The Last Supper [Paperback]

I was pleased to hear that Serpent's Tail have published Pawel Huelle's new book, The Last Supper. I have previously enjoyed Huelle's collection of short stories, his novel Who Was David Weisner? and also his prequel to Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, Castorp, all of which show Huelle to be a substantial European literary figure.

It is important to remember when reading the book is that it is set a few years into the future, when some of the trends Pawel sees in contemporary Polish life have come to fruition. The book will be interesting to anyone who wants to understand the Polish cultural scene, and in any case, many of its concerns are European in scope rather than being wholly confined within one nation.

Huelle's story is about twelve men who have been invited to a theatre in Gdansk by the artist Mateusz, to pose for a photograph depicting a modern interpretation of The Last Supper which he will use as a reference for a major new painting. Mateusz is tired of the modern art scene with its avant garde approach, and wants to show that there is still a place for a painting which will move and inspire people through a finely-executed and inspiring theme. Each chapter concerns one of the men who have been invited to pose for the photograph and the book comprises a selection of word pictures around these men, each one in some way being characteristic of an aspect of contemporary Polish life.

The book is very concerned with the state of the Catholic Church, which Huelle sees as becoming more nationalistic, fundamentalist and anti-Semitic, partly in response to the growing influence of Islam (Huelle actually forsees a Mosque being built in Gdansk and also terrorist explosions in the city). However, wider themes of art and culture are covered, and the writing is in many ways post-modern, notably when it describes the impossibility of finding a middle way between a reactionary traditionalism on the one hand and an absurd avant-gardism on the other. W B Yeats oft-repeated phrase applies here: "things fall apart, the centre cannot hold", for when the fault-lines have been found in comfortable old truths, there is no going back to the security they offered. When the cultural context of the old truths has disappeared, they struggle like fish on the river-bank.

To Huelle, Polish culture is essentially Christian, but Christ somehow fails to find traction, and prophetic voices are lost among the general cultural chaos. This theme recurs throughout the book. Even when a Jewish scroll from the book of Zachariah descends above a Mass being conducted by an anti-Semitic priest, nothing really happens other than a suggestion that genuine judgement may be taking place in some other realm unseen by the participants. Huelle lives on the edge of dichotomy where faith does not bring peace, and contradiction is everywhere: the gay man who falls in love with a mystical Sufi dancer, the devotion of the masses somehow provoked by an exploitative and corrupt Catholic heirarchy, the "Islamic terrorism" which turns out to be the work of a recovering Polish alcoholic.

Huelle focuses on the work of the 19th century artist David Roberts who followed a devotional path of painting Biblical scenes while on location in Jerusalem. Roberts' work is contrasted with avant-gardists who see the destruction of such "kitsch" works of art as an authentic artistic statement in themselves, as valid as the work of creation that went into the original painting. At one point, Huelle criticises the Turner Prize and artists such as Damien Hirst, perhaps forgetting the success of galleries like London's Tate Modern which are thronged with people young and old who are hungry to experience new forms of artistic expression.

This book is essential reading for anyone who follows modern European literature. It is a challenging read and in my view would benefit from a prologue to set some context for non-Polish readers. For someone who enjoyed Huelle's other books, this will be a departure from what is expected, but on the other hand it will stimulate thought and will widen viewpoints.

As with Huelle's other books, The Last Supper benefits from a stylish and lucid translation by Antonia Lloyd Jones. I am totally ignorant of the Polish language, but as with all good translations, I forgot that the book was not written in English.

I've never read Huelle before but this book has encouraged me to read more of him. It is an interesting book, well written with some beautiful vignettes that suck you in, grip you and leave you looking for more. There is an interesting story running through of an artist preparing for a photo-shoot of a group of his friends in order to produce a painting of the Last Supper. We follow a few of these friends, in the process having some of the corruption of Church and state revealed - often amusingly. Meanwhile, Huelle takes us on slight detours in which he discusses the nature of the Messiah, the meaning of Art, and the experiences of David Roberts when he was sketching in the Holy land in the 1830s. Lovely.