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Ferdydurke
In this bitterly funny novel by the renowned Polish author Witold Gombrowicz. a writer finds himself tossed into a chaotic world of schoolboys by a diabolical professor who wishes to reduce him to childishness. Originally published in Poland in 1937. Ferdydurke became an instant literary sensation and catapulted the young author to fame. Deemed scandalous and subversive by Nazis. Stalinists. and the Polish Communist regime in turn. the novel (as well as all of Gombrowicz's other works) was officially banned in Poland for decades. It has nonetheless remained one of the most influential works of twentieth-century European literature.
Ferdydurke is translated here directly from the Polish for the first time. Danuta Borchardt deftly captures Gombrowicz's playful and idiosyncratic style. and she allows English speakers to experience fully the masterpiece of a writer whom Milan Kundera describes as "one of the great novelists of our century."
Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969) wrote three other novels. Trans-Atlantyk. Pornografia. and Cosmos. which together with his plays and his three-volume Diary have been translated into more than thirty languages.
Ferdydurke is translated here directly from the Polish for the first time. Danuta Borchardt deftly captures Gombrowicz's playful and idiosyncratic style. and she allows English speakers to experience fully the masterpiece of a writer whom Milan Kundera describes as "one of the great novelists of our century."
Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969) wrote three other novels. Trans-Atlantyk. Pornografia. and Cosmos. which together with his plays and his three-volume Diary have been translated into more than thirty languages.
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1937
About the author
Witold Gombrowicz
102 books937 followersGombrowicz was born in Małoszyce, in Congress Poland, Russian Empire to a wealthy gentry family. He was the youngest of four children of Jan and Antonina (née Kotkowska.) In 1911 his family moved to Warsaw. After completing his education at Saint Stanislaus Kostka's Gymnasium in 1922, he studied law at Warsaw University (in 1927 he obtained a master’s degree in law.) Gombrowicz spent a year in Paris where he studied at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales; although he was less than diligent in his studies his time in France brought him in constant contact with other young intellectuals. He also visited the Mediterranean.
When he returned to Poland he began applying for legal positions with little success. In the 1920s he started writing, but soon rejected the legendary novel, whose form and subject matter were supposed to manifest his 'worse' and darker side of nature. Similarly, his attempt to write a popular novel in collaboration with Tadeusz Kępiński turned out to be a failure. At the turn of the 20's and 30's he started to write short stories, which were later printed under the title Memoirs Of A Time Of Immaturity. From the moment of this literary debut, his reviews and columns started appearing in the press, mainly in the Kurier Poranny (Morning Courier). He met with other young writers and intellectuals forming an artistic café society in Zodiak and Ziemiańska, both in Warsaw. The publication of Ferdydurke, his first novel, brought him acclaim in literary circles.
Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Gombrowicz took part in the maiden voyage of the Polish cruise liner, Chrobry, to South America. When he found out about the outbreak of war in Europe, he decided to wait in Buenos Aires till the war was over, but was actually to stay there until 1963 — often, especially during the war, in great poverty.
At the end of the 1940s Gombrowicz was trying to gain a position among Argentine literary circles by publishing articles, giving lectures in Fray Mocho café, and finally, by publishing in 1947 a Spanish translation of Ferdydurke written with the help of Gombrowicz’s friends, among them Virgilio Piñera. Today, this version of the novel is considered to be a significant literary event in the history of Argentine literature; however, when published it did not bring any great renown to the author, nor did the publication of Gombrowicz’s drama Ślub in Spanish (The Wedding, El Casamiento) in 1948. From December 1947 to May 1955 Gombrowicz worked as a bank clerk in Banco Polaco, the Argentine branch of PeKaO SA Bank. In 1950 he started exchanging letters with Jerzy Giedroyc and from 1951 he started having works published in the Parisian journal Culture, where, in 1953, fragments of Dziennik (Diaries) appeared. In the same year he published a volume of work which included the drama Ślub (The Wedding) and the novel Trans-Atlantyk, where the subject of national identity on emigration was controversially raised. After October 1956 four books written by Gombrowicz appeared in Poland and they brought him great renown despite the fact that the authorities did not allow the publication of Dziennik (Diaries), and later organized
When he returned to Poland he began applying for legal positions with little success. In the 1920s he started writing, but soon rejected the legendary novel, whose form and subject matter were supposed to manifest his 'worse' and darker side of nature. Similarly, his attempt to write a popular novel in collaboration with Tadeusz Kępiński turned out to be a failure. At the turn of the 20's and 30's he started to write short stories, which were later printed under the title Memoirs Of A Time Of Immaturity. From the moment of this literary debut, his reviews and columns started appearing in the press, mainly in the Kurier Poranny (Morning Courier). He met with other young writers and intellectuals forming an artistic café society in Zodiak and Ziemiańska, both in Warsaw. The publication of Ferdydurke, his first novel, brought him acclaim in literary circles.
Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Gombrowicz took part in the maiden voyage of the Polish cruise liner, Chrobry, to South America. When he found out about the outbreak of war in Europe, he decided to wait in Buenos Aires till the war was over, but was actually to stay there until 1963 — often, especially during the war, in great poverty.
At the end of the 1940s Gombrowicz was trying to gain a position among Argentine literary circles by publishing articles, giving lectures in Fray Mocho café, and finally, by publishing in 1947 a Spanish translation of Ferdydurke written with the help of Gombrowicz’s friends, among them Virgilio Piñera. Today, this version of the novel is considered to be a significant literary event in the history of Argentine literature; however, when published it did not bring any great renown to the author, nor did the publication of Gombrowicz’s drama Ślub in Spanish (The Wedding, El Casamiento) in 1948. From December 1947 to May 1955 Gombrowicz worked as a bank clerk in Banco Polaco, the Argentine branch of PeKaO SA Bank. In 1950 he started exchanging letters with Jerzy Giedroyc and from 1951 he started having works published in the Parisian journal Culture, where, in 1953, fragments of Dziennik (Diaries) appeared. In the same year he published a volume of work which included the drama Ślub (The Wedding) and the novel Trans-Atlantyk, where the subject of national identity on emigration was controversially raised. After October 1956 four books written by Gombrowicz appeared in Poland and they brought him great renown despite the fact that the authorities did not allow the publication of Dziennik (Diaries), and later organized
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August 13, 2023
Ferdydurke is some sort of abracadabra and the novel can be defined as an absurdist abstraction.
The judgments of the oafs prevail and Ferdydurke is the world seen through the eyes of idiots.
And seen with the eye of a talented ignoramus the ordinary social stereotypes and customs become preposterous and our regular behavioral patterns turn ludicrous.
Mankind is accursed because our existence on this earth does not tolerate any well-defined and stable hierarchy, everything continually flows, spills over, moves on, everyone must be aware of and be judged by everyone else, and the opinions that the ignorant, dull, and slow-witted hold about us are no less important than the opinions of the bright, the enlightened, the refined. This is because man is profoundly dependent on the reflection of himself in another man’s soul, be it even the soul of an idiot. I absolutely disagree with my fellow writers who treat the opinions of the dull-witted with an aristocratic haughtiness and declare: odi profanum vulgus. What a cheap and simplistic way of avoiding reality, what a shoddy escape into specious loftiness! I maintain, on the contrary, that the more dull and narrow-minded they are, the more urgent and compelling are their opinions, just as an ill-fitting shoe hurts us more than a well-fitting one.
The judgments of the oafs prevail and Ferdydurke is the world seen through the eyes of idiots.
Normality is a tightrope-walker above the abyss of abnormality. How much potential madness is contained in the everyday order of things?
And seen with the eye of a talented ignoramus the ordinary social stereotypes and customs become preposterous and our regular behavioral patterns turn ludicrous.
June 27, 2023
'There is nothing that the mature hate more, there is nothing that disgusts them more, than immaturity' writes Gombrowicz in this comic masterpiece of Polish literature. Be prepared to embrace your immaturity through your intellect as Gombrowicz attacks so-called 'maturity' and exposes it as a fraud in this story about an aspiring author who is reduced to back to his childish teenage self before a former professor and brought back to school. This first novel of his was banned by the Nazi's and Communist parties for it's stinging criticisms on society and authority. Gombrowicz toys with the absurbed as he delivers a hilarious blend of comedy, political and social satire, literature and psychological critique and the question of identity all while exposing man as an immature being.
While Gombrowicz is considered a major figure in Polish and Eastern European literature, and his first novel, Ferdydurke, is considered one of his foremost novels, it wasn't until the later stages of his career, however, that Gombrowicz's genius became widely recognized. A major factor of this is due to a fateful trip to Buenos Aires on the eve of WWII. Upon arrival, he discovered Hitler had invaded Poland and chose to remain abroad, working in a bank owned by another Polish expatriate, and did not return to Europe until the 60's. He died in 1969 during a lecture tour on existentialism and was buried in Vence.
Gombrowicz was a major inspiration and influence on me in my 20s. He was the first author I turned to during my whole "I'm in my 20s and need to figure out my identity so I should read the works from the country of my ancestors" bit everyone goes through. Even after having read a lot of Polish authors--something I still try to read at least one of a year--he is the one I always turn back to and reflect most highly upon (along with Olga Tokarczuk). He was openly bisexual and a leftist, outspoken against politics in general, ardently against nationalism and wrote many of his novels while working a menial job in a bank and hiding the manuscripts under the register. This is the sort of thing that really resonated with me as a persona, but the humor and directness of his social criticism in his works inspired me and expanded my thinking.
The translation of this novel, as the introduction will pound into your head, attempted to maintain Gombrowicz style and nuances as best as possible. This includes using a variety of diminutives and not translating certain key phrases, including many of the Latin and french idioms that would have been intentionally left untranslated in it's native polish. This choice also gives us a great new word that you will use constantly, probably to the annoyance of others, after this novel: 'the pupa'. The pupa is a very encompassing word that most often literally means the butt. Yes, assess play a large part of this novel—especially large asses. There are hilarious bits of 'mommy's and aunties' peeping through holes in the fence around the playground to talk amongst each other about 'what cute little pupas, pupas, pupas our little darlings have!'. The pupa is used very freely, often times standing in for various ideas of immaturity and youth. This novel is teeming with immaturity symbolism, so keep a sharp eye out.
This novel is a perfect blend of high-brow and low-brow humor. It's as if Frasier and Monty Python got together for a social satire aimed at intellectuals. The novel is basically split into three parts, each with a break from the story for Gombrowicz to discuss literature and tell side-stories that offer further insight into the novel's themes.(the short story of The Child Runs Deep in Filidor would even be worth reading on it's own). There is the school scene, which pits cliques of schoolchildren against each other, creating a metaphor of Polish politics with different groups symbolizing various political parties. This section showcases children trying so desperately to hard to be tough and vulgar and 'adult' that they are simply 'innocent in their desire not to be innocent'. This brought to mind the poem 'Schoolchildren' by [Author: W.H. Auden], which I would highly recommend. The teachers are also shown through the lens of Gombrowicz as being just as juvenile and foolish as their students.
All institutions and values and ideas that would present themselves as 'above the common rabble' or 'mature' comes under fire from Gombrowicz's cutting critique. He dissects the 'modern family' with all their progressive ideas, making them into a laughable fraud of immature beings posturing as respectable. Cities and university's are mocked and belittled, relationships are made out as foolish, while peasants and especially lords get the biggest brunt of Gombrowicz's fist to the mouth of society. The last scenes of this novel are incredible and very Monty Python-esk in their absurbdity. Even the moon in the sky becomes a giant pupa shinning down on us all. You will want to call every nose a 'snoot' and every face, or more accurately, every identity, a 'mug' after reading this. The closing lines of the story are even a slap in the face to you the reader, and you will laugh and relish in your own humiliation.
