Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass

Rating:
Summary: When They Died
Review: A collection of short stories by the acclaimed Polish author killed by the Nazis during World War II. Unrecognized still even after the war, Schulz is in some circles now considered the finest modern Polish-language prose stylist. His stories are dreamlike reflections on life in the modest Jewish quarter of Drohobycz, the town of his birth. Both his fiction and drawings are notable for their erotic tenor and their acute anticipation of the emptiness produced by modern civilization.

Rating:
Summary: When They Died
Review: A collection of short stories by the acclaimed Polish author killed by the Nazis during World War II. Unrecognized still even after the war, Schulz is in some circles now considered the finest modern Polish-language prose stylist. His stories are dreamlike reflections on life in the modest Jewish quarter of Drohobycz, the town of his birth. Both his fiction and drawings are notable for their erotic tenor and their acute anticipation of the emptiness produced by modern civilization.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful prose
Review: Schulz has an ability to make even the most ordinary event revolutionary and poetic. A book transforms into a magical, almost living entity in the young narrator's mind. A look into a friend's stamp collection draws allusions to Alexander the Great's quest for world domination. His descriptions bring life to every minute detail. I only wish I knew Polish to read the original words.

Rating:
Summary: Impt.: Hourglass alludes to Obitutuary in Polish.
Review: This fiction is like looking out a window at a Las Vegas water show under colored lights: riotious, gorgeous and original. Everything by this Galician Polish Jewish writer/artist is genius.
The title story "The Sanitorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass" deals with Schulz's fantastic visit to his deceased father in the afterworld.

In Polish the title literally reads "the Sanitorium beneath the hourglass." However, the term Hourglass (klepsydra) is also used for death notices that are posted on bulletin-boards in public squares. Hence the allusion to a death notice in the title.