Swimming in the Dark

Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book is dominated by description of feelings of a young man attracted to another young man.
I have to admit that initially I received it as extremally self-centred approach and lost most of interest - there are over 7 billion individuals on this planet so how to bother about all od them.
Eventually I continued the book and managed to discover some sympathy to the main character, mainly because he presented his experiences and feelings in quite gentle way.
What disappointed me was strong exaggeration of bad sides of Communism in Poland.
Author mentions falsifying Polish history.
I attended Polish schools in Communist times and I think there was only one important historical fact missing - the Katyn massacre.
Similarly - books and censorship.
After year 1956 practically each book recognised in Western literature was available. The only exception was Orwell's 1984.

Sometimes it takes a funny turn.

There is a scene where the main character finds his host bleeding strongly. Instead of ringing for an ambulance or at least doctor's home visit, he joins a queue in a medical centre and when eventually reaches the doctor, is shocked when doctor expects to see the patient.

Very important part of the story are references to J. Baldwin's book - Giovanni's Room.
Again, there is impression that it was a forbidden book.
I doubt if authorities were aware of such a book... and by the way - main character reads it in year 1980. I strongly doubt that at that time it has been translated to Polish and the main character at his time didn't know English.

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