As an author, Gombrowicz is cunning and deft and can manipulate words with the best of them. He has a brilliant, insightful mind and is eager to share it with the reader, managing to show off an assumed arrogance but while being more than inviting. His greatest skills are his grasp on the human psyche, and he manages to deconstruct human nature wonderfully. In scenes where the narrator is toying with the minds of others and creating a sense of unease, the reader will feel it too and Gombrowicz seemingly enjoys making the reader uncomfortable as he slowly tightens the screws of his psychological terrorisms (this is a theme he really expands upon in his highly existential novel Cosmos). He laughs in the face of humanity, reducing anything beyond juvenile immaturity as merely posturing, 'a series of empty phrases and grimaces' and a false facade. His lecture on being an author offer some of the finest insights into falsity in art; he reflects that man too often just tries to create what others would enjoy and in the end we trap ourselves in 'an ocean of opinions, each one defining you within someone else, and creating you in another man's soul' all because 'man is profoundly dependent on the reflection of himself in another man's soul, be it even the soul of an idiot'. This is just scratching the surface of the full-frontal barrage of arguments Gombrowicz throws about. 'Let me conceive my own shape, let no one do it for me!' he bellows. This novel, wholly original, creates a Gombrowicz that you will enjoy through further novels. I feel he achieves this lofty goal.
This is one of the funniest novels I have ever read, and is a wonderful satire that will reveal itself further if you put a little work into it and research some of the many allusions. Also, the cover art is done by none other than Bruno Schulz, another incredible major figure of Polish literature. Gombrowicz will insult everything you know, and you will love him all the more for it. From a human being one can only take shelter in the arms of another human being. From the pupa, however, there is absolutely no escape.
A clear 5/5
While Gombrowicz is considered a major figure in Polish and Eastern European literature, and his first novel, Ferdydurke, is considered one of his foremost novels, it wasn't until the later stages of his career, however, that Gombrowicz's genius became widely recognized. A major factor of this is due to a fateful trip to Buenos Aires on the eve of WWII. Upon arrival, he discovered Hitler had invaded Poland and chose to remain abroad, working in a bank owned by another Polish expatriate, and did not return to Europe until the 60's. He died in 1969 during a lecture tour on existentialism and was buried in Vence.
Gombrowicz was a major inspiration and influence on me in my 20s. He was the first author I turned to during my whole "I'm in my 20s and need to figure out my identity so I should read the works from the country of my ancestors" bit everyone goes through. Even after having read a lot of Polish authors--something I still try to read at least one of a year--he is the one I always turn back to and reflect most highly upon (along with Olga Tokarczuk). He was openly bisexual and a leftist, outspoken against politics in general, ardently against nationalism and wrote many of his novels while working a menial job in a bank and hiding the manuscripts under the register. This is the sort of thing that really resonated with me as a persona, but the humor and directness of his social criticism in his works inspired me and expanded my thinking.
The translation of this novel, as the introduction will pound into your head, attempted to maintain Gombrowicz style and nuances as best as possible. This includes using a variety of diminutives and not translating certain key phrases, including many of the Latin and french idioms that would have been intentionally left untranslated in it's native polish. This choice also gives us a great new word that you will use constantly, probably to the annoyance of others, after this novel: 'the pupa'. The pupa is a very encompassing word that most often literally means the butt. Yes, assess play a large part of this novel—especially large asses. There are hilarious bits of 'mommy's and aunties' peeping through holes in the fence around the playground to talk amongst each other about 'what cute little pupas, pupas, pupas our little darlings have!'. The pupa is used very freely, often times standing in for various ideas of immaturity and youth. This novel is teeming with immaturity symbolism, so keep a sharp eye out.
This novel is a perfect blend of high-brow and low-brow humor. It's as if Frasier and Monty Python got together for a social satire aimed at intellectuals. The novel is basically split into three parts, each with a break from the story for Gombrowicz to discuss literature and tell side-stories that offer further insight into the novel's themes.(the short story of The Child Runs Deep in Filidor would even be worth reading on it's own). There is the school scene, which pits cliques of schoolchildren against each other, creating a metaphor of Polish politics with different groups symbolizing various political parties. This section showcases children trying so desperately to hard to be tough and vulgar and 'adult' that they are simply 'innocent in their desire not to be innocent'. This brought to mind the poem 'Schoolchildren' by [Author: W.H. Auden], which I would highly recommend. The teachers are also shown through the lens of Gombrowicz as being just as juvenile and foolish as their students.
All institutions and values and ideas that would present themselves as 'above the common rabble' or 'mature' comes under fire from Gombrowicz's cutting critique. He dissects the 'modern family' with all their progressive ideas, making them into a laughable fraud of immature beings posturing as respectable. Cities and university's are mocked and belittled, relationships are made out as foolish, while peasants and especially lords get the biggest brunt of Gombrowicz's fist to the mouth of society. The last scenes of this novel are incredible and very Monty Python-esk in their absurbdity. Even the moon in the sky becomes a giant pupa shinning down on us all. You will want to call every nose a 'snoot' and every face, or more accurately, every identity, a 'mug' after reading this. The closing lines of the story are even a slap in the face to you the reader, and you will laugh and relish in your own humiliation.
As an author, Gombrowicz is cunning and deft and can manipulate words with the best of them. He has a brilliant, insightful mind and is eager to share it with the reader, managing to show off an assumed arrogance but while being more than inviting. His greatest skills are his grasp on the human psyche, and he manages to deconstruct human nature wonderfully. In scenes where the narrator is toying with the minds of others and creating a sense of unease, the reader will feel it too and Gombrowicz seemingly enjoys making the reader uncomfortable as he slowly tightens the screws of his psychological terrorisms (this is a theme he really expands upon in his highly existential novel Cosmos). He laughs in the face of humanity, reducing anything beyond juvenile immaturity as merely posturing, 'a series of empty phrases and grimaces' and a false facade. His lecture on being an author offer some of the finest insights into falsity in art; he reflects that man too often just tries to create what others would enjoy and in the end we trap ourselves in 'an ocean of opinions, each one defining you within someone else, and creating you in another man's soul' all because 'man is profoundly dependent on the reflection of himself in another man's soul, be it even the soul of an idiot'. This is just scratching the surface of the full-frontal barrage of arguments Gombrowicz throws about. 'Let me conceive my own shape, let no one do it for me!' he bellows. This novel, wholly original, creates a Gombrowicz that you will enjoy through further novels. I feel he achieves this lofty goal.
This is one of the funniest novels I have ever read, and is a wonderful satire that will reveal itself further if you put a little work into it and research some of the many allusions. Also, the cover art is done by none other than Bruno Schulz, another incredible major figure of Polish literature. Gombrowicz will insult everything you know, and you will love him all the more for it. From a human being one can only take shelter in the arms of another human being. From the pupa, however, there is absolutely no escape.
A clear 5/5
Read
February 27, 2022„koniec i bomba
a kto czytał, ten trąba!”
felt
a kto czytał, ten trąba!”
felt
Read
June 29, 2024
After reading Ferdydurke, it becomes abundantly clear that Witold Gombrowicz possessed what Hemingway referred to as a first-rate shit detector. Not doubt this was a prime reason the Polish author, in 1939, at the age of thirty-five, decided at the last moment to try his luck in Argentine rather than return on a voyage to Europe, knowing the Nazis just did launch a massive attack on his native country of Poland.
Ferdydurke published in 1937, long before Gombrowitcz boarded the cruise ship that would take him to Argentina, a country where he would remain until his return to Europe in the early 1960s. The Polish author's life and other writings, including his three-volume Diary spanning the years 1953-1969, are so worth any reader's time to explore. However, since I'm writing a book review not an extended essay, I will restrict myself to Ferdydurke, considered one of the great 20th century novels by none other than Milan Kundera.
The story follows a thirty-year-old writer by the name of Joey who is lead off to a school for boys, then taken to live in a home of an engineer and his wife and schoolgirl daughter, until finally, Joey and his school chum run away to the Polish farmlands. Witold Gombrowicz twice inserts a philosophic preface and one of his previously published short-stories to demarcate Joey's three-part madcap adventure.
What makes Ferdydurke such a highly regarded European literary classic, right up there with Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities and Hermann Broch's The Sleepwalkers? To highlight several of the novel's key aspects, I'll cycle back and link my comments with a number of direct quotes, starting with a few from the first chapter.
“the thirty-year-old man I am today was aping and ridiculing the callow juvenile I once was, while he in turn was aping me and, by the same token, each of us was aping himself.”
Right in the opening pages, we're given a full dose of Joey's views on his own identity, the ongoing battle of his adult self against his younger, juvenile self. This conflict sets the tone for much of the novel's humor and satire. Joey muses: “Yet it just didn't seem appropriate to dismiss, easily and glibly, the sniveling brat within me.”
Curiously, Joey's reflections bring to mind Julio Cortázar, where the Argentine author stated, “I will always be a child in many ways, but one of those children who from the beginning carries within him an adult, so when the little monster becomes an adult he carries in turn a child inside and, nel mezzo del camino, yields to the seldom peaceful coexistence of at least two outlooks onto the world.” Thus, in their main character's refusal to become fully and wholly adult (Cortázar gives this quality to Horacio in his 1963 Hopscotch), along with both authors' refusal to submit to established, traditional forms, Cortázar's innovative novel shares much common ground with Ferdydurke.
“man is profoundly dependent on the reflection of himself in another man's soul, be it even the soul of the idiot.”
Joey, and indirectly, Witold Gombrowicz, have a profound existential awareness of the influence other people exert on the way we see and define ourselves. Additionally, along with Joey, we're prompted to ask, is there a unique core that is our Self with a capital S? What if the universe is at base meaningless and this lack of meaning nullifies any claim to a fixed center, that is, a true, authentic Self?
“It is conceivable that my book, too subtle for dullards, was at the same time not sufficiently lofty or puffed up for the rabble who respond solely to the outer trappings of what is important.”
Joey, the published writer, can be seen as a stand-in for Witold Gombrowicz, who received less than positive reviews for his short story collection entitled Bakakaj. Similarly, when Joey observes, "there is nothing that the mature hate more, there is nothing that disgusts them more, than immaturity," it echoes the sentiments of young Witold who detested the posturing of the adult world he encountered in his home country of Poland, especially among the upper classes (he himself was the son of a lawyer), a common thread running throughout Ferdydurke.
“I became small, my leg became a little leg, my hand a little hand, my persona a little persona, my being a little being.”
When a Professor Pimko appears in Joey's bedroom and takes the thirty-year-old off to a school to join the sixth graders (echoes of Josef K taken off in Kafka's The Trial), we're treated to the comic combined with the philosophic. And, why doesn't Joey fight back? As he explains, "This was ridiculous! Too ridiculous to be real!" Ah, another author comes to mind, someone writing under the jackboot of Stalinism, a Russian author only interested in nonsense - Daniil Kharms.
“but how was I supposed to regain my bearing when a couple of steps away, in the cool and bracing air, naivete and innocence were on the rise. The pupa has rolled over the lads and the guys.”
So Joey muses once he's in school among his schoolmates where the terms “pupa” and “mug” assume central importance. Translator Danuta Borchardt provides the cultural and linguistic context for these two supercharged words in her Translator's Note.
“And finally, do we create form or does form create us? We think we are the ones who construct it, but that's an illusion, because we are, in equal measure, constructed by the construction.”
The above quote is taken from the first preface, adding yet again another conceptual layer on top of what is already a rich philosophic work of fiction.
“It's a modern household,” he remarked, “modern and naturalistic, favoring the trends, and foreign to my ideology.”... “The schoolgirl,” he said, “she's modern too.”
Thus are the words of Pimko as he brings Joey to the home where he'll be staying. The idea of modernism is yet another pivotal theme addressed in Ferdydurke. The Poland of the 1930s, saturated by elements such as automobiles, electricity, radios, movie theaters, jazz records, American magazines, and American fashions was a world away from the Poland of their parents' youth. The Photo on the cover of the French edition of the novel I included above speaks volumes. Now, that's a modern schoolgirl! The perfect lure for the pupa and mug of little Joey.
What a novel. Much more awaits a reader of Gombrowicz's classic. And this Yale University Press edition includes a splendid incisive essay by Susan Sontag. Not to be missed.
