The novel ‘Cosmos’ (1965) by Witold Gombrowicz.

“[…] In Cosmos, I am telling the simple story of a simple student. This student goes to spend his holidays as a paying guest in a house where he meets two women, one has a hideous mouth which has been ruined by a motor car accident, while the other has an attractive mouth. The two mouths are associated in his mind and become an obsession. On the other hand he has seen a sparrow hanging from a wire and a piece of wood hanging from a thread… . And all this, a little out of boredom, a little out of curiosity, a little out of love, out of violent passion, starts dragging him towards a certain means of action … to which he abandons himself, but not without skepticism. […] Cosmos is an ordinary introduction to an extraordinary world, to the wings of the world, if you like.” – W. Gombrowicz