I've been learning Polish for almost two years, but most of the courses I've gone through have been keeping the vocabulary and grammar below the intermediate level and not going beyond that point. Of all the courses I've gotten so far, this is the absolute best. It keeps the language at a level of simplicity that almost everybody who uses it will be able to understand. If you have a sufficient knowledge of how Polish pronunciation works, you might be able to use just the book only. If you don't know the sounds of Polish or are unsure about certain sounds, I'd recommend getting the cassettes that accompany the textbook. (I already had some cassettes for Polish when I bought this course, and I also have a Polish friend who helps me with speaking the language, so I didn't buy the cassettes and can't tell you about their content.) The pronunciation, though at times difficult to enunciate clearly and often frustrating to those who aren't used to the frequent combinations of consonants, is mercifully straightforward and has few exceptions. Once you know how Polish pronunciation works, you can read Polish right off a page. The books details the common exceptions (very few words are read differently than they're spelt orthographically. One tense has a switch of stress, from the penultimate to the antepenultimate), and the grammar is explained clearly. It speaks from a "native-English" point of view so that all native speakers of English can relate the information through the idioms and logic they naturally use. Overall, this is the best book you can buy for learning how to both write and speak Polish. Speaking what you read or hear is the absolute best way to keep your knowledge fresh in your memory. Langenscheidt offers an awesome dictionary which can be used to further your Polish after completing the course. With this dictionary and the course, you should be able to converse with Poles is a short time.

Brilliant, obsessive and painfully overlooked as a playwright, Stanislawa Przybyszewska was able to turn her life time fascination with the Revolution into a compelling if highly idiosyncratic recounting of 1794. Very difficult to understand for people with little background, absolutely mind-blowing for those who have studied the era. She writes as if she were talking to Committee of Public Safety. Although both plays leave a bit to be desired in the way of historical accuracy and her Robespierrism gets on your nerves, few authors are able to so successfully live in the lives and times of their characters and so keenly convey the historical ambiance and psychological nuances. Nervy, haunting and brilliant, Stanislawa's highly personal telling sheds light on our own troubled century as much as Robespierre's. A must read for anyone interested in the failure of radical social change.

This is one of the best books on both ancient Egyptian history and Polish reformations. Prus puts contemporary problems of his country in an adventurous and interesting story about a young Pharaoh willing for a reform.

As the preface says, this book "is intended to serve as ... a short but detailed review of first principles for ... [amongst others] those who have forgotten the Polish they once knew". Since I am Polish-born I cannot judge whether this book is good or bad for someone who knows no Polish at all, but for me it has proved very useful in getting my broken Polish up to scratch. There are a few inaccuracies in the book (e.g. the whole section on page 58 about family relations) but these should cause the reader no problem if she has a Polish friend to double-check such things with. And this is the rub: you will *not* learn Polish pronunciation from this book (even though there is a detailed section on pronunciation). You must have access to real Polish people or at least cassettes if you are to pronounce Polish, and the book does in fact tell you where you can get cassettes from.

B.W. Mazurs colloqial POLISH provides good practical examples for adults trying to learn Polish for the first time. I have tried several other books which have also been quite good however some are a little short on detailed examples. This book seems to me to suceed better than some because multiple examples are often used. I found the practice section examples at the end of each lesson to be well chosen.

I got half-way through and quit; the book just didn't work for me. Prus obviously intended to write "realistically", and his rather disconnected deployment of scenes and character development does mimic the complexities of real life. So, in that sense, he was a success.

However, he completely fails on much more important levels. For example, the plot lacks even a hint of conflict. Wolkulski (the main character) faces no conflict as he gives in to his obsession for Izabella, nor does he seem to have any particular difficulty in achieving any of his foolish stunts to try to win her. Since it's obvious from the start the relationship is doomed, there's not the tension of "will he get the girl?" Not even the obvious potential friction of his being a class-crossing social climber creates any conflict (other than a few characters commenting on his boorish manners). A 600+ page book needs more conflict than that to justify itself. I could not uncover the purpose of reading (or of having written) the book.

Prus endows "The Doll" with the trappings of realist novels: frightening descriptions of the lowest of the poor, moral angst of rich do-gooders over the poor in their midst, endless analogies between streetwalkers and Mary Magdelene or poor men and Christ, and a vast panorama of characters representing all levels of society. However, Prus does not use these devices to move his story. They seem more like window dressing put in place to make the novel look and smell like the work of a realist.

