Cirrus@Austlit

'If anything, The Weekly Card Game (1994) reads like a hazardous experiment with the conventions of the novel. You have to be something of a gambler when you put tedium vitae at the core of a narrative. Naturally, very few sensible writers would dare take up this risky challenge in an increasingly market-oriented publishing industry, as action-packed and tension-building novels dominated by an outstanding central character are more likely to turn into bestsellers than contemplative narratives. And yet, Antoni Jach, who is all too conscious that he is playing for high stakes when pushing the exploration of boredom to endurable limits, has a card up his sleeve - a terse and measured prose sprinkled with deadpan humour with which he skilfully manages to entertain his readership. This essay will focus on the multifaceted expressions of boredom in The Weekly Card Game and relate them to the principle of repetition that pervades the narrative in order to examine the philosophical and psychological underpinnings of ennui.' (http://www.brandl.com.au/Southerly/southerly%20longpaddock/2-2009/Jachs.htm)