Two Cities: On Exile, History, and the Imagination

Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece
Review: An outstanding portrayal of the immigrants' dilemmas. But the immigrants in "Two Cities" have nothing to do with the United States. They are exiled from Lvov, an ancient Polish town incorporated to the Soviet Union as a result of World War II, and sent to the post-German city of Gliwice in southern Poland. Everything that comes from Lvov or reminds them of Lvov is sacred while everything else is worthless. A child growing in the dual world of imaginary Lvov and real Gliwice has trouble finding his identity. He returns to the past, examines and questions the drama of the war, and struggles to reconcile his life with the semi-imaginative world that surrounds him. Two Cities as well as other short stories included in this book are true masterpieces but must be read with some minimum background on post-war Poland.

Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece
Review: An outstanding portrayal of the immigrants' dilemmas. But the immigrants in "Two Cities" have nothing to do with the United States. They are exiled from Lvov, an ancient Polish town incorporated to the Soviet Union as a result of World War II, and sent to the post-German city of Gliwice in southern Poland. Everything that comes from Lvov or reminds them of Lvov is sacred while everything else is worthless. A child growing in the dual world of imaginary Lvov and real Gliwice has trouble finding his identity. He returns to the past, examines and questions the drama of the war, and struggles to reconcile his life with the semi-imaginative world that surrounds him. Two Cities as well as other short stories included in this book are true masterpieces but must be read with some minimum background on post-war Poland.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Stuff
Review: This guy knows how to write, how to live, how to be a poet.