Witold Gombrowicz, 1904-1969
October 30, 2023
“Los dos problemas capitales de Ferdydurke son: el de la Inmadurez y el de la Forma”¿Saben que el autor tuvo que añadir un prólogo explicando la novela? Por si se quieren ahorrar la lectura lo pregunto (en cualquier caso, no dejen de leer el capítulo «Filifor forrado de niño (prefacio)», de una profundidad rabiosa, muy Bernhardiana, sobre el seudoarte, los seudoartistas y los críticos seniles). Si bien todos sabemos que una cosa no puede sustituir a la otra, tal y como nos apunta Ernesto Sábato en otro prólogo sobre la obra: aunque todo autor tiene su Weltanschauung —si alguien no sabe qué significa, cosa que dudo, puede buscar la palabra en el diccionario de la Real Academia Gallega, aunque creo que es una palabra que ha caído algo en desuso entre los jóvenes gallegos—, la forma en la que el poeta la expresa…
“… es algo menos pero también algo más que una filosofía, algo menos y algo más que un conjunto de conceptos: es una visión total de la realidad, en parte conceptual y en parte intuitiva, parcialmente intelectual y en sumo grado emocional y mágica”Vamos, que tanto sobran como faltan las explicaciones. Yo, lector no avisado (ustedes ya no pueden decir lo mismo), leí el prólogo, de echo leí los dos (Sábato también creyó necesario aportar una explicación), así que mi lectura está absolutamente mediatizada por ambos y nunca sabré lo que hubiera sido enfrentarme a ella virgen (sospecho que abandonarlo, varias veces estuve a punto de hacerlo a pesar de los dos prólogos). Lo paradójico del caso es que esa mediatización en el arte es una de las obsesiones del autor, aunque no sé si incluía aquí las realizadas por el propio artista.
“…el creador crea, arrodillado ante el altar del arte, pensando en la obra cumbre, en la armonía, precisión, espíritu y superación; he aquí que el conocedor se da a conocer profundizando la creación del creador en un profundo estudio —después de lo cual la obra va a los lectores—, y lo que era engendrado en un sudor total y completo, es recibido de modo sumamente parcial entre la mosca y el teléfono.” (la mosca y el teléfono es eso que distrae al lector “justamente en ese supremo momento en que todas las partes y tramas se juntan en la unidad de la solución final”, que aquí hay hostias para todos)Y sobre el texto… no me complico, acudo a Sábato nuevamente:
“Especie de grotesco sueño de un clown, con páginas de irresistible comicidad, con una fuerza de pronto rabelesiana, el reinado al parecer del puro absurdo”Así es, el texto transcurre totalmente en el terreno de lo absurdo, un absurdo cómico. Por usar su terminología, Gombrowicz es un escritor que habita muy orgullosamente el estado de la inmadurez, aquel en el que todavía no ha surgido “el genio de la seriedad que sabrá afrontar ciertas mezquindades realistas de la vida sin caer en una torpe risotada”. Como también y tan bien dijo Sábato:
“…la Inmadurez es la vida (y por lo tanto la adolescencia, el circo, el absurdo, el romanticismo, la desmesura y lo barroco), la Forma es la Madurez, pero también la fosilización, la retórica y en definitiva la muerte”Lo cual es una nueva contradicción pues, algo que no se le escapó a ninguno de los dos prologuistas, una novela no deja de ser una Forma y, por muy novedosa que sea, nunca aparece en el vacío, siempre arrastrará herencias. Pero no es la única contradicción en la que se dejará caer el autor, de ahí que adoptara el absurdo como Forma.
El hombre necesita de la Forma, al mismo tiempo que la Forma lo comprime y le impide explorar todas sus posibilidades, lo que es aplicable en la misma medida al arte y a la vida. La cultura no tiene otro objetivo que infantilizar al hombre al hacer de sus respuestas algo automático, pertenecientes a otros. Todo lo que se desea, piensa, siente son construcciones que nos vienen dadas, no nos pertenecen. ¿La solución? Encontrar la forma de la inmadurez. ¿El problema? Que es algo imposible, absurdo.
“Y entonces me iluminó de repente este pensamiento sencillo y santo: que yo no tenía que ser ni maduro ni inmaduro, sino así como soy… que debía manifestarme y expresarme en mi forma propia y soberbiamente soberana, sin tomar en cuenta nada que no fuera mi propia realidad interna. ¡Ah, crear la forma propia! ¡Expresarse! ¡Expresar tanto lo que ya está en mí claro y maduro, como lo que todavía está turbio, fermentado! ¡Que mi forma nazca de mí, que no me sea hecha por nadie!”Tras esta gran idea (una idea altamente problemática pues cómo se puede huir de lo que se es, aunque se sea en buena parte lo que otros han hecho de nosotros), Pepe, el protagonista, recién estrenado en su treintena y sufriente de ese malestar, tan común también ahora en nuestros tiempos, de que algo ha terminado sin que haya empezado nada nuevo que lo sustituya, su vida es secuestrada y llevada a un irreal mundo donde toma la forma de un jovencito de dieciséis años que vuelve al colegio y es hospedado en una casa cuyos dueños tiene un nombre altamente significativo: Juventones, padres de una atractiva Colegiala llamada Zutka, de una juventud madura, de una madurez juvenil y objeto de los renovados calores adolescentes de Pepe.
“Helo aquí —ya llegó el tiempo, ya se puede empezar, ya sonó la hora en el reloj de los siglos—: tratad de oponeros a la forma, liberaos de la forma. Dejad de identificaros con lo que os define. Tratad de esquivaros de toda expresión vuestra. Desconfiad de vuestras opiniones. Tened cuidado de las fes vuestras y defendeos de vuestros sentimientos. Retiraos de lo que parecéis ser desde afuera y huid ante toda exteriorización, así como un pajarito ante la serpiente huye.”No les quito más tiempo… ah, sí, una cosa más, Ferdydurke, ¿quién es Ferdydurke? Si lo encuentran en la novela, me avisan... o no me avisen, no crean que me quita el sueño.
2,5 más bien.
November 20, 2008
I didn't like this book. I didn't hate it either. If I could have given it two and a half stars I would have. I liked the premise. Parts of it were interesting, and I think I got what he was doing with the work, but it just never gelled for me. Maybe if I had read it straight through without taking a bit of a break with reading a history book I might have enjoyed it more, but by about page 200 the whole book felt like work. For example I was on the bus, and I had the choice between reading this book or starting straight ahead at the darkness through the tinted windows only slightly broken up by passing street lights that illuminated almost nothing for me, and I choose the staring straight ahead after reading half a page. Reading doesn't usually feel like work to me, so that's got to say something. Maybe I was just in a staring mood that day.
Actually fuck it, any book that makes me want to stare at nothing rather than read it deserves two stars. I will not let myself be pushed around the opinions of people John Fuckdike who tell me the book is a late modernism masterpiece. This book is a failure, a good idea, and some interesting moments but overall the book never lives up to it's potential, and the reader (well that would be me), thinks Rabbit Updike is a fucking idiot, who once again sounds like a paid spokesperson for a book instead of an honest critic, or someone with an honest opinion. Ok? I've said it, I don't like this book and I don't like John Updike, and it wasn't until I started writing this review that I even noticed he had written the blurb on the back, and yes that might have given me the conviction to give this book two stars instead of three. Happy now Updike? Some insignificant asshole on the internet took a star away from a book you liked because his dislike of you overrode his feeling that a supposed classic couldn't just get two stars, and there must be some kind of failure on his part for not getting it. Now I know though that it's ok, I know you probably only liked it because there are lots of ass references and you're a dirty fucking pervert who has only been able to write anything by ripping off other people. Fuck you Updike!!!
Actually fuck it, any book that makes me want to stare at nothing rather than read it deserves two stars. I will not let myself be pushed around the opinions of people John Fuckdike who tell me the book is a late modernism masterpiece. This book is a failure, a good idea, and some interesting moments but overall the book never lives up to it's potential, and the reader (well that would be me), thinks Rabbit Updike is a fucking idiot, who once again sounds like a paid spokesperson for a book instead of an honest critic, or someone with an honest opinion. Ok? I've said it, I don't like this book and I don't like John Updike, and it wasn't until I started writing this review that I even noticed he had written the blurb on the back, and yes that might have given me the conviction to give this book two stars instead of three. Happy now Updike? Some insignificant asshole on the internet took a star away from a book you liked because his dislike of you overrode his feeling that a supposed classic couldn't just get two stars, and there must be some kind of failure on his part for not getting it. Now I know though that it's ok, I know you probably only liked it because there are lots of ass references and you're a dirty fucking pervert who has only been able to write anything by ripping off other people. Fuck you Updike!!!
October 4, 2020
GOMBROWICZ SAID GAY RIGHTS AND I AGREE
September 25, 2017
“ Bir saniyecik bile olsun, yapmayı becerebildiğim kadarıyla bile, akıllıca konuşamıyordum çünkü taşrada bir doktorun beni aptal bellediğini ve dolayısıyla benden aptallıklar beklediğini biliyordum”
Bir sabah korkulu rüyalarından devcileyin bir böcek olarak uyanan gregor Samsa’dan yirmi yıl uzaktayız. Yer Polonya, tarihler 1937’yi gösteriyor ve Gombrowicz Ferdydurke'yi yayınlıyor. Zaman ve mekan önemli, savaşın ve Polonya’nın işgalinin hemen öngünlerindeyiz. Avrupa, Duçe ve Führer’lerin velhasıl büyük adamların kitleleri olgunlaşmamış böcekler gibi ezdiği, şekillendirdiği, kişiliklerini yok edip yeni kişilikler kazandırdığı ayakları altında bilim, modernite ve ilerlemenin bayrakları ile eziliyor.
İşte bu ahval ve şeriat içinde bir türlü olamamış bir yazar Joseph kowolski ( Dava’nın bir sabah suçlu bulunan Joseph K’sına bir gönderme) uyandığı uykusundan bir ergen olarak kalkıyor, sonrası olaylar olaylar..
Yıllar önce Pornografi’si ile tanışıp niyeyse devamını getirmediğim Gombrowicz dünyasına geçen yıl Ferdydurke ile dönüş yaptım ve nasıl bu kadar süre ıskaladım diye hala dert yanarım. Yukarıda Kafka’dan ve ona göndermelerden bahsettim ancak bu en fazla tematik bir benzerlik olabilir yoksa üslup ve biçim olarak Kafka’dan çok farklı bir yerde duruyor. Evvela içine girebilirseniz çok güçlü bir mizahı var kitabın ve bunu sonuna kadar koruyor. Gombrowicz’in hiç kimselere benzemeyen üslübu ile bezenmiş yergilerinden kimse kaçamıyor. Aile, okul, modernite, olgunlaşmışlar,burjuvazi, köylüler, öğrenciler ve kültürel teyzeler maskeleri düşürülüp çırılçıplak halleri ile geçit töreninde yerlerini alıyor.
Yetişkinler dünyasından ‘ kendisine çocuk gibi davranıldığı için çocuklaşarak’ kurtulmaya çalışan Joseph K’nın hikayesi kanımca 20. Yüzyılın ilk yarısında yazılmış ama bugünde konuşmaya devam eden en önemli birkaç eserden biri. Şu bol Reis’li günlerimizde her şeyine karışılıp çocuklaştırılan Türkiyeli okurun es geçmemesi gereken Ferdydurke'yi maalesef herkese tavsiye edemiyorum çünkü üslubu, kurgusu ve gerçeğin bulanıklaştığı halleriyle “zor” ve emek isteyen bir kitap, önermiyorum ama okuru illa kendisini bulacaktır.
“ Zira olgunlar hiçbir şeyden olgunlaşmamışlık kadar tiksinmezler ve başka hiçbir şey onlar için daha iğrenç değildir. En acımasız yıkıcılığın her türlüsüne kolayca katlanırlar, yeter ki olgunluk çerçevesinde olmuş olsun”
“ Birdenbire uyanmıştım, bir taksiye atlayıp apar topar gara gitmeyi istiyordum, çünkü sanki bir yere gideceğimi sanıyordum."
Read
September 8, 2019Good grief, I've got a copy of this somewhere that I must have liberated from a second-hand bookshop years ago and which I am fairly sure has long since gone the way of all books - although it is hard for me to tell as much of my life is in semi-storage to varying degrees.
