From "a master of
verbal burlesque [and] a connoisseur of psychological blackmail" (John Updike),
Witold Gombrowicz's harrowing and hilarious pastiche of the Gothic novel, now
in a new, authoritative English translation Witold Gombrowicz is considered by
many to be Poland's greatest modernist, and in The Possessed, he
demonstrates his playful brilliance and astonishing range by using the familiar
tropes of the Gothic novel to produce a darkly funny and lively subversion of
the form. With dreams of escaping his small-town existence and the limitations
of his class, a young tennis coach travels to the heart of the Polish
countryside to train Maja Ocholowska, a beautiful and promising player whose
bourgeois family has fallen upon difficult circumstances. Yet as Maja and the
young man are alternately drawn to and repulsed by the other, they find
themselves embroiled in the fantastic happenings taking place at the
dilapidated castle nearby, where a mad prince haunts the halls, and bewitched
towels, conniving secretaries, famous clairvoyants, and uncanny doubles conspire
to determine the fate of the lovers. Serialized first in Poland in the days
preceding the Nazi invasion, and now translated directly into English for the
first time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, The Possessed is a comic jewel, a
hair-raising thriller, and a provocative early masterpiece from the acclaimed
author of classics like Pornografia and Cosmos.