Rating: 
Summary: THe highest quality literature I have read
Review: The DEluge as with the rest of SIenkiewicz's works is literature of the highest quality. It summarizes the heart and soul of a nation and few other nations can claim to have such an outstanding piece of literature that touches the nations souls as does SIenkiewicz. The DEluge is thelargest of the three books of the Trilogy butlike the others you will simply not be able to put it down. The character development is so real - it is as if you know these people in your personal life - the plots - the action - the human drama - the history - it is simply outstanding. I do not understand why a mini series has not been made out of these novels - It is work of the highest quality which seems to have laid undiscoverd for nealy a century now!The DEluge centers about Swedens march into POland. POland initially accepted their incursion, however, as the situation worsens the POles srrike back. The Swedish war machine was beleived to be unstoppable throguhout Europe and they did march through Poland but they made a mistake - attacking the town of Czestochowa (pronounced Ches toe hova) which had significant religous importance to the POles. The POles were rallied by a Bishop who held out against the Swedes under great odds and touched the soul of Poland. It is something we need to learn in our country - that we must put country above our personal needs to exist and win in the world. Sienkiewicz brings this point home again and again throughout the novel. Mike Niziol
Rating:
Summary: "The Deluge" is a literacy masterpiece
Review: The Deluge, known as "Potop" to the people of Poland, is set in the wild frontiers of war torn Poland during the seventeenth century. An epic tale of faith, selfishness, sacrifice and heroic valor is retold in this love story that is virtually unknown outside of its native country. This vivid tale comes alive as it sweeps you across the plains and the forests of Poland and Lithuania and is set against the bloody background of the Swedish Invasion of 1655-1697 The Deluge is the second of three novels written by the famous and much loved author Henryk Sienkiewicz. Like the other two parts of the Sienkiewicz Trilogy, "The Deluge" not only depicts vital historical events but also mirrors a people soul. It is a masterful blend of history and imagination that shows whole nations as well as individuals caught up in earthshaking events, fighting for their lives and rediscovering themselves through their own commitments.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding, with lessons for today
Review: The stormy romance between Andei Kmicic and Olenka Billevich seems like an allegory of the relationship between the Polish szlachta and Poland itself. The petty squabbling, quarreling, and self-serving behavior of the szlachta alienates them from their country as Kmicic's headstrong and reckless behavior alienates him from the woman he loves. "It seemed to Kmita then that Poland and Olenka were one and the same, and that he had doomed them both and handed them voluntarily to the Swedes" (Kuniczak translation, p. 753). Sienkiewicz obviously wishes to leave a clear lesson here for the free people of any nation. The story foreshadows two issues that emerged during the Second World War: the Germans who were "only following orders" and the Vichy French who collaborated with the Germans. What is one supposed to do when his superior orders him to do something that is obviously wrong? At what point does acquiescence to a victorious invader for the purpose of avoiding further harm to one's country become collaboration with an enemy? Can someone collaborate with the enemy for the purpose, as Janusz Radziwill claimed, of turning on him and overthrowing him at a more opportune moment? (The few colonels who went along with Radziwill were in a semi-feudal system in which a retainer obeyed his lord and the lord was supposed to obey the King. Radziwill's foreign mercenaries had no such dilemma because they owed their loyalty only to their paymaster.) During the 1970s, the United States began to lose the manufacturing capability that led to victory in the Second World War. Our Congress has its own Opalinskis and Radziwills, people whose first priority is their own political success as opposed to service to the country. They are unwilling or unable to understand that wealth must be created through agriculture, mining, and manufacturing, and that it cannot be legislated into existence. The Senatorial filibuster is now used to block judicial appointments, as the Liberum Veto was once used to break up the Sejm. The jester Ostrozka showed how the handwriting was on the wall for the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth's ideological successor and heir, the United States, needs to take the same warning very seriously lest it suffer the same fate.
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking!
