The Salt of the Earth is an exceptional book but unfortunately I failed to like it as much as I expected to.

About the book

The Salt of the Earth is a pacifist novel about a person who loses the little he had, to be a pawn in something he has no understanding of.

The novel was first published in Polish in 1936 and received great acclaim. As a result Jozef Wittlin, the author, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1939. The book was first translated into English in 1940. It was supposed to be the first book in a trilogy but the drafts of the other two volumes were lost when a soldier in a French town threw the case with them into the sea in 1940. Only the first section of the second book survived and is included in this edition.

Good things about the book

Salt of the Earth is an example of beautiful writing. Jozef Wittlin was a poet, and you can feel it in his book. Here are some quotes.
About the news that the war has started:

The news spread by word of mouth. The mouth bit it, chewed it, ground it and crunched it until suddenly a million mouths spat one word out onto the pavement like a bitter almond.

At the recruiting station:

Around midday, Niewiadomski’s name flew out from under sergeant’s black moustache.

And more:

Stars flashed on the clear firmament, one after another, glorious, mature, brilliant. It was nights like these that gave birth to astronomy.

What I didn’t like

Unfortunately, I failed to like the novel, despite the beautiful writing and the greater message. There are only about fifteen instances of direct speech in the whole book, out of which about ten are actual dialogues, which are short and kept to a minimum. Even when communication between characters does happen it’s being recited as a narrative. Overall, the book feels as if somebody had written you a huge letter retelling different events and thoughts. This style of writing takes all possible dynamism out of the book. The book was written 80 years ago and so the rules of the story telling were probably different then, but I do read classics and I have never encountered anything so still, like water in a pond.

Although there’s a protagonist, you never connect to him closely. He’s a mere tool to show you what a state can do to a person. And as it’s an unfinished story you never even get to know what happened to him eventually.

As for the translation of the book, I’m not an expert but I think the name that sounds like “Semyon” or “Semion” would look much better written exactly this way, rather than simply transliterated as “Semen”.

Final thoughts

It’s undoubtedly a very deep book, but the peculiarity of the writing style makes it very hard to read and the incompleteness of the story brings no satisfaction. Thus, I can only give it 3.5 stars. I’m sure somebody with a different attitude to reading will like it more.

Thanks to the publishers for the copy in exchange for my honest review.

After the deep but complicated book, reading something entertaining is even more exciting than it usually is. I’m now happy and quick like a puppy in an autumn forest.

Here are my entertaining books.

1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Umut praised The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in her review, and once again it was a good decision to follow her recommendation.

The book is absolutely amazing! It’s such an interesting, attractive read. I keep thinking about it and I can’t wait to go back to reading it. (An update: You can now read my review of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)

2. The Searcher by Simon Toyne

I’m enjoying how fast-paced The Searcher is, although it’s a bit confusing to be following so many characters especially when the protagonist is confused himself having lost all his memory. The reason I’ve started reading The Searcher is the following book.

3. The Boy Who Saw by Simon Toyne

My husband recently visited a country where books are sold even in pharmacies! Can you imagine that?! I can’t. He sent me a quick message with a photo of a book stall and told me I had five minutes to choose. After hasty googling I chose The Boy Who Saw.

It’s the second book in Solomon Creed series, so I started reading The Searcher first.

I hope I’ll wrap them all up before my treasures start arriving 

Have you read any of them? What did you think (spoiler-free speaking)?