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Rating: 
Summary: A good introduction to the writer
Review: The value of this book to its reader depends equally on the reader's respect for Przybyszewska as a writer, and on how seriously they see themselves engaged in their own field. This collection of letters held the same value for me, as a writer, as "Letters to a Young Poet," initially did, and for the same reasons. It transmits a sympathy with being young and caught up in a subject that removes you a little from the world, and assures you that, yes, in removing yourself, you are as brilliant as you think you are. There is a lot to identify with here, and if Przybyszewska's self-admitted, honest egoism is a little hard to take, I suspect that it is because she broaches many of the same questions that most people ask themselves in their twenties. She surrounded herself with narratives of great legends and, eventually, found herself living in their realities rather than her own. Before this, though, she spent a great deal of time questioning whether or not she could become one of them, and this is the value of her letters. She identified herself, in them, as both a Raskolnikov-type figure, and as the person in history who understood Robespierre better than anyone else. (Just in case you missed the joy of being twenty-one:) If these identifications feel a little overblown from the outside, though, they are qualified by Przybyszewska's own realization that these identifications are necessary to her commitment to the writing process. "The Danton Affair" is proof enough that this approach- when she managed to finish her projects- met with incredible success. This play, with "Thermidor," shows an incredible grasp of human characters in the middle of events that are constantly threatening to accelerate beyond their control. That said, she does "play the artist", to an extent; but beyond that reveals a scientific, deductive, and creative mind that extends past simple eccentric isolation. The concern she reveals in her letters regarding her own, similarly obsessive impulses (a reverence for her father that is tempered by revelations of his faults, the decision to be "100% a writer" that is constantly qualified by a mind wanting to investigate everything, including writing, from several angles) solicits a greater respect for the personal toll of her work and the environment she put herself in to complete it. While I question the biographers' suggestion that she had an incestuous relationship with her father, the playwright Przybyszewski, she undoubtedly lived in his shadow, defined her talent largely in terms of his, and seems to have transferred some of his influence to each of her characters. Kosicka and Gerould identify her printed letters as her most important body of work, and though I would disagree with this, the letters do bring up valuable questions on the individual process, and provide a great insight into the backstage construction of a dramatic world. The biography written by Kosicka and Gerould, despite the these two (I believe) misplaced conclusions, is a good piece in its own right, and provides a solid introduction to the letters and to Przybyszewska's plays. If the singular subject matter of her works has isolated them from wider recognition, her letters make these works not only recognizable, but highly appreciable for their own, intrinsic literary value.
Rating:
Summary: A good introduction to the writer
Review: The value of this book to its reader depends equally on the reader's respect for Przybyszewska as a writer, and on how seriously they see themselves engaged in their own field. This collection of letters held the same value for me, as a writer, as "Letters to a Young Poet," initially did, and for the same reasons. It transmits a sympathy with being young and caught up in a subject that removes you a little from the world, and assures you that, yes, in removing yourself, you are as brilliant as you think you are. There is a lot to identify with here, and if Przybyszewska's self-admitted, honest egoism is a little hard to take, I suspect that it is because she broaches many of the same questions that most people ask themselves in their twenties. She surrounded herself with narratives of great legends and, eventually, found herself living in their realities rather than her own. Before this, though, she spent a great deal of time questioning whether or not she could become one of them, and this is the value of her letters. She identified herself, in them, as both a Raskolnikov-type figure, and as the person in history who understood Robespierre better than anyone else. (Just in case you missed the joy of being twenty-one:) If these identifications feel a little overblown from the outside, though, they are qualified by Przybyszewska's own realization that these identifications are necessary to her commitment to the writing process. "The Danton Affair" is proof enough that this approach- when she managed to finish her projects- met with incredible success. This play, with "Thermidor," shows an incredible grasp of human characters in the middle of events that are constantly threatening to accelerate beyond their control. That said, she does "play the artist", to an extent; but beyond that reveals a scientific, deductive, and creative mind that extends past simple eccentric isolation. The concern she reveals in her letters regarding her own, similarly obsessive impulses (a reverence for her father that is tempered by revelations of his faults, the decision to be "100% a writer" that is constantly qualified by a mind wanting to investigate everything, including writing, from several angles) solicits a greater respect for the personal toll of her work and the environment she put herself in to complete it. While I question the biographers' suggestion that she had an incestuous relationship with her father, the playwright Przybyszewski, she undoubtedly lived in his shadow, defined her talent largely in terms of his, and seems to have transferred some of his influence to each of her characters. Kosicka and Gerould identify her printed letters as her most important body of work, and though I would disagree with this, the letters do bring up valuable questions on the individual process, and provide a great insight into the backstage construction of a dramatic world. The biography written by Kosicka and Gerould, despite the these two (I believe) misplaced conclusions, is a good piece in its own right, and provides a solid introduction to the letters and to Przybyszewska's plays. If the singular subject matter of her works has isolated them from wider recognition, her letters make these works not only recognizable, but highly appreciable for their own, intrinsic literary value.
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