Madame

the long version

"Madame is a novel about Poland during the grim years of Soviet-controlled mediocrity which nonetheless sparkles with light and warmth." "Our young narrator-hero is suffering through the regulated boredom of high school when he is transfixed by a new teacher - an elegant "older woman" (she is thirty-two) who bewitches him with her glacial beauty and her strict intelligence. He resolves to learn everything he can about her and to win her heart.". "In a sequence of marvelously funny but sobering maneuvers, he finds out much more than he expected - about politics, Poland, and the Spanish Civil War, and his own passion for theater and art - all while his loved one continues to elude him. Yet without his realizing it, his efforts - largely bookish and literary - to close in on Madame are his first steps to liberation as an artist. Later, during a stint as a teacher-in-training in his old school, he discovers that he himself has become a legendary figure to a new generation of students, and he begins to understand the deceits and blessings of myth, and its redemptive power."--BOOK JACKET.