setting for this book & the characters here move erratically & surreptitious through the streets, bus stations, various grubby apartments & the margins of society. As has been said the city itself is as much a character in the story as Pawel, Jacek, Syl & Mr Max. Pawel is a would-be businessman who has fallen foul of loan sharks and much of the book is his travels around the city trying to make contact with old acquaintances in hopes of raising some cash.The style of writing takes some getting used to as it meanders as widely as the characters do around Warsaw but once into it I enjoyed this a lot & loved the very evocative descriptions of streets and building of a city I've yet to visit.
—Aisling
