Piotr Bardzik follows up his previous book of aphorisms (Fact Denounced as a Four-Letter Word) with another compact collection of witty and acerbic opinions on the state of the world. WASHINGTON POST IS SWITCHING OFF LIGHTS opens with a rather bleak bullet-point history of the USA since 1973 before the author hones in on the societal and political ideals he seeks to question. Divided into 19 sections, the book fixes its steely gaze on subjects including media, education, death, ego, economics, and inequality.
“Nowadays one needs to think twice before employing the past tense of the verb wake,” writes Bardzik in a section on politics. No fan of the games of division played by contemporary politicians, the author seeks a fairer, more equitable society. And, though often humorous, his vignettes are not afraid to call out some of the elite’s worst excesses: “For some leaders, winning a war is not enough. They need one that goes on, and on, and….” Alongside the political discourse, there is a fruitful return to the “Corporate Jungle” that the author hacked into with such skill last time out. “Organizations obsess about growth and development, ignoring opportunities to curtail. Say, incompetence and complexity,” runs one such aphorism, displaying the author’s general disgust with much of the business world.
A key strength of an effective aphoristic collection lies in its linguistic precision; each phrase is refined to its core meaning, leaving no space for excess. As Bardzik reveals in a postscript, his first book was a distillation of eight years of notes. Presumably, those years found the author continually editing, rewriting, and crystallizing his ideas. In contrast, this new volume is the culmination of a mere eight months of what he describes as “catching ephemeral thoughts.” Thus, without the benefit of the period of reflection that his earlier book enjoyed, WASHINGTON POST IS SWITCHING OFF LIGHTS is a little loose—clumsy, even—perhaps through a lack of a tight final copy edit; or perhaps the author did not live with his lines long enough. For example, this passage from a section entitled “Doubt & Despair” seems unnecessarily clunky: “A recent discovery of the road to hell revealed that is not just paved with good intentions, plenty of unsolicited advice too.”
“Aphorism – a literary espresso,” writes Bardzik. It’s an apt definition. At the height of his powers, the author’s best lines deliver double shots of wit and wisdom. Unfortunately, Bardzik’s aphoristic output in this outing is rather too frothy and decidedly decaf to match his previous work.
Though it may lack some of the fine tooling of his debut collection, Piotr Bardzik’s WASHINGTON POST IS SWITCHING OFF LIGHTS still offers plenty of insight. The book is a thought-provoking compendium of aphorisms for these troubling times.
~ Kent Lane for IndieReader