“STREAM-OF-CONSCIOUSNESS” narration is the oft-used phrase, but it would be more apt to call Stone Upon Stone’s first-person narration “sea-of-consciousness.” Protagonist Szymek Pietruszka’s horizon-wide, memory-laced delivery seems at the mercy of not just one but many currents, complete with austere distances, undertows, and sudden drop-offs. Rendered impeccably from Myśliwski’s Polish by translator Bill Johnston, Szymek’s voice is a plot in itself, reminiscent of such recent late-in-life yarn spinners as John Ames in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and Donald in Jim Harrison’s Returning to Earth. Myśliwski’s ranging prose hits many registers and powers the story with both discursiveness and striking precision. That Stone Upon Stone reads like the grand novel it is, not a novel in translation, is a testament to Johnston’s work and Myśliwski’s singular vision.

Myśliwski’s is a seamless epic, one that moves with rare speed as it limpidly traces Szymek’s recounting of his youth in pre–World War II Poland, the Nazis’ invasion, the multiple odd jobs he’s held, numerous lovers he’s taken, his farming of his native land, and his endurance of physical and family tragedies—in other words, a brimful life.

To hear the voice of Szymek Pietruszka, the Polish man who narrates Stone upon Stone, is to encounter a peasant's wit, wisdom, and values. Here is Szymek on the simple joy of talking: "Words let blood, and you feel better right away." On why a barrel of grain makes the best spot to hide things: "Because grain arouses the least suspicion. What could be more innocent than grain?" And on crying: "It might be that God gives a person one lot of tears like he has one heart, one liver, one spleen, one bladder. And you need to get those tears out so you can tell when you're still a child and when you've grown up."

Szymek's rustic voice narrates with a naïveté and an eloquence that are equally endearing, reaching into every corner of the Polish countryside like a great shining sun. This novel is the grandest example of a genre that has been Polish author Wiesaw Mysliwski's domain throughout an illustrious 40-year career. The only writer to have twice received the Nike, Poland's most prestigious literary award, he has hewn out a brand of fiction centred around the unique values and lifestyle that are found in the nation's peasant culture. Originally published in 1984, Stone upon Stone - Mysliwski's only book to appear in English - is not only generally considered his magnum opus, but also one of the landmarks of 20th-century Polish literature. It is a marvellous, garrulous book, in which Szymek practises his indubitable wisdom on all the variety of experience found in life.