An odd story. Not Mloda Polska (thanks to the correction in comments) but a product of the inter war period. A man is taken out of adult life and made to live as a child, he is forced to return to school and given foster parents to live with. Naturally he is still an adult even though everybody treats him as a child. There is an absurd classroom scene in which the star pupil, who naturally due to the halo effect is also the most handsome, is called upon by the teacher to save his lesson by explaining the greatness of , presumably Mickiewicz, to the rest of the class who on account of being schoolboys are somewhat blockheaded, this he does by declaiming that Mickiewicz is the greatest national poet because his works move us profoundly and that they move us profoundly because Mickiewicz is the greatest national poet, which I suppose is true even if unenlightening, and I suspect that similar things are taught to children round the world with only the name of the poet changed as appropriate to local circumstances.
The only way the narrator can escape this prison of circular logic is by fighting back and upsetting as many apple carts as possible, chiefly achieved by turning school life and the household of his foster parents upside down. In one scene he hopes to achieve this by convincing his foster parents that something scandalous is going on in their teen-aged daughter's bedroom, there he opens one cupboard to reveal (I believe) the aforementioned pretty schoolboy - result happiness on the part of the parents, such a relationship is at least appropriate even if plainly over actively indulged in, so the narrator is forced to open a second cupboard - revealing the school teacher - result complete outrage and confusion. This reminds me of how a former chief inspector of schools on the podium of a teacher conference once said that he felt relationships between teachers and pupils were educative (which I suppose from a broad point of view they would be since all relationships are) but which rather suggested that the chief inspector had so over indulged in Plato as to loose touch with the Zeitgeist, and that if you put some people up on a podium in front of a crowd there is no knowing what will fall out of their mouths.
A fable ought to end with a moral, but I've forgotten mine.
An odd story. Not Mloda Polska (thanks to the correction in comments) but a product of the inter war period. A man is taken out of adult life and made to live as a child, he is forced to return to school and given foster parents to live with. Naturally he is still an adult even though everybody treats him as a child. There is an absurd classroom scene in which the star pupil, who naturally due to the halo effect is also the most handsome, is called upon by the teacher to save his lesson by explaining the greatness of , presumably Mickiewicz, to the rest of the class who on account of being schoolboys are somewhat blockheaded, this he does by declaiming that Mickiewicz is the greatest national poet because his works move us profoundly and that they move us profoundly because Mickiewicz is the greatest national poet, which I suppose is true even if unenlightening, and I suspect that similar things are taught to children round the world with only the name of the poet changed as appropriate to local circumstances.
The only way the narrator can escape this prison of circular logic is by fighting back and upsetting as many apple carts as possible, chiefly achieved by turning school life and the household of his foster parents upside down. In one scene he hopes to achieve this by convincing his foster parents that something scandalous is going on in their teen-aged daughter's bedroom, there he opens one cupboard to reveal (I believe) the aforementioned pretty schoolboy - result happiness on the part of the parents, such a relationship is at least appropriate even if plainly over actively indulged in, so the narrator is forced to open a second cupboard - revealing the school teacher - result complete outrage and confusion. This reminds me of how a former chief inspector of schools on the podium of a teacher conference once said that he felt relationships between teachers and pupils were educative (which I suppose from a broad point of view they would be since all relationships are) but which rather suggested that the chief inspector had so over indulged in Plato as to loose touch with the Zeitgeist, and that if you put some people up on a podium in front of a crowd there is no knowing what will fall out of their mouths.
A fable ought to end with a moral, but I've forgotten mine.
November 20, 2015
Gereğinden fazla değerli...Böyle yazdığımı gören kitabın yazarı buna da iki cümle dizerdi.Kitapların bazıları vardır ki, mimarisi güzel birçok katı olan meskenlere benzerler, hangi katta oturmak istediğiniz size bağlı.Fakat en üstteki katlar modernitenin size sunduğu görsellik karmaşasından dolayı sizi yanıltır, bir şeylerin sahibi olduğunuzu ve çoşkunluğun suni hissiyatını size tattırır. Halbuki alttaki derinliğe indikçe bekleyenler, sizi şaşırtacaktır. İşte böyle bir kitap olan ferdydurke'nin katlarını indikçe başka bir derinlik, başka bir aydınlık ile karşılaşacaksınız. Gördüklerimi küçücük sözcükler ile kısaca aktarayayım. Başlarken normal klasik bir roman, zaten böyle de okuyabilirsiniz. Başka bir katman da ise hayır! kesinlikle bir romandan ziyade aslında moderniteye başkaldırıştır. Hemen ardından müthiş bir yaşamın dizininden biçimselliğin aynasına baktığınızı göreceksiniz. Yazar kitapta; Bilincinden dürtülerine, kaygılarından çağrışımlarına, yaşama isteğinden istememene, çoşkunluğundan hiçciliğine, Tanrı'ndan Tanrı'sızlığına, ahlakından ahlak karşıtlığına ve düşünebileceğin hemen her şeyin Biçim olgusunun ürünü olduğunu okura ispatlama çabasına girişir. Dolayısıyla yaşamsallık sürecinde ne kadar fazla kalıplar içerisine girip gerçek anlamda özgür bilinçten uzaklaşıp bu yegane ulu kurtuluşumuzu başka kurumlara teslim ettiğimizi anlamaktayız.
July 19, 2023
«Фердидурка» или «Фердидурке» - загадочный роман, ибо это слово ни разу не прозвучит в романе, и что означает это слово – неизвестно. История написания также не открывает завесу таинственности названия – роман был написан в 1937 году, но не был понят и принят на родине, а успех пришел только спустя десять лет в Аргентине. В СССР впервые был опубликован в 1991 году, накануне его развала. Чего боялись идеологи, не пускавшие роман в страну?
Роман сложен в понимании, хотя на первый взгляд ничего запредельно сложного в нем нет. Начинаясь с экзистенциального ужаса: «Я лежал в тусклом свете, и тело мое непереносимо боялось, стискивая страхом мой дух, дух стискивал тело, и каждый прекрошечныи нервик сжимался в ожидании того, что ничего не произойдет, ничего не переменится, ничего никогда не наступит и – на что бы ни решиться – не начнется ровным счетом ничего. Это был ужас несуществования, страх небытия, боязнь нежизни, опасение нереальности, биологический вопль всех моих клеток, напуганных внутренним раздором, раздроблением и распылением. Ужас непристойной мелкости и мелочности, переполох распада, паника, порождаемая созерцанием обломка, страх перед насилием, тем, которое гнездилось во мне самом, и тем, которое угрожало извне, – а самое главное, мне постоянно сопутствовало, не отставая ни на шаг, нечто, что я мог бы определить как ощущение непрекращающегося передразнивания и издевок клеточек моего существа, насмешливости, присущей разнузданным частям моего тела и аналогичным частям моего духа.
Сон, который докучал мне ночью и разбудил меня, был выражением ужаса.» , роман развивается в роман осознания человеком своего места в мире. Чуть за тридцать Юзек, помнит себя пятнадцатилетнего или шестнадцатилетнего молокососа, и смотрит с позиций своего возраста на того себя-юнца с передразниванием. Это не раздвоение личности, но «внутренняя разрозненность», разлад, способность посмотреть на себя со стороны, но невозможность четкого определения, кто же он.
«А когда я уже совсем пришел в себя и принялся размышлять над собственной жизнью, ужас не уменьшился ни на йоту, но стал еще сильнее, хотя порой его перебивал (или подкреплял) смешок, от которого рот не способен был удержаться. На полдороге жития моего очутился я в чаще темного леса. Лес этот, что хуже всего, был зеленый.
Ибо наяву я был тоже неустоявшийся, разрозненный – как и во сне. Недавно я перешел Рубикон неотвратимого тридцатилетия, миновал верстовой столб, по метрике, по внешности я был человек зрелый, однако же я им не был – ибо чем же я был?»
Далее Гомбрович делает едкое отступление, заслуживающее особого внимания и посвященное писателям и критикам, и в особенности тетушкам-критикессам с категоричностью суждений. Многие писатели считают себя писателями милостью Божией, свалившимися со своими дарованиями на грешную землю. Они стесняются открыть, каким личным поражением, какими уступками, они оплатили право писать. Они не пишут о собственной жизни ни слова, только о чем-то другом. Он отмечает необходимость связи с детскими и юношескими годами, а иначе жизнь, не принимающая в расчет этих ранних лет, этой связи с ними, напоминает дом, строящийся в крыши, и такой подход неотвратимо должен привести к шизофреническом раздвоению личности. Очевидно, что с одной стороны, это говорит об определенной автобиографичности романа, исходя из понимания, что автор не таков, как критикуемые им писатели, а с другой стороны, эта полемика говорит о каком-то противостоянии, диспуте, что создает интерес узнать больше о писателе, его жизни. От писателей и тетушек от культуры, он переходит к культурной публике вообще, этим желеобразным существам, самому страшному слою полуинтеллигентов, чувствительных «только к внешним признакам серьезности.» Так что не ждите, что эта книга академически серьезна. Нет, она иронична, едка, бредова, смешна, карикатурна, издевательска, наивна, незащищенна, если хотите, невинна, абсурдна, ехидна, вздорна, парадоксальна, высосана из пальца, но при этом философски глубока и доверчиво-тревожна.
Говоря о жизни, существовании, как о чем-то постоянно текущем, движущемся, развивающемся, меняющемся, Гомбрович говорит о том, что человек скован своим отражением в душе другого человека, даже если это кретин. «Вот так для одних я был умный, для других глупый, для одних – значительный, для других – едва приметный, для одних – заурядный, для других – аристократичный!»
Рассуждая о Форме в творчестве, Гомбрович вводит в текст Пимко, учителишку, взявшего прочитать рукопись. Как мощно он описывает это сидение автора напротив сидения учителишки, читающего его текст. «Знакома ли вам такая поразительная вещь, когда вы в ком-нибудь уменьшаетесь? Ах, мельчать в тетушке – это нечто дивно непристойное, но мельчать в великом пустопорожнем учителишке – вершина непристойного ничтожества. И я заметил, что учителишка, словно корова, пасется на моей зелени. Престранное чувство – когда учителишка пощипывает твою зелень на лугу, однако же в квартире, сидя на стуле и читая, – однако же пощипывает и пасется. Со мною творилось что-то ужасное, но вне меня – что-то дурацкое, что-то нахально иррациональное. – Дух! – завопил я. – Я! Дух! А не бяка-автор! Дух! Дух живой! Я! – Но он сидел, а сидя, сидел, сидел как-то сидя, он так в сидении своем засиделся, так был в этом сидении абсолютен, что сидение, будучи окончательно глупым, было тем не менее одновременно могущественным.»
Пимко выт��щил записную книжку и поставил автору неуд. И при этом он сидел и сидение его было абсолютным.
«И я сидел в нереальной бессмысленности, словно во сне, с замурованным ртом, ошколенный и вышколенный, сидел на детской попочке, – а он сидел как на Акрополе и что-то заносил в записную книжку. Наконец проговорил:
– Ну, Юзек, вставай, пойдем в школу.»
И вот так он очутился в школе.
Назвав учеников невинными, Пимко «мастерски, как и подобает самым превосходным и искусным учителишкам, с ходу спеленал меня и моих коллег диалектикой и проблематикой, которые надежнее, чем что-нибудь еще, способны затолкнуть в детство.»
А кто же учителя? Безвредные недотепы, с которыми невозможно и минуты проговорить, дважды не зевнув, и ни у кого из них нет собственной мысли.
Что за абсурд? – скажете Вы. Что за абсурдная школа? Что в ней делает взрослый мужчина за тридцать? Как такое возможно? И будете правы. Школа – эта страна, оболваненная тоталитаризмом, общество, поучаемое какими-то недотепами, трясущими перед носом фотографией жены и ребенка, которых непременно погубит ученик, не выучивший урок. Звучит, как бред. Почему Юзек не сбежал из этой школы? Почему ученики не сбегали?
