A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Baba Yaga and our BookBrowse Review of A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

Introduction

On the eve of World War II, in a place called Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon falls in love with a girl fabled for her angelic looks. To court Anielica Hetmanská he offers up his "golden hands" to transform her family’s modest hut into a beautiful home, thereby building his way into her heart. Then war arrives to cut short their courtship, delay their marriage, and wreak havoc in all their lives, even sending the young lovers far from home, to the promise of a new life in Kraków. Nearly fifty years later, their granddaughter, Beata, repeats their postwar journey, seeking a new life in the fairy-tale city of her grandmother’s stories. But when she arrives in Kraków, instead of the whispered prosperity of the New Poland, she discovers a city caught between its future and its past. Whimsical, wise, magical, and sometimes heartbreaking, A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True weaves together two remarkable stories, reimagining half a century of Polish history through the legacy of one unforgettable love affair.


Discussion Points

1. Early in the novel, Beata introduces herself as Baba Yaga, the name she goes by for most of the book. We don’t learn her given name until her grandfather returns to Poland and greets her with it. Why do you think the author made this choice? What effect, if any, did it have on your reading experience to know the narrator only by a nickname?
2. On page 3, the narrator says, "We Poles have always been known by our golden hands." Do you think Beata carries on her grandfather’s legacy? Why do you think Beata is ultimately the narrator of both stories, that of her grandparents and her own?
3. Beata describes the TV retrospectives and commercials that she and Irena watch as symbolic of the New Poland — caught between the past and the future, communism and capitalism. Where else in the novel does Pasulka illustrate Poland’s "in-betweenness."

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Mariner Books. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.