RONDO

The accidental leader of a Polish dissident group recalls his experiences in love and battle during World War II.

In the novel, first published in 1982, prize-winning Polish author Brandys (1916–2000) argues that relationships, particularly in times of political resistance, are always shot through with confusion and ambiguity. In the days before WWII, the narrator, Tom, is a Warsaw law student enchanted by Tola, an actress. Though she’s already committed to a lover, the two eventually strike up a sexual relationship of their own, and in his urge to get closer to Tola, Tom pursues some acting work. As the Nazis occupy Poland, he goes one fateful step further: To keep Tola from becoming embroiled in the real resistance, he invites her to join a resistance group he invented called Rondo (a name pulled from a Chopin piece). Through a series of miscommunications, the fake organization becomes real enough: Tom begins performing legitimate work feeding information to British intelligence forces, leading to more romantic byways, confused identities and, as the war draws to a bloody close, a body count. The novel's opening pages seem to suggest a comedy of errors, or at least an unreliable narrator: The narrative is structured as a letter to the editor, written by Tom in frustration with a newsmagazine article’s numerous inaccuracies about Rondo. But Tom’s outrage, constant digressions and shifts in time are designed more to expose dry ironies than get laughs. Brandys regularly underscores the connection between the theater in which Tom and Tola work and the “political theater” in which they participate, giving short shrift to their actual relationship, which eventually feels more like an excuse for the occasional mini-essay about the nature of political dissent. Brandys is deeply concerned about the ways politics and love tend to shape our identities, dourly concluding that both have a way of making us feel isolated. There’s no questioning the intelligence he brings to make that point, though his dense, digressive prose may test readers’ patience.

A challenging but politically and morally astute take on the emotional impact of war.