In Moving Parts a feckless, comical narrator struggles against all odds to tell a story for which he is responsible, but which he neither controls nor understands. His characters multiply, repeat, and go astray; his employer is paying no attention, asleep in a drunken stupor. The increasingly desperate narrator clambers over rooftops and through underground passages, watching helplessly as his characters reappear in different times and settings and start rival stories against his will.
This thought-provoking, wryly humorous work from the acclaimed author of Dreams and Stones tells of the sadness of the world and of the inadequate means that language and storytelling offer us for describing and understanding it. Yet it does so in Tulli’s characteristically clear, concrete, gorgeous prose, and, as with Dreams and Stones, the book is a delight to read. This extraordinary work, utterly unique both in its form and its message, shows a European master at the height of her powers and constitutes a major contribution to a new century of European literature. Moving Parts was shortlisted for the 2004 Nike Prize, Poland’s most prestigious literary award. W.S. Merwin claims, “The originality of Tulli’s writing is not lessened by representing a family tree that includes Michaud, Kafka, Calvino, and Saramago.”