Agla. Alef

Radek Rak’s sweeping novel is part one of a planned four-volume cycle (one book for each letter of the Kabbalistic acronym AGLA). Its most important and simultaneously most artistically interesting quality is that Rak draws deeply from many sources of fantastical fiction, in both its popular and more refined varieties. Here the typical elements of classic fantasy literature appear side-by-side with a great deal of ancient, mainly early-mediaeval, esotericism and demonology, plus motifs from H.P. Lovecraft and other masters of horror. This gives the universe Rak has created a syncretic character. While it’s easy to say where the novel is set (essentially in the city of Tybli, a fantastical version of Kraków), it’s impossible to tell when. It might be the early twentieth century, or maybe the Middle Ages. Or both. In Rak’s imaginary world, there is no science, since it has been replaced by magic, or anthropocentrism, because fantastical creatures live alongside humans. This is the strange world, as attractive as it is terrifying, into which our teenage hero Sofja Kluk has been thrust. Her father, a professor at the local university and single parent, has just disappeared. Sofja must manage on her own, though she has the mistresses of the witches’ school and a circle of close friends to help. And here is revealed the most important aspect of Agla: Aleph: a coming-of-age story. This is the heart of Rak’s novel – a young girl’s transformation into a young, confident woman. Although the novel’s reality in no way resembles our own world, certain principles turn out to be universal: Sofja learns to tell who is an enemy and who is a friend; she explores her own physicality and falls in love for the first time; little by little she begins to conquer loneliness and find her place. By the end of the book, she has learned who she is and what she wants.