Worst of all, Prus' story and characters don't seem to have any relevance beyond the pages of his book and there's no whiff of meaning anywhere. The best example of this odd characteristic is the anti-Semitism in the book. There are lots of cuts (broadly and with subtle acid) at the Jewish characters, however (as another reviewer mentions) Prus never addresses anti-Semitism in even the most vague way. He presents society only and makes no comments or suggestions to the reader. A newspaper article works as better fiction than that!

Reading this book was a bit like watching a movie you already know the ending to. It can be entertaining if the ride is interesting. Unfortunately, Prus' narrative is too dry and dispassionate and his plotting too erratic and minimalistic for the ride to pull you in. As a result, I just didn't care what was going on and didn't find any of the characters worthy of my attention. I didn't feel there was any purpose in reading the rest of the book.

Boleslaw Prus' The Doll falls into a category of books which could be described as peripheral realism. They are late 19th century novels which share nothing in common except that they are written in countries which are in the "periphery" of world literature. This is not a comment on their quality, but on the lack of curiosity of the Anglo-American mind to take the trouble to encounter them. Other examples of this trend are the Spaniard Benito Perez Galdos, the Portuguese writer Jose Maria de Eca de Quieros and the Italians Giovanni Verga and Antonio Fogazzaro.

"The Doll" is not of the same quality as such works as "Fortunata and Jacintha", "The Maias," or even "The Little World of the Past." Supposedly it is the story of a successful businessman who tries and fails to win the heart of a shallow, spoiled, aristocratic girl--the doll of the title. It is this story, but there is more to it than that, more than what Prus thinks. When the protagonist Stanislaw Wokulski is not worrying ineffectively over Izabela Lecki, he is a smashingly successfully businessman. Why he is so succcessful is not really made clear, Prus does not have Balzac's eye for describing complex financial transactions in compelling ways. Wokulski is obviously a good employer and obviously a man of charitable and humane impulses. The woman he assists, and whom his clerk thinks would be a better wife, Mrs. Sawatska, is a rather conventional portrait of female virtue. If there is anything truly "Dickensian" in this book, as the dust jacket promises, it is not Prus' sense of detail, which is meagre, or a fine talent for grotesquerie or wit, but instead the conventional, rather vapid portrait of his heroes. The style is prosaic, the social atmosphere rather narrow, and people wanting to learn about the urbanity or religious life or common people or entertainments of 19th century Warsaw should look elsewhere.

There is one passage that is an exception to this. It really is remarkable, the one that portrays Izabela's complete isolation from the real world. "If anyone had asked her point-blank what this world is, and what she herself was, she would have certainly have repled that the world is an enchanted garden full of magical castles, and that she herself was a goddess or nymph imprisoned in a body.

"From her cradle, Izabela had lived in a beautiful world that was not only superhuman but even supernatural. For she slept in feathers, dressed in silks and satins, sat on carved and polished ebony or rosewood, drank from crystal, ate from silver and porcelain as costly as gold.

"The seasons of the year did not exist for her, only an everlasting spring full of soft light, living flowers and perfumes. The times of day did not exist for her either, since for whole months at a time she would go to bed at eight in the monring and dine at two at night. There was no difference in geographical location, since in Paris, Vienna, Rome, Berlin or London she would find the same food--soups from Pacific seaweed, oysters from the North Sea, fish from the Atlantic or Mediterranean, animals from every country, fruits from all parts of the globe. For her, even the force of gravity did not exist, since her chairs were placed for her, plates were handed, she herself was driven in carriages through the streets, conducted inside, helped upstairs."

As for other parts of the novel, there is a continuing theme of anti-semitism as Wokulski and his colleagues notice with some concern its rise. Unfortunately it is not entirely clear whether Wokulski or Prus fully recognize its evil or whether they share some of it themselves. On a first glance Wokulski is a hard working businessman, the kind that Poland obviously needs, who is not appreciated by its inefficient aristocracy. They look down on him as an arriviste and the selfish, vapid Izabela either ignores him or toys with his feelings. But on another level Wokulski is not really attracted to her. He is in more in love with the concept of matrimony than with an actual person. It is not simply the conservative atmosphere around courting that hampers him, but Wokulski's own lack of force. This portait of Wokulski's ambiguity, an almost Hamlet like quality of indecision, does not make compelling reading. But it is an important portrait of impotent masochism and it is expertly done. It is this that establishes Prus' claim to greatness.

If you have any interest in European Literature, then this novel is worthwile reading. All the major characters are beautifully created; the feelings that they experience are very realistic. The author's style is very powerful, and the plot is interesting enough to keep you reading until the spectacular conclusion. Easily one of the best books I've ever read.