Review: This book, the second in the famous Sienkiewicz Trilogy, is not a two-volume set for show. The book is 1700+ pages long! As usual with Sienkiewicz, however, the pages are required to tell the story. This novel brings back the main characters from "With Fire And Sword" though they play a somewhat smaller role, especially Pan Yan and Helen. Two new main characters take center stage. Andrei is a wild knight whose thoughtless, self-absorption mirrors the attitudes of the ruling class in Poland at the time. His attitude leads him down a terrible road and then forces him to make the hard, arduous climb back from nothing once he realizes his error. The skill with which Sienkiewicz intertwines Andrei's descent and redemption with the greater struggle of Poland against Sweden is brilliant! On the other hand, there's Olenka who is loved by Andrei. She seems to represent Poland itself and the ethics which are required to preserve something worth fighting for. She is the moral center of the novel even when she's not in the foreground of the action. Their love story plays out in the midst of a tale of war that involves the invasion of Poland from three countries at the same time (the 'deluge' of the title). We meet the Kings of two countries, the nobles under them with their own agendas, and the soldiers fighting on as power shifts from one side to the other in an international game where the winners get crowns and the losers lose everything. Just a sample of a few threads in the story: the siege of a holy shrine, a knight leading a small band of raiders against an army, a woman taken captive by a warlord and makes him regret iit, a country defeated not by the army of its enemies but by something more deadly from within, the plots of a noble family to rip apart an entire nation solely to rule a part of it themselves, the attempt to return an exiled King to his country through wild mountains full of enemy soldiers. This is just a sample! The scope of this novel is absolutely unsurpassed and, best of all, Sienkiewicz has the imagination, characters and events to keep it interesting for over 1,700 pages! You really do feel as though you've lived the two years that are encompassed by this novel. So much happens. In less capable hands, "The Deluge" could have been just a boring history lesson. Sienkiewicz weaves all the history and political figures of the time with his own characters to crystallize a crucial point in a nation's history. In addition, he crafts a story that is unbelievably complex and yet thouroughly entertaining from first page to last. And hats off to the translator! How many people would have the talent and stamina to translate something this long and do such a consistent and beautiful job? Not many, I imagine.
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking!
Review: This book, the second in the famous Sienkiewicz Trilogy, is not a two-volume set for show. The book is 1700+ pages long! As usual with Sienkiewicz, however, the pages are required to tell the story. This novel brings back the main characters from "With Fire And Sword" though they play a somewhat smaller role, especially Pan Yan and Helen. Two new main characters take center stage. Andrei is a wild knight whose thoughtless, self-absorption mirrors the attitudes of the ruling class in Poland at the time. His attitude leads him down a terrible road and then forces him to make the hard, arduous climb back from nothing once he realizes his error. The skill with which Sienkiewicz intertwines Andrei's descent and redemption with the greater struggle of Poland against Sweden is brilliant! On the other hand, there's Olenka who is loved by Andrei. She seems to represent Poland itself and the ethics which are required to preserve something worth fighting for. She is the moral center of the novel even when she's not in the foreground of the action. Their love story plays out in the midst of a tale of war that involves the invasion of Poland from three countries at the same time (the 'deluge' of the title). We meet the Kings of two countries, the nobles under them with their own agendas, and the soldiers fighting on as power shifts from one side to the other in an international game where the winners get crowns and the losers lose everything. Just a sample of a few threads in the story: the siege of a holy shrine, a knight leading a small band of raiders against an army, a woman taken captive by a warlord and makes him regret iit, a country defeated not by the army of its enemies but by something more deadly from within, the plots of a noble family to rip apart an entire nation solely to rule a part of it themselves, the attempt to return an exiled King to his country through wild mountains full of enemy soldiers. This is just a sample! The scope of this novel is absolutely unsurpassed and, best of all, Sienkiewicz has the imagination, characters and events to keep it interesting for over 1,700 pages! You really do feel as though you've lived the two years that are encompassed by this novel. So much happens. In less capable hands, "The Deluge" could have been just a boring history lesson. Sienkiewicz weaves all the history and political figures of the time with his own characters to crystallize a crucial point in a nation's history. In addition, he crafts a story that is unbelievably complex and yet thouroughly entertaining from first page to last. And hats off to the translator! How many people would have the talent and stamina to translate something this long and do such a consistent and beautiful job? Not many, I imagine.
Rating:
Summary: The trilogy that won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Review: This trilogy is the very tops in excellence in historical fiction, but it also provides an excellent education, at the same time, in the torturous and barbaric times of the 1600''s in Poland and other parts of the Polish Commonwealth. - There is no finer literature of this nature. I've read the 1898 translations and thought they were great, but the Kuniczak translations are far superior. Excellent reading.
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