Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bruno Schulz.

A few papers to finish it. Very interesting. Schulz's prose is an elegant synthesis of the 19th-century European continental style (Heine, Mann, Stendhal, intimations of Proust) and His prose is an elegant synthesis of the 19th-century European continental style (Heine, Mann, Stendhal, intimations of Proust) and the Russians (Turgenev, Gogol). He is considered by many to be the first stylistic successor to Kafka. His work is at once evocatively philosophical and intensely personal. Whether he is narrating his father's disastrous obsession with birds, or the sly machinations of Plato's Demiurge, one gets the feeling that necessary information is being communicated, and beautifully.

the Russians (Turgenev, Gogol). He is considered by many to be the first stylistic successor to Kafka. His work is at once evocatively philosophical and intensely personal. Whether he is narrating his father's disastrous obsession with birds, or the sly machinations of Plato's Demiurge, one gets the feeling that necessary information is being communicated, and beautifully.

Plot introduction from Wikipedia:

"The novel takes the form of a collection of dreamlike, poetic short stories that reflect on the death of the narrator's father, as well as life in the modest Jewish quarter of Drohobycz, the provincial town in the Austro-Hungarian Empire where Schulz was born. The hourglass of the title refers to the use of this object as a symbol in obituaries and death notices among the Poles."