The Other Soul by Łukasz Orbitowski - review
The Other Soul" ("Inna dusza") by Łukasz Orbitowski is a contemporary novel based on facts, a literary fiction inspired by two loud murders in Bydgoszcz in the middle the 90s. Why does the main protagonist Jędrek ("beautiful animal") kill his cousin Darek and a teenage neighbor Dagmara? We don't know. Orbitowski, like K. Kieślowski in "A short film about killing", does not give us a simple answer. A criminal plot is an excuse to show us the Polish society in the background of the social change at the end of the 20th century (the fall of communism and systemic transformation). Bydgoszcz in this book - presented very realistically - reminds Petersburg in "Crime and punishment" by Dostojewski. Destroyed, shabby, dirty townhouses. Depression and emptiness. And everything has a color of old rolls of films.
The rhythm of this prose gets our attention . A storytelling is conducted in the first person in a present tense by fictional character Krzysiek (friend of Jędrek, son of an alcoholic). Short and condensed - sometimes with surprising metaphors - phrases construct a metaphysical anxiety. “The Other Soul” is one of the best Polish novels published in the 21st century.
Jarosław Olczak