Title: The Pole
Author: J.M. Coetzee
Hours: 6
Rating: 3.5/5
Published: September 19, 2023
Beatriz, a socialite from Barcelona, is in charge of socializing and entertaining the concert Chopin pianist, 70-year-old Wittold Walccyzkiecz, during his brief visit to her great city. She is completely unimpressed by his demeanor and not in love with his representation of Chopin. But with a few well-asked, pointed questions she accidentally engraved herself into his heart.
Wittold starts an email correspondence with Beatriz trying to convince her to run away with him and join him on his tour through Europe and South America. Beatriz decided to indulge Wittold by continuing their emails to each other until she finally decided to invite him to her husband's family home in Mallorca.
Once in Mallorca Beatriz decides to continue their friendship on her terms only. After three nights of love-making, which Beatriz does out of pity, she ends their friendship and decides to forget about Wittold.
After several years, Beatriz gets a call from Wittold's daughter and is told that he died and has a box in his apartment in Warsaw waiting for her. Beatriz spends a night in Wittold's old apartment in Poland and realizes that he wrote 80 plus poems about her in Polish, comparing her to Aphrodite, and Dante's love, who was also named Beatriz.
Beatriz gets the poems translated into Spanish and decides to write him letters post-mortem about how his friendship made her feel and that she wasn't the woman for him.
This was a really interesting book and completely outside of my normal realm - but I did really enjoy the story! I enjoyed that it was two much older people forming a friendship and showing that no matter what your age, you can still be found desirable. The narrator, Colin Mace, has an incredible voice and really brought this story to life.
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