numai ce-am închis cartea și pot să spun cu mâna pe inimă că este cel mai emoționant și zguduitor roman pe care l-am citit recent. mi-a atins și ultima fibră omenească, ceva ce sincer, nu credeam că o să mai fie posibil prea curând.

It's a love story.
It's an unhappy love story.
It's an unhappy love story involving an exasperatingly self-aware protagonist reduced to inaction by the scepticism and scientific rationalism of his era.
What more could I ask for?

When I started reading this book, I hated it. The narrative is in the form

This one is a singularity in Sienkiewicz's works, most of them long historical novels. It is concieved as the diary of a rich Polish aristocrat, who's dealing with serious matters, as the meaning of life, morality, patriotism, not to forget to mention ladies.
Written in 1891, the story may look duste

Moj šesti Sjenkjevič, i svaki je bio mio, ali ovaj mi je najmiliji. Štimung fin de siecle, ali duševni. Roman koji su voleli Tolstoj, Čehov, Gorki i Bora Stanković.

„Kako je pogrešno mišljenje da se osećajnost savremenih ljudi smanjuje. Ponekad mislim da je obratno. Ko nema oba plućna krila, taj jač

Unlike any of Sienkiewicz's other half dozen or so novels read to date, this is neither a historical fiction nor a story of separated love; instead, it is a memoir by a far-too-well-to-do Polish aristocrat - Leon Ploszowski - who spends all of his time in Rome, Berlin, Warsaw, Switzerland or at the

This is definitely one of the saddest books I have ever read. It teaches us that we must take the right decisions when we are supposed to and not let our pride conquer our lives. In the end, it might be the only thing that last and there will be place only for regrets.