This month the Book World features Polish-Jewish writer Aleksander Wat's collection of short stories, Lucifer Unemployed. Wat (1900-1967) is one of those rare writers whose reputation is growing posthumously. Three of his books have appeared in English within the last year: his autobiography, My Century; a collection of his later poems, gathered under the title With the Skin; and Lucifer Unemployed. His Mediterranean Poems was published in 1977.
Lucifer Unemployed was written in the 1920s, and the stories have an almost unfinished quality that signals the youth of the writer. Yet the topics Wat touches continue to be discussed in the terms in which he posed them. For example, in his "Lucifer Unemployed" (the title story of the collection, which is reprinted here), the notion that Lucifer, the devil, is not beyond evil - far from it. Rather, evil is so well entrenched as to resemble a fact of nature more than the work of a signal causal agent. Evil simply exists, as does Lucifer; it is much as if the clever devil has staged his own disappearance, leaving his legacy all the more secure, as its source can no longer be traced. As the story unfolds, Lucifer is maneuvering for a new role in human affairs - and trying to deal with his ego, bruised by anonymity. Following Lucifer through his course, Wat discloses a society that is clearly a precursor to our own.
After the story, Lillian Vallee comments on Lucifer Unemployed, acquainting the reader with its place in Wat's work as a whole. Richard Lourie then discusses the startling developments in Wat's life that made him an artist with a unique and irreplaceable sensibility.
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