«И я вдруг понял, почему никто из них не мог убежать из этой школы, – это их лица и весь их облик убивали в них возможность побега, каждый был пленником собственной гримасы, и хотя они обязаны были удирать, они этого не делали, поскольку уже не были теми, кем должны были быть. Удирать – значило удирать не только из школы, но прежде всего от самого себя, ох, удрать от самого себя, от сопляка, каковым сделал меня Пимко, покинуть его, опять стать мужчиной, которым я был! Как же, однако, удирать от чего-то, чем ты есть, где отыскать точку опоры, источник сопротивления?»
Рассказчик пытается воспротивиться изнасилованию Сифона через уши. «Тут Сифон на земле, связанный, а тут ты его просвещаешь – насильно, через уши!» Вы понимаете, о каком изнасиловании идет речь. Он пытается отвлечь Ментуса, уговорить его бежать из школы, бежать к парням, пасущим на лугах коней. Вот с этими парнями не до конца понятно. То ли это образ народа, то ли гомосексуальность, так тоже можно трактовать.
Зрелость, форма, искусство – Гомбрович разрушает стереотипы, забитые в школярски-дидактические умы. «Если бы вы, однако, меньше были озабочены Искусством или же обучением и шлифовкой других, а больше собственными жалкими особами, вы никогда бы не прошли мимо столь ужасного насилия над личностью – и поэт не создавал бы поэм для другого поэта, а почувствовал бы себя пронизанным и творимым снизу силами, которых до сих пор не замечал. Он понял бы, что, только познав их, он способен от них освободиться; и приложил бы все старание, чтобы в его стиле, позиции и форме – и художественной и житейской – отчетливо обозначилась бы связь с низким. Он уже не чувствовал бы себя лишь Отцом, но Отцом и одновременно Сыном; и не писал бы только как мудрый, изысканный, зрелый, но, скорее, как Мудрый, все еще оглупляемый. Утонченный, неутомимо огрубляемый, и Взрослый, неустанно омолаживаемый. И если бы, отходя от письменного стола, он встретил бы ненароком юношу или полуинтеллигента, он уже не хлопнул бы их покровительственно, назидательно и учительски по плечу, но, скорее, в святом страхе застонал бы, зарычал, а может, даже и пал бы на колени! Вместо того чтобы бежать от незрелости, замыкаясь в высоких сферах, он понял бы, что универсальный стиль тот, который сумеет любовно обнять недоразвитость. И это привело бы вас в конце концов к форме, так дышащей творчеством и наполненной поэзией, что все бы вы разом превратились в могучих гениев.»
Дуэль на минах, и дуэль Филидора и анти-Филидора (анализа и синтеза), квартирование у Млодзяков с их девицею-современной гимназисткой, явлением могучим, посещение тетушки в имении, в которой Ментус бра..тался с парнем, лакейчиком Валеком, и Юзя анализировал, почему мордобитие составляет основу старопомещичьего уклада, любовь к Зосе с бегством/похищением – не просто сюжетные линии, это своеобразные круги ада, в котором рожи и попочки - отдельная тема. Чем менее Вы серьезны, тем легче воспринимается текст. А он серьезен и полон смыслов.
Роман сложен в понимании, хотя на первый взгляд ничего запредельно сложного в нем нет. Начинаясь с экзистенциального ужаса: «Я лежал в тусклом свете, и тело мое непереносимо боялось, стискивая страхом мой дух, дух стискивал тело, и каждый прекрошечныи нервик сжимался в ожидании того, что ничего не произойдет, ничего не переменится, ничего никогда не наступит и – на что бы ни решиться – не начнется ровным счетом ничего. Это был ужас несуществования, страх небытия, боязнь нежизни, опасение нереальности, биологический вопль всех моих клеток, напуганных внутренним раздором, раздроблением и распылением. Ужас непристойной мелкости и мелочности, переполох распада, паника, порождаемая созерцанием обломка, страх перед насилием, тем, которое гнездилось во мне самом, и тем, которое угрожало извне, – а самое главное, мне постоянно сопутствовало, не отставая ни на шаг, нечто, что я мог бы определить как ощущение непрекращающегося передразнивания и издевок клеточек моего существа, насмешливости, присущей разнузданным частям моего тела и аналогичным частям моего духа.
Сон, который докучал мне ночью и разбудил меня, был выражением ужаса.» , роман развивается в роман осознания человеком своего места в мире. Чуть за тридцать Юзек, помнит себя пятнадцатилетнего или шестнадцатилетнего молокососа, и смотрит с позиций своего возраста на того себя-юнца с передразниванием. Это не раздвоение личности, но «внутренняя разрозненность», разлад, способность посмотреть на себя со стороны, но невозможность четкого определения, кто же он.
«А когда я уже совсем пришел в себя и принялся размышлять над собственной жизнью, ужас не уменьшился ни на йоту, но стал еще сильнее, хотя порой его перебивал (или подкреплял) смешок, от которого рот не способен был удержаться. На полдороге жития моего очутился я в чаще темного леса. Лес этот, что хуже всего, был зеленый.
Ибо наяву я был тоже неустоявшийся, разрозненный – как и во сне. Недавно я перешел Рубикон неотвратимого тридцатилетия, миновал верстовой столб, по метрике, по внешности я был человек зрелый, однако же я им не был – ибо чем же я был?»
Далее Гомбрович делает едкое отступление, заслуживающее особого внимания и посвященное писателям и критикам, и в особенности тетушкам-критикессам с категоричностью суждений. Многие писатели считают себя писателями милостью Божией, свалившимися со своими дарованиями на грешную землю. Они стесняются открыть, каким личным поражением, какими уступками, они оплатили право писать. Они не пишут о собственной жизни ни слова, только о чем-то другом. Он отмечает необходимость связи с детскими и юношескими годами, а иначе жизнь, не принимающая в расчет этих ранних лет, этой связи с ними, напоминает дом, строящийся в крыши, и такой подход неотвратимо должен привести к шизофреническом раздвоению личности. Очевидно, что с одной стороны, это говорит об определенной автобиографичности романа, исходя из понимания, что автор не таков, как критикуемые им писатели, а с другой стороны, эта полемика говорит о каком-то противостоянии, диспуте, что создает интерес узнать больше о писателе, его жизни. От писателей и тетушек от культуры, он переходит к культурной публике вообще, этим желеобразным существам, самому страшному слою полуинтеллигентов, чувствительных «только к внешним признакам серьезности.» Так что не ждите, что эта книга академически серьезна. Нет, она иронична, едка, бредова, смешна, карикатурна, издевательска, наивна, незащищенна, если хотите, невинна, абсурдна, ехидна, вздорна, парадоксальна, высосана из пальца, но при этом философски глубока и доверчиво-тревожна.
Говоря о жизни, существовании, как о чем-то постоянно текущем, движущемся, развивающемся, меняющемся, Гомбрович говорит о том, что человек скован своим отражением в душе другого человека, даже если это кретин. «Вот так для одних я был умный, для других глупый, для одних – значительный, для других – едва приметный, для одних – заурядный, для других – аристократичный!»
Рассуждая о Форме в творчестве, Гомбрович вводит в текст Пимко, учителишку, взявшего прочитать рукопись. Как мощно он описывает это сидение автора напротив сидения учителишки, читающего его текст. «Знакома ли вам такая поразительная вещь, когда вы в ком-нибудь уменьшаетесь? Ах, мельчать в тетушке – это нечто дивно непристойное, но мельчать в великом пустопорожнем учителишке – вершина непристойного ничтожества. И я заметил, что учителишка, словно корова, пасется на моей зелени. Престранное чувство – когда учителишка пощипывает твою зелень на лугу, однако же в квартире, сидя на стуле и читая, – однако же пощипывает и пасется. Со мною творилось что-то ужасное, но вне меня – что-то дурацкое, что-то нахально иррациональное. – Дух! – завопил я. – Я! Дух! А не бяка-автор! Дух! Дух живой! Я! – Но он сидел, а сидя, сидел, сидел как-то сидя, он так в сидении своем засиделся, так был в этом сидении абсолютен, что сидение, будучи окончательно глупым, было тем не менее одновременно могущественным.»
Пимко выт��щил записную книжку и поставил автору неуд. И при этом он сидел и сидение его было абсолютным.
«И я сидел в нереальной бессмысленности, словно во сне, с замурованным ртом, ошколенный и вышколенный, сидел на детской попочке, – а он сидел как на Акрополе и что-то заносил в записную книжку. Наконец проговорил:
– Ну, Юзек, вставай, пойдем в школу.»
И вот так он очутился в школе.
Назвав учеников невинными, Пимко «мастерски, как и подобает самым превосходным и искусным учителишкам, с ходу спеленал меня и моих коллег диалектикой и проблематикой, которые надежнее, чем что-нибудь еще, способны затолкнуть в детство.»
А кто же учителя? Безвредные недотепы, с которыми невозможно и минуты проговорить, дважды не зевнув, и ни у кого из них нет собственной мысли.
Что за абсурд? – скажете Вы. Что за абсурдная школа? Что в ней делает взрослый мужчина за тридцать? Как такое возможно? И будете правы. Школа – эта страна, оболваненная тоталитаризмом, общество, поучаемое какими-то недотепами, трясущими перед носом фотографией жены и ребенка, которых непременно погубит ученик, не выучивший урок. Звучит, как бред. Почему Юзек не сбежал из этой школы? Почему ученики не сбегали?
«И я вдруг понял, почему никто из них не мог убежать из этой школы, – это их лица и весь их облик убивали в них возможность побега, каждый был пленником собственной гримасы, и хотя они обязаны были удирать, они этого не делали, поскольку уже не были теми, кем должны были быть. Удирать – значило удирать не только из школы, но прежде всего от самого себя, ох, удрать от самого себя, от сопляка, каковым сделал меня Пимко, покинуть его, опять стать мужчиной, которым я был! Как же, однако, удирать от чего-то, чем ты есть, где отыскать точку опоры, источник сопротивления?»
Рассказчик пытается воспротивиться изнасилованию Сифона через уши. «Тут Сифон на земле, связанный, а тут ты его просвещаешь – насильно, через уши!» Вы понимаете, о каком изнасиловании идет речь. Он пытается отвлечь Ментуса, уговорить его бежать из школы, бежать к парням, пасущим на лугах коней. Вот с этими парнями не до конца понятно. То ли это образ народа, то ли гомосексуальность, так тоже можно трактовать.
Зрелость, форма, искусство – Гомбрович разрушает стереотипы, забитые в школярски-дидактические умы. «Если бы вы, однако, меньше были озабочены Искусством или же обучением и шлифовкой других, а больше собственными жалкими особами, вы никогда бы не прошли мимо столь ужасного насилия над личностью – и поэт не создавал бы поэм для другого поэта, а почувствовал бы себя пронизанным и творимым снизу силами, которых до сих пор не замечал. Он понял бы, что, только познав их, он способен от них освободиться; и приложил бы все старание, чтобы в его стиле, позиции и форме – и художественной и житейской – отчетливо обозначилась бы связь с низким. Он уже не чувствовал бы себя лишь Отцом, но Отцом и одновременно Сыном; и не писал бы только как мудрый, изысканный, зрелый, но, скорее, как Мудрый, все еще оглупляемый. Утонченный, неутомимо огрубляемый, и Взрослый, неустанно омолаживаемый. И если бы, отходя от письменного стола, он встретил бы ненароком юношу или полуинтеллигента, он уже не хлопнул бы их покровительственно, назидательно и учительски по плечу, но, скорее, в святом страхе застонал бы, зарычал, а может, даже и пал бы на колени! Вместо того чтобы бежать от незрелости, замыкаясь в высоких сферах, он понял бы, что универсальный стиль тот, который сумеет любовно обнять недоразвитость. И это привело бы вас в конце концов к форме, так дышащей творчеством и наполненной поэзией, что все бы вы разом превратились в могучих гениев.»
Дуэль на минах, и дуэль Филидора и анти-Филидора (анализа и синтеза), квартирование у Млодзяков с их девицею-современной гимназисткой, явлением могучим, посещение тетушки в имении, в которой Ментус бра..тался с парнем, лакейчиком Валеком, и Юзя анализировал, почему мордобитие составляет основу старопомещичьего уклада, любовь к Зосе с бегством/похищением – не просто сюжетные линии, это своеобразные круги ада, в котором рожи и попочки - отдельная тема. Чем менее Вы серьезны, тем легче воспринимается текст. А он серьезен и полон смыслов.
March 2, 2018
goodreads deki işaretlememe göre kitaba 2016 yılında başlamış son bölüme kadar da okumuşum. ancak hiç hatırlamıyorum. Ne ara başladım neden bitirmedim hiçbir fikrim yok.
Bunu es geçip kitabı ilk defa elime almış gibi okudum ve gerçekten hayran kaldım. İyi ki daha önce okuduğumu hatırlayamadım zira bu kadar keyif alamayabilirdim.
İnanılmaz bir kitap. Şöyle yüzeyden bakarsanız 16 yaşına uyanan 30 yaşında bir yazar önce bir okula kaydedilir, bir arkadaşı ile okuldan kaçar teyzesinin taşradaki evine sığınır ve oradan da teyzesinin kızı ile kaçar gibi görünse de hiç de böyle değil. Aslında hiçbir kalıba sığmayan ama hakkında çok şey söylenebilecek bir eser. kitabın iki yerinde bir es vermiş yazar önsözü ile birlikte. Kitaba bir simetri bir temel kurarak yapıyı ayakta tutmuş yoksa o kadar esnek bir yapı ki nerden tutacağınızı bilemiyorsunuz adeta.
Kitabın isminin doğru tellafuzunu da epeyce aradım bunun yanında ne anlama geldiğini de kitap boyunca görür müyüm diye ümitlendim ama yok. Sanırım yazar kurgusuna bir uydurma kılıf giydirmek istemiş.
Bunu es geçip kitabı ilk defa elime almış gibi okudum ve gerçekten hayran kaldım. İyi ki daha önce okuduğumu hatırlayamadım zira bu kadar keyif alamayabilirdim.
İnanılmaz bir kitap. Şöyle yüzeyden bakarsanız 16 yaşına uyanan 30 yaşında bir yazar önce bir okula kaydedilir, bir arkadaşı ile okuldan kaçar teyzesinin taşradaki evine sığınır ve oradan da teyzesinin kızı ile kaçar gibi görünse de hiç de böyle değil. Aslında hiçbir kalıba sığmayan ama hakkında çok şey söylenebilecek bir eser. kitabın iki yerinde bir es vermiş yazar önsözü ile birlikte. Kitaba bir simetri bir temel kurarak yapıyı ayakta tutmuş yoksa o kadar esnek bir yapı ki nerden tutacağınızı bilemiyorsunuz adeta.
Kitabın isminin doğru tellafuzunu da epeyce aradım bunun yanında ne anlama geldiğini de kitap boyunca görür müyüm diye ümitlendim ama yok. Sanırım yazar kurgusuna bir uydurma kılıf giydirmek istemiş.
October 1, 2022
jaka niebanalna! gdzieś w połowie przestałam rozumieć, więc zaczęłam po prostu czytać i dobrze się bawić 🤙 Gombrowicz rel, masz łeb jak sklep ;)
August 14, 2017
Ferdydurke appeared in Germany without commentary to explain briefly “what it is about”—thus some critics and readers did not know where to begin.
I think about the basic assumptions of Ferdydurke regarding criticism and I can endorse them without reservation. There are enough innocent works that enter life looking as if they did not know that they would be raped by a thousand idiotic assessments!
To avoid this kind of assessment I decided to let Witold Gombrowicz speak about Ferdydurke himself. Everything you’ll read or have already read in this “review” (except for this paragraph and the very last one) I lifted from his Diary. Forgive me, W.G.!
In Ferdydurke, two loves fight with each other, two strivings: the striving for maturity and the striving for eternally rejuvenating immaturity. This book is the image of the battle for the maturity of someone who is in love with his own immaturity.
As long as you understand Ferdydurke as a battle with convention, it will trot calmly down the well-beaten path; but if you understand that man creates himself with another man in the sense of the wildest debauchery, Ferdydurke will neigh and leap forward as if you had jabbed it with a spur, carrying you off into the realm of the Unpredictable. Ferdydurke is more a form-element than a form-convention.
I had crossed Ferdydurke out of my life. Now I read it again, line after line, and its words meant nothing to me. The nothingness of words. The nothingness of ideas, problems, styles, attitudes, the nothingness of art. Words, words, words.
[Ferdydurke is] a book that is unusually difficult and, what is more, is misleading and deceptive.
I wrote Ferdydurke in the years 1936–37, when no one knew anything about [Existentialism]. In spite of this, Ferdydurke is existential to the marrow. Critics, I will help you in determining why Ferdydurke is existential: because man is created by people and because people mutually form themselves. This is precisely existence and not essence. Ferdydurke is existence in a vacuum, that is, nothing except existence. That is why, in this book practically all the basic themes of existentialism play fortissimo: becoming, creating oneself, freedom, fear, absurdity, nothingness… with the single difference that in addition to the typical existential “spheres” of human life, like Heidegger’s banal and authentic life, Kierkegaard’s aesthetic, ethical, and religious life, or Jaspers’s “spheres,” there is yet another sphere, namely, the “sphere of immaturity.”
The ending of Ferdydurke is not gratuitous: “I fled, my face in my hands.”
I expect the future scientific world to confirm what Ferdydurke proclaims about a distance to form and about not identifying with it. Tomorrow’s art, the art of deformed people, will rise under this sign....
It is not worth carrying on about Ferdydurke, which is a circus and not a philosophy.
*flees, his face in his hands*
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
I think about the basic assumptions of Ferdydurke regarding criticism and I can endorse them without reservation. There are enough innocent works that enter life looking as if they did not know that they would be raped by a thousand idiotic assessments!
To avoid this kind of assessment I decided to let Witold Gombrowicz speak about Ferdydurke himself. Everything you’ll read or have already read in this “review” (except for this paragraph and the very last one) I lifted from his Diary. Forgive me, W.G.!
In Ferdydurke, two loves fight with each other, two strivings: the striving for maturity and the striving for eternally rejuvenating immaturity. This book is the image of the battle for the maturity of someone who is in love with his own immaturity.
As long as you understand Ferdydurke as a battle with convention, it will trot calmly down the well-beaten path; but if you understand that man creates himself with another man in the sense of the wildest debauchery, Ferdydurke will neigh and leap forward as if you had jabbed it with a spur, carrying you off into the realm of the Unpredictable. Ferdydurke is more a form-element than a form-convention.
I had crossed Ferdydurke out of my life. Now I read it again, line after line, and its words meant nothing to me. The nothingness of words. The nothingness of ideas, problems, styles, attitudes, the nothingness of art. Words, words, words.
[Ferdydurke is] a book that is unusually difficult and, what is more, is misleading and deceptive.
I wrote Ferdydurke in the years 1936–37, when no one knew anything about [Existentialism]. In spite of this, Ferdydurke is existential to the marrow. Critics, I will help you in determining why Ferdydurke is existential: because man is created by people and because people mutually form themselves. This is precisely existence and not essence. Ferdydurke is existence in a vacuum, that is, nothing except existence. That is why, in this book practically all the basic themes of existentialism play fortissimo: becoming, creating oneself, freedom, fear, absurdity, nothingness… with the single difference that in addition to the typical existential “spheres” of human life, like Heidegger’s banal and authentic life, Kierkegaard’s aesthetic, ethical, and religious life, or Jaspers’s “spheres,” there is yet another sphere, namely, the “sphere of immaturity.”
The ending of Ferdydurke is not gratuitous: “I fled, my face in my hands.”
I expect the future scientific world to confirm what Ferdydurke proclaims about a distance to form and about not identifying with it. Tomorrow’s art, the art of deformed people, will rise under this sign....
It is not worth carrying on about Ferdydurke, which is a circus and not a philosophy.
*flees, his face in his hands*
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
March 30, 2023
It scratches my brain in a funny way
Read
November 1, 2016Chciałbym rozumieć więcej z tego co przeczytałem.
Może w szkole (che che che) mi powiedzą
Może w szkole (che che che) mi powiedzą
September 6, 2018
Okyanus diplerindeki ışıksız ortam ucubelerinin güzelliği var bunda demek isterken beni alıkoyuveren bir şey tarafından şunu demeye zorlanıyorum:Dis iz Ferdidurka! Childish Gombrino yapmış yapacağını. Bunu demezsem, yani ciddi ciddi, okur okur, tumturaklı tumturaklı, altını çize çize konuşursam, bu kitabın kafa bulduğu, tiye aldığı, maytap geçtiği tiplerden biri olarak kendi kendimin koca :Popolu bir karikatürüne dönüşeceğim. Astarım yüzümden pahalıya çıkacak :P Bye.
December 11, 2021
niezłe to było!!
hejt na system edukacji i na zabijanie w ludziach autentyczności na rzecz ‚formy’ zawsze doceniać trzeba
hejt na system edukacji i na zabijanie w ludziach autentyczności na rzecz ‚formy’ zawsze doceniać trzeba
April 19, 2022
Nie rozumiem nic, ale buja
September 12, 2018
yazılış tarzı itibariyle fazlasıyla erken bir romanmış ferdydurke, o nedenle de uzun yıllar yasaklı kalmış. özellikle ilk baştaki okul ve öğretmen anlatımı çok iyiydi bence.
ama asıl iyi çeviri nasıl olur diye okunabilir. osman fırat baş harikalar yaratmış.
ama asıl iyi çeviri nasıl olur diye okunabilir. osman fırat baş harikalar yaratmış.
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January 8, 2018Akıl almaz bir şeylerin anti-manifestosu ve aynı zamanda sıra dışı bir manifesto. Neler olduğunu ve olan şeylerin neden olduğunu, kimin neyi ve neyin kimi temsil ettiğini, hangi kelimenin hangi anlamlara gelip, hangilerinin hangi anlamlara gelmediğini çözmeye çalışırken kitap da bitiyor. Gözleri pörtlek okuyucu elinde bitmiş bir kitapla ve bir sürü anlamını kaybetmiş, yamulmuş, erimiş ve ezilip büzülmüş, tersine dönmüş soru işareti ile baş başa kalıyor. Anlayabilene aşk olsun
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April 2, 2023"za dziwactwa się płaci, pierniku" i feel like a piernik after reading this book...
April 12, 2022
Średnio zrozumiałam *tu wstaw Małgorzatę Kożuchowską*
Aczkolwiek końcówka mi się całkiem podobała
Aczkolwiek końcówka mi się całkiem podobała
July 16, 2011
Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969) is considered as one of the most important literary figures in Poland. Ferdydurke was his first novel and he published this in 1937 when he was 33 years old. Two years after its publication Russian invaded Poland and turned it into a communist country. Poland subsequently banned this book so Gombrowicz hid in Argentina and France.
Ferdydurke is a darkly satirical comedy that is considered modernist. The main protagonist and the narrator of the story, Joey Kawalski is a 30-y/o writer. His professor hypnotizes him and under the spell, turns him back to his teenage years and a high school pupil. At that stage, Gombrowicz makes references to a pupa. As the plot unfolds, he experiences again all the angst, franks, bullying and sexual awakening (including reliving his first love) of an adolescent. In telling the story of Joey's life, Gombrowicz explores identity and cultural mores and the shaping of people's lives by form. The prose is playful but I just could not understand many of the things mentioned which I guess (based on the information in the first paragraph) are attacks to the Poland political and societal elites or maybe to the communist-run government. There are brilliant parts especially when Joey suddenly shifts from first person narration to directly addressing his reader. It is also my first time to laugh at the end of the novel upon reading this line:
Bottomline, for its historical perspective and for sampling an important Polish novel, it's a worthwhile read. No regrets reading this at all.
Ferdydurke is a darkly satirical comedy that is considered modernist. The main protagonist and the narrator of the story, Joey Kawalski is a 30-y/o writer. His professor hypnotizes him and under the spell, turns him back to his teenage years and a high school pupil. At that stage, Gombrowicz makes references to a pupa. As the plot unfolds, he experiences again all the angst, franks, bullying and sexual awakening (including reliving his first love) of an adolescent. In telling the story of Joey's life, Gombrowicz explores identity and cultural mores and the shaping of people's lives by form. The prose is playful but I just could not understand many of the things mentioned which I guess (based on the information in the first paragraph) are attacks to the Poland political and societal elites or maybe to the communist-run government. There are brilliant parts especially when Joey suddenly shifts from first person narration to directly addressing his reader. It is also my first time to laugh at the end of the novel upon reading this line:
"It's the end, what a gas
And who's read it is an ass!"
Imagine reading 281 pages of this book and missing maybe third of what it says, then being referred to as an ass! ha ha
Bottomline, for its historical perspective and for sampling an important Polish novel, it's a worthwhile read. No regrets reading this at all.
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August 15, 2023A Rare Willingness to Ruin Form
This was the third or fourth of Gombrowicz's books that I've read. If it weren't for modernism's (and even postmodernism's) ongoing earnest self-regard, this book would be read alongside Finnegans Wake and other prewar novels that are postmodern avant la lettre. But Gombrowicz's theme in this book prevents him from displaying the sort of formal mastery and control that continues to be expected from maximalist and experimental authors in the wake of early 20th c. modernism. Formal mastery, even if it's "fractal" (Wallace's claim about "Infinite Jest") or paranoiac (Pynchon) continues to be expected from writers who work with long forms. Gombrowicz knew these expectations perfectly well: after all, the exemplary modernist work when he wrote was "Ulysses," which has comedy, but also a stupendous architecture and an arrogant seriousness of purpose. I imagine Gombrowicz suspected that he was closing doors on himself as he wrote.
The closest to "Ferdydurke" in this respect is Flann O'Brien's novel "At Swim-Two-Birds," published two years after "Ferdydurke" in 1939. It's also vertiginously out of control of its own form, and hysterical about its own humor. I'm not aware of literature comparing them: if anyone knows, please email me.
"Ferdydurke's" protagonist is a serious young novelist who cares about form, and there is a long interpolated chapter in the author's voice (the first "Preface"), theorizing the importance of form. And yet the book is dedicated to a theme that makes form, seriousness, and the conventional aims of ambition inaccessible or illegible: the fragile, undependable nature of maturity, and how it can be so easily ripped, exposing us to the frantic, ridiculous, misshapen world of immaturity, with its bottomless embarrassments, its awkwardnesses, itches, giggles, blushes, and toilet noises.
Personally, I haven't spent much time worrying that I might be infantilized, so this is not a theme I recognize well from my own experience. But it is presented throughout the novel as both the narrator's and the author's special fear. Because I don't especially share this concern, "Ferdydurke" doesn't quite work for me as I imagine Gombrowicz hoped it would for his ideal reader. The author and the narrator feel the need to insist that their anxiety and obsession are transparent and universal. What matters, in the end, is not whether or not I share the protagonist's continuous and always justified fear that he will be "dealt the pupa" (Gombrowicz's wonderful personal code for the humiliating act of being infantilized). What counts is that "Ferdydurke" makes the supposedly bizarre and infantile things that take place make other recent fiction (I'm thinking of Smith or Knausgaard) seem misguidedly stolid and adult. Real comedy is corrosive. Skillful, hyper-eloquent comedy, as in "McSweeny's," is safe by comparison with this book: it's securely mature and annoyingly immune to being dealt the pupa.
In line with its hopeless dedication to form in a formless world, the book has lumps and pieces that don't belong, such as the set-piece called "The Child Runs Deep in Filidor," and the hysterical encounter with "the schoolgirl" in chapter 6-10. They are sometimes stronger than the intervening material, because they have the form that the narrator otherwise loses. The mass of material in "Ferdydurke" comes to seem more like the necessary vomit of excess, excess's proof of its own excessiveness.
This was the third or fourth of Gombrowicz's books that I've read. If it weren't for modernism's (and even postmodernism's) ongoing earnest self-regard, this book would be read alongside Finnegans Wake and other prewar novels that are postmodern avant la lettre. But Gombrowicz's theme in this book prevents him from displaying the sort of formal mastery and control that continues to be expected from maximalist and experimental authors in the wake of early 20th c. modernism. Formal mastery, even if it's "fractal" (Wallace's claim about "Infinite Jest") or paranoiac (Pynchon) continues to be expected from writers who work with long forms. Gombrowicz knew these expectations perfectly well: after all, the exemplary modernist work when he wrote was "Ulysses," which has comedy, but also a stupendous architecture and an arrogant seriousness of purpose. I imagine Gombrowicz suspected that he was closing doors on himself as he wrote.
The closest to "Ferdydurke" in this respect is Flann O'Brien's novel "At Swim-Two-Birds," published two years after "Ferdydurke" in 1939. It's also vertiginously out of control of its own form, and hysterical about its own humor. I'm not aware of literature comparing them: if anyone knows, please email me.
"Ferdydurke's" protagonist is a serious young novelist who cares about form, and there is a long interpolated chapter in the author's voice (the first "Preface"), theorizing the importance of form. And yet the book is dedicated to a theme that makes form, seriousness, and the conventional aims of ambition inaccessible or illegible: the fragile, undependable nature of maturity, and how it can be so easily ripped, exposing us to the frantic, ridiculous, misshapen world of immaturity, with its bottomless embarrassments, its awkwardnesses, itches, giggles, blushes, and toilet noises.
Personally, I haven't spent much time worrying that I might be infantilized, so this is not a theme I recognize well from my own experience. But it is presented throughout the novel as both the narrator's and the author's special fear. Because I don't especially share this concern, "Ferdydurke" doesn't quite work for me as I imagine Gombrowicz hoped it would for his ideal reader. The author and the narrator feel the need to insist that their anxiety and obsession are transparent and universal. What matters, in the end, is not whether or not I share the protagonist's continuous and always justified fear that he will be "dealt the pupa" (Gombrowicz's wonderful personal code for the humiliating act of being infantilized). What counts is that "Ferdydurke" makes the supposedly bizarre and infantile things that take place make other recent fiction (I'm thinking of Smith or Knausgaard) seem misguidedly stolid and adult. Real comedy is corrosive. Skillful, hyper-eloquent comedy, as in "McSweeny's," is safe by comparison with this book: it's securely mature and annoyingly immune to being dealt the pupa.
In line with its hopeless dedication to form in a formless world, the book has lumps and pieces that don't belong, such as the set-piece called "The Child Runs Deep in Filidor," and the hysterical encounter with "the schoolgirl" in chapter 6-10. They are sometimes stronger than the intervening material, because they have the form that the narrator otherwise loses. The mass of material in "Ferdydurke" comes to seem more like the necessary vomit of excess, excess's proof of its own excessiveness.
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October 18, 2018I didn't finish it (well, I did "read" it): it finished me. So:
NR (No Rating)
A first for me, this No Rating. And though my index finger twitches on my mouse, dying to rate it if it but could, but how could it? How can anyone's index finger click on any rating? It almost begs to be given one star, cos, Oh my GR-systematizers, how can you, I or anyone like (or "like") this book? So one star should work, cos not only did "I did not like it" occur here, it is, (objectively speaking now!) positively unlikeable and designed to be thus. It has been crafted so as to be puerile in its lampooning of puerility, infantile in its aping of infantility, callow in its critique of callowness, and unbelievably silly in its refusal to refuse unbelievable silliness: "Go ahead, you ass!" this book commands, "go ahead and give me one pooping star, smack me a good one right in the pupa (an untranslatable word—one that invades your readerly space exactly 96 times in the novel, though that number seems far, far lower than it should, believe me—but roughly it means "ass" or "toosh"): I dare you! I beg you! I disdain you! Pupa, pupa! Pupas, pupas! Whee! Whee! Whee!"
And so on (not an exact quote, but you get the picture)….
But nor this book would cease mocking you if, nodding sagely like a Prof as you read it, stroking your scholarly chin as you congratulated your mature self on congratulating this novel for its zany immaturity, telling yourself, when you gasp for breath over the finish line (I have not yet recovered my own) that you are giving it the full five stars that its indubitable canonicity deserves—But, "It was Amazing!"? How on earth could it be amazing unless you were told that it had to be amazing because it has amazed so many others before you that, if you did not find it amazing, there is simply something wrong with you and your capacity to be amazed and not with this "novel", or "anti-novel" which is also an "anti-anti-novel" and its capacity to amaze you, you ass! If you are credulous enough to be amazed by this you'd probably be amazed by pretty much anything, wouldn't you? And that would make you either a callow, puerile, infantile or silly, or all of the above. Like me.
Seriously, though, if reading those first two paragraphs annoyed you even remotely as much as it annoyed me to write them, boy are you in for a treat with this blasted book! I read it cos I am making it a project to read or re-read everything that Milan Kundera raves about—and so far, he's been an excellent guide to excellence: Cervantes, Fielding, Sterne, Flaubert, Broch, Kafka and the bits of Musil that I have read have not disappointed. Did Ferdydurke disappoint, though? Absolutely. Can I see why Kundera lauds it so? Kinda, though I can certainly spot the influence: the disenchantment of the "soul" and the tyranny of the body, a distrust of the culture of youth, the tension between seriousness and laughter, etc. But for the life of me I cannot picture MK re-reading this book: as clever as it may or may not be (OK, part of me says (see para 2), "must surely be"), it just does not promise to reward too close a reading, let alone multiple readings, I'd wager.
For me, the best bits were the most "serious", and theoretical: the two "Prefaces" to "stories" that are bundled in with the rest of the text. Don't get me wrong, though, cose these Prefaces are still really, really silly, but they seem to approach (if not affirm) coherence and (dare I say it?) wholeness at times (PK, a wholeness of parts, of assembled fragments, a wholeness at least in the sense that every book has some kind of cover, and binding!):
NR (No Rating)
A first for me, this No Rating. And though my index finger twitches on my mouse, dying to rate it if it but could, but how could it? How can anyone's index finger click on any rating? It almost begs to be given one star, cos, Oh my GR-systematizers, how can you, I or anyone like (or "like") this book? So one star should work, cos not only did "I did not like it" occur here, it is, (objectively speaking now!) positively unlikeable and designed to be thus. It has been crafted so as to be puerile in its lampooning of puerility, infantile in its aping of infantility, callow in its critique of callowness, and unbelievably silly in its refusal to refuse unbelievable silliness: "Go ahead, you ass!" this book commands, "go ahead and give me one pooping star, smack me a good one right in the pupa (an untranslatable word—one that invades your readerly space exactly 96 times in the novel, though that number seems far, far lower than it should, believe me—but roughly it means "ass" or "toosh"): I dare you! I beg you! I disdain you! Pupa, pupa! Pupas, pupas! Whee! Whee! Whee!"
And so on (not an exact quote, but you get the picture)….
But nor this book would cease mocking you if, nodding sagely like a Prof as you read it, stroking your scholarly chin as you congratulated your mature self on congratulating this novel for its zany immaturity, telling yourself, when you gasp for breath over the finish line (I have not yet recovered my own) that you are giving it the full five stars that its indubitable canonicity deserves—But, "It was Amazing!"? How on earth could it be amazing unless you were told that it had to be amazing because it has amazed so many others before you that, if you did not find it amazing, there is simply something wrong with you and your capacity to be amazed and not with this "novel", or "anti-novel" which is also an "anti-anti-novel" and its capacity to amaze you, you ass! If you are credulous enough to be amazed by this you'd probably be amazed by pretty much anything, wouldn't you? And that would make you either a callow, puerile, infantile or silly, or all of the above. Like me.
Seriously, though, if reading those first two paragraphs annoyed you even remotely as much as it annoyed me to write them, boy are you in for a treat with this blasted book! I read it cos I am making it a project to read or re-read everything that Milan Kundera raves about—and so far, he's been an excellent guide to excellence: Cervantes, Fielding, Sterne, Flaubert, Broch, Kafka and the bits of Musil that I have read have not disappointed. Did Ferdydurke disappoint, though? Absolutely. Can I see why Kundera lauds it so? Kinda, though I can certainly spot the influence: the disenchantment of the "soul" and the tyranny of the body, a distrust of the culture of youth, the tension between seriousness and laughter, etc. But for the life of me I cannot picture MK re-reading this book: as clever as it may or may not be (OK, part of me says (see para 2), "must surely be"), it just does not promise to reward too close a reading, let alone multiple readings, I'd wager.
For me, the best bits were the most "serious", and theoretical: the two "Prefaces" to "stories" that are bundled in with the rest of the text. Don't get me wrong, though, cose these Prefaces are still really, really silly, but they seem to approach (if not affirm) coherence and (dare I say it?) wholeness at times (PK, a wholeness of parts, of assembled fragments, a wholeness at least in the sense that every book has some kind of cover, and binding!):
And I recommend repetition as the method for enhancing the vigor of your work, because by systematically repeating certain words, phrases, situations, and parts I intensify them, thereby heightening the impression of uniformity of style to the point of near-mania. It’s by means of repetition, repetition that mythology is most readily created! Take note, however, that this construction from particles is not a mere construction, it is actually an entire philosophy which I’ll present here in the frivolous and frothy form of a carefree magazine article. But what do you think, tell me—in your opinion, doesn’t the reader assimilate parts only, and only partly at that? He reads a part, or a piece of it, then stops, only to resume reading another piece later, and, as so often happens, he starts from the middle or from the end, then backtracks to the beginning. Quite often he’ll read a couple of segments then toss the book aside, not because he has lost interest in it, but because something else came to his mind. And even if he were to read the whole—do you think that he can visualize it in its entirety and appreciate the relationship and harmony of its individual parts unless he hears it from an expert? Is it for this that an author toils for years, cuts his material and bends it into shape, tears it apart and patches it up again, sweats and agonizes over it—so that an expert may tell the reader that its construction is good? (70)Though his tongue is firmly in his own pupa here, the serious-minded reader in us can almost make out something in it, no?—No. (Un)like, say, in the bizarre, sub-Candide picaresquing about of the hero, as he is transformed from a "normal" thirty year old into a seventeen year-old schoolboy who is subjected to inane "adventures" at school, at the home of his landlord, and (I think? Cos near the end of this Festival of the Id it became hard to tell) in search of an abducted farmhand. And then….
A Retreat. I have a hunch (but I don’t know whether my lips should confess it now) that the time for a Universal Retreat is at hand. The son of earth will henceforth understand that he is not expressing himself in harmony with his deepest being but always in accordance with some artificial form painfully thrust upon him from without, either by people or by circumstances. He will then dread that form of his and feel ashamed of it, much as he had thus far idolized and flaunted it. We will soon fear our persons and our personalities, because it will become apparent that they are by no means truly our own. And instead of roaring: “I believe in this—I feel it—that’s how I am—I’m ready to defend it,” we will say in all humility: “Maybe I believe in it—maybe I feel it—I happened to say it, to do it, or to think it.” The bard will scorn his own songAnd so must the hypocrite reader scorn himself: in the end, WG teaches us that for all our desire for wholeness and unity, we have nothing but our "mugs" (the faces we pull), our fists and our blasted, infantile yearnings, while our blessed, immaculatley conceived Arts are nothing but poses, and/or an assembly of irreconcilable parts. Then he ends by farting in our general direction:
Because there is no escape from the mug, other than into another mug, and from a human being one can only take shelter in the arms of another human being. From the pupa, however, there is absolutely no escape. Chase me if you want. I’m running away, mug in my hands.Like I said: no stars. Or as many as you want, fellow Yahoos mine, to throw at it. Like so much feces. Or whatever. Whee!
It’s the end, what a gas,
And who’s read it is an ass!
September 1, 2019
Ferdydurke kocaman bir ok yığını. Öyle kenarda atılmayı bekleyen oklar değil ama, hedefe saplanmış tam içine geçmiş. Pek çok şey var bu okların ucunda: otorite, modernlik, efendilik, köylülük, toplum baskısı, beklentiler, olgunluk.. Bütün bunları 30 yasında iken bir sabah 16 yasına uyanan Josef’in bakışından görüyoruz. Karikatürize edilmiş olaylar ise özünde iç içe aslında. Hepsi birbirini besliyor bir şekilde. Yeni bir başlangıç için kolektif bir ters düz etme lazım. Ama nasıl? Belki de böyle bir şey mümkün olamaz kim bilir.
Okuması dikkat isteyen, koskaca bir kara mizah bu kitap. Belki alışılan romanlar gibi değil ama farklı bir şekilde bakmak, düşünmek isteyenlerin seveceğini düşünüyorum.
Okuması dikkat isteyen, koskaca bir kara mizah bu kitap. Belki alışılan romanlar gibi değil ama farklı bir şekilde bakmak, düşünmek isteyenlerin seveceğini düşünüyorum.
July 6, 2021
Diario del periodo della maturazione
"cercate di superare la forma, di liberarvene! Smettetela di identificarvi con ciò che vi definisce! (...) La nostra specialità è l'eterna immaturità. Ciò che pensiamo e sentiamo oggi sarà una stupidaggine per i nostri pronipoti. Meglio dunque ammettere fin d'ora quella parte di stupidaggine che il tempo porterà con sé.(...) Presto ci renderemo conto che l'importante non è morire per idee, stili, tesi, slogan e fedi, e neanche fortificarsene e barricarcisi dentro, ma fare un passo indietro e prendere le distanze da tutto ciò che costantemente ci accade. Indietro. Sento che è imminente il tempo del Grande Arretramento. Il figlio della terra capirà di non esprimersi secondo la sua più profonda natura, ma sempre e soltanto secondo una forma finta e dolorosamente imposta dall'esterno, dalla gente e dalle circostanze. Incomincerà allora ad avere paura e a vergognarsi di quella stessa forma che fino ad allora, andandovene fiero, avrà venerato. Presto incominceremo a temere le nostre persone e personalità essendoci finalmente chiaro che non sono del tutto nostre. E invece di gridare "Io dico così, io sento così, io sono fatto così, io la penso così" diremo con umiltà "A me sembra, io ho l'impressione, mi verrebbe da dire, io farei così".
Giuso, ragazzo trentenne ancora in fase di affermazione di sé stesso, decide di scrivere un libro fedele alla propria forma e natura, per meglio comunicare agli adulti chi è e definirsi in qualche modo davanti a loro, affermarsi come scrittore e prendere una posizione nella società. Ahimé, il libro non riscontra il successo desiderato perché non risponde alla forma e alla natura predefinita, non ha trame incitanti e non si mette alla disposizione estetica dell'Arte! Anche se non espressamente detto ma come spesso accade, il libro in questione è proprio "Ferdydurke", dal titolo oscuro e che personalmente non ho la più pallida idea a cosa si riferisce! Com'è allora questo libro di Giuso mal accolto?
E' sicuramente strano, perché non segue una forma compatta ma è frammentato, proprio per andare contro le tendenze, per rompere gli schemi e dar vita ad un'altra modalità di espressione fatta di parti, di frammenti, perché tutto è solo una parte di un intero, compresi noi stessi che siamo una parte della natura. Giuso, inspiegabilmente si ritrova a essere un adolescente trentenne in un mondo di adulti immaturi che finiscono puntualmente a prendersi a schiaffi! Infatti tutte le scene hanno questo buffo, grottesco e infantile epilogo. Questa parodia che lui mette in scena assesta dei colpi profondi alla società che viene ridicolizzata, all'istituzione scolastica che viene descritta come vecchia, obsoleta e strategicamente pianificata di modo che gli allievi non coltivino mai un proprio pensiero, viene massacrato tutto il mondo culturale: gli scrittori mediocri, gli artisti mediocri, i critici mediocri e che non vedono al di là del proprio naso! E poi, la maturità cos'è di preciso?! E' la normalità? Esiste la normalità o è solo "una corda tesa sopra l'abisso dell'anormalità"? La normalità, l'ordine, le regole civili sono solo una prigione che intrappola la freschezza e la natura più profonda dell'uomo. La maturità cambia il nostro viso, si inizia ad atteggiare e a fare smorfie, a mettere maschere su maschere, a seguire il "quieto vivere" e conseguentemente a perdere di vista noi stessi. I punti sui quali Gombrowicz riflette sono tanti, e se nella gran parte del libro lo fa velatamente e scherzosamente, attraverso i due capitoli portanti del libro "Filidor foderato d'infanzia" e "Filibert foderato d'infanzia" con relative Premesse, il discorso prende una vera e propria piega filosofica che nasconde anche il senso più profondo del libro. Questi quattro capitoli inframmezzati nella prima e nella seconda parte del testo, analoghi, rappresentano la base che sorregge il tutto. Per tutti questi motivi, la lettura di questo strambo ma bellissimo libro, mi ha ricordato Kafka -impossibile non associare Giuso a Gregor di "la Metamorfosi"- ma anche Thomas Bernhard per la ferocia ustionante, corrosiva con la quale accusa istituzioni e mondo culturale e artistico e per l'ostilità verso la natura.
Spendo le ultime parole per la prosa: innovativa, fresca, giocosa, a tratti poetica a tratti un gioco di scioglilingua assurdo, mi ha ricordato molto quella di Nabokov, maestro giocoliere della parola.
"Il silenzio è tale che si sentono persino le pietre fredde e scivolose affondare nel terreno. Cammino senza sapere più nulla, nelle orecchie il fischio del vento, il ritmo dei passi mi culla... La natura. Non la voglio la natura, per me la natura sono le persone, Mentino, torniamo, preferisco la calca del cinematografo all'ozono dei campi. Chi ha detto che di fronte alla natura l'uomo diventa piccolo? Al contrario io cresco, divento enorme e più delicato, mi sento come spogliato e offerto sul vassoio delle immense distese naturali in tutta la mia umana innaturalezza, oh, dov'è il mio bosco, la mia brughiera di occhi, bocche, parole, sguardi, facce, sorrisi e smorfie?"
"cercate di superare la forma, di liberarvene! Smettetela di identificarvi con ciò che vi definisce! (...) La nostra specialità è l'eterna immaturità. Ciò che pensiamo e sentiamo oggi sarà una stupidaggine per i nostri pronipoti. Meglio dunque ammettere fin d'ora quella parte di stupidaggine che il tempo porterà con sé.(...) Presto ci renderemo conto che l'importante non è morire per idee, stili, tesi, slogan e fedi, e neanche fortificarsene e barricarcisi dentro, ma fare un passo indietro e prendere le distanze da tutto ciò che costantemente ci accade. Indietro. Sento che è imminente il tempo del Grande Arretramento. Il figlio della terra capirà di non esprimersi secondo la sua più profonda natura, ma sempre e soltanto secondo una forma finta e dolorosamente imposta dall'esterno, dalla gente e dalle circostanze. Incomincerà allora ad avere paura e a vergognarsi di quella stessa forma che fino ad allora, andandovene fiero, avrà venerato. Presto incominceremo a temere le nostre persone e personalità essendoci finalmente chiaro che non sono del tutto nostre. E invece di gridare "Io dico così, io sento così, io sono fatto così, io la penso così" diremo con umiltà "A me sembra, io ho l'impressione, mi verrebbe da dire, io farei così".
Giuso, ragazzo trentenne ancora in fase di affermazione di sé stesso, decide di scrivere un libro fedele alla propria forma e natura, per meglio comunicare agli adulti chi è e definirsi in qualche modo davanti a loro, affermarsi come scrittore e prendere una posizione nella società. Ahimé, il libro non riscontra il successo desiderato perché non risponde alla forma e alla natura predefinita, non ha trame incitanti e non si mette alla disposizione estetica dell'Arte! Anche se non espressamente detto ma come spesso accade, il libro in questione è proprio "Ferdydurke", dal titolo oscuro e che personalmente non ho la più pallida idea a cosa si riferisce! Com'è allora questo libro di Giuso mal accolto?
E' sicuramente strano, perché non segue una forma compatta ma è frammentato, proprio per andare contro le tendenze, per rompere gli schemi e dar vita ad un'altra modalità di espressione fatta di parti, di frammenti, perché tutto è solo una parte di un intero, compresi noi stessi