Customer Reviews

Lie Under the Fig Trees

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Tadeusz Wojnicki's "Lie Under the Fig Trees" is a lusty, honest, delicious love story. Wojnicki's prose is pregnant with full-bodied descriptions of one man's quest to be with the woman he loves/lusts after. This slim novel bursts with the sounds, landscapes, smells and tastes of places like Poland, New York and Mexico and puts one in the mind of Hemingway and Steinbeck. This is a beautiful, sensual book that will make you smile and grimace all within a few moments. Love can make us act like fools, but how many of us would give up such a wild ride?

I read Fig Trees this morning...in one soaking. All of my senses are dangerously alive. I tasted it, smelled it, felt it, heard it, saw it...am consumed by it. It will be with me all the day and much longer I am sure. I've been craving sweet, sticky passionate fruits...of all sorts.. ever since. I need to sate this craving...with my own writing (along with a trip to the store for a bagful of oranges and bananas).

I love every word, every page, every chapter of this book, but my favorite is chapter 24. Here's where Wojnicki so wonderfully shows his character realizing and confirming growth. Quoting from this chapter: "Her thighs, though bulky, earlier today seemed weightless. Now I get cramps. Her arms, though coiled around my neck tightly, felt yummy. Now, I get breathless."

"Besides, as she holds me, her body seems to me to be a body of some other woman. It feels different somehow. I noticed it earlier tonight. Her arms don't feel like her arms. They embraced Polo, maybe that's why."

"The heaviest object in the world is the body of the woman you have ceased to love, the Marquis de Vauvenargues said. I wonder if I have stopped loving her. I feel forced to suppress my doubt. Basic decency requires that I don't accept the obvious."

"By dawn I think I know why her body seems to me to be the body of some other woman--it's because I'm not the same man."

Such powerful lines of growth as it really does happen - through the subconcious! Wojnicki magnificently shows this growth and confirms it with words in the end. I remember the Polo incident, a previous chapter. I felt the hurt. I wondered how Teddy could be so cool about the whole situation. Wojnicki brilliantly only hinted at Teddy's feelings; he was letting them slip into his subconscious ... digesting them so to speak ... later they would surface; the force behind the growth. What more can I say ... I love the book! You will too!

LIE UNDER THE FIG TREES is not a gentle book. The experience the protagonist encounters is harsh and painful and the author has recorded it honestly. Can a reviewer be less honest? Polish expatriate Dr. Teddy, lonely and suffering the cold of a New York winter ("too much like Poland," he realizes), dreams of tropical climes, love, lust, and Rosie, whom he knew in Warsaw. He plans, he dreams, he works. And finally, full of high expectations and glorying in his freedom, he meets his Rosie in Mexico. In their lusty celebration, Teddy finds reality. Life is often painful and crude, and cruel to our expectations...and FIG TREE is a faithful reproduction of the way love can disappoint and how life has to be lived -- by picking up the pieces and doing our best with what's left. The honesty of the book is a great part of its charm, and that honesty is bittersweet. Be prepared for a lusty read, but look beyond the carnal pleasures to the celebration of life and love and freedom that is lying under the fig trees

I read Fig Trees this morning...in one soaking. All of my senses are dangerously alive. I tasted it, smelled it, felt it, heard it, saw it...am consumed by it. It will be with me all the day and much longer I am sure. I've been craving sweet, sticky passionate fruits...of all sorts.. ever since. I need to sate this craving...with my own writing (along with a trip to the store for a bagful of oranges and bananas).