Magdalena Zurawski’s new debut novel, “The Bruise” recently came out thanks to The University of Alabama Press. Zurawski examines the precincts of truth/honesty, writer/speaker, reality/dream, traditional/experimental narrative, and more. Her prose consists of tightly woven rambling sentences that detail the minute nuances and fantasies that make up the narrator M-’s reality, the details progress the narrative forward, constantly blurring reality and fantasy.
M- is a neurotic, obsessive lesbian that is terrified of her obsessions because she understands all actions change and determine ones reality. Because of her attention to change and fear of change, the novel centers on M-’s slow paced acceptance of the hard fact – a person cannot be in control of everything and consequentially must learn how to interact with a world that is full of unforeseeable events. Like Virginia Woolf before her, Zurawksi uses minimal dialogue, the majority of action is internal processing of external actions. Stylistically, Zurawski reminds me of Gertrude Stein; both writers explore automatic writing and both investigate the loops and turns of the mind, their discoveries are conveyed in their works content and prose style. M- takes you on an adventure through existential dreamworlds that consistently propel the reader toward questioning what is and isn’t, why does it matter to know what is and isn’t, what is the weight of is and isn’t in relationship to the person experiencing both reality and fantasy. The narrator constantly calls to other characters and to fiction itself to clarify that her life is real, M- believes that without the mirrors of others she wouldn’t exist except within her own imagination, suggesting Jean Baudrillard had an influence on Zurakwsi because her work remains aware of image into completion. Reading “The Bruise” consistently brought me to corridors within my own psyche that I had yet to examine, I met ghosts that wanted to speak to me that I had naively refused breath.
The back of the book, “Magdalena Zurawski reclaims the university bildugsroman as an intelligent and moving form.”
Here are some sites featuring the work of Magdalena Zurawski.
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