Highcastle: A RemembranceStanislaw Lem's Highcastle is at once a remembrance and a meditation. Even as Lem gives an account of his childhood in Lvov in the years between the two world wars, he ponders the nature of memory, innocence, and the imagination. His recollections of growing up the son of a bourgeois doctor at Number 4 Brajerska Street are stunningly evocative, re-creating with acuity a boy's perception of the world around him: his gossipy French tutor; the magical window of Zalewski's Confectionery; his father's anatomy books and carefully hidden French pornography; a trip to Klaften's Toy Shop; an aborted visit to a tattooed lady at the Eastern Fair; the trams, organ grinders, and halvah stands of Lvov. |
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antinovel artist Baczewski booklets Boris Karloff Brajerska building candy Captain Nemo chair challah chest child childhood chocolates classmates coin color course Cunard Line dark Delatyn desk droshky Eastern Fair enormous everything eyes face father fear feeling filled fingers floor Geissler tubes glass gold groszy gymnasium halvah hand Highcastle hole Janek Jesuit Garden Julek Kaiserwald kind knew later learned legs looked loved Lublin Union Lvov machine mama's boy marzipan memory ment metal Miecio mother moved nasium never notebooks once paper piece played pocket pulled remember rifle Sand Mountain Smolka somehow someone sometimes STANISLAW LEM stone Street Stryjski Park student teacher theater thick things thought tiny tion took turned walked walls wheels whole Wimshurst machine window wooden Zarycki zloty