> Polish author
> Originally published 2000
> Narrator is writer, named Jerzy, writing about his 18 visits to the "alco" unit in a rehab facility
> p.32..."This nightmarish asininity had to be finally brought to a stop, the truth had to be looked manfully in the eye, and the truth was not pouring vodka down the drain or throwing bottles out of the window; the truth was drinking."
> Chapter 13, "Passages" consists solely of passages from other real life authors about drinking ..."And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven clothed with a cloud"...Revelations
>Love of his life...Ala-Alberta asks him "why do you drink?"....p. 60 is a rambling set of excuses.....
> Title references: the name of a pub, the name of a constellation of stars (actually Orion, which he describes as having a raised bottle to its lips), quote from Revelations
> p.78..."...the dream of a deep sleep is the dream of every drunkard."
> Vocabulary: 1) exegetes/one who practices exegesis, an explanation, most often of religious texts 2) farinaceous/containing or made of meal or flour b : containing or rich in starch 3)tumid/formed as if by swelling or inflation
> Characters: Don Juan the Rib (hairdresser & musiccontaining or made of meal or flour b : containing or rich in starch ian), Columbus the Explorer (a social studies teacher), Simon Pure Goodness (law student), Old Kubica (narrator's grandfather, drunkard), she-therapists (therapists on the ward whose platitudes bother narrator)
> p.86..."A person writes a book and he thinks that when the book goes out among people it will change the world--and that, I assure you, is a very great delusion. Yet to write without the faith that writing will change the world--such a thing is impossible,"
> p.86..."...an alcoholic will escape into death more readily than he will admit his powerlessness with regard to booze."
> p.154..."I'm not capable of describing my own liberation as a series of plausible events; I lack the ability to convey the evolutionary history of my own resurrection--I present only these epiphanic stanzas, though my resurrection too was like an epiphany, like a haiku; it wal like a single line of poetry, unerring as lightning."
> LibraryThing Review: I think Jerzy Pilch is a phenomenal writer! In "The Mighty Angel" Pilch bombards the reader with the experience of being a regular on an "alco" ward in a rehab facility. Question.....Are the characters, like Don Juan the Rib, the Queen of Kent, and the Hero of Socialist Labor, representations of aspects of the narrator, or individuals? The narrator's perspective on alcoholism, alcoholics & alcohol is gritty, tough, and incredibly insightful. Is it just a coincidence that the narrator is named Jerzy, is a writer, and has been to rehab eighteen times? Just read this masterpiece and see how the narrator fares. This is my second Pilch novel and they were both five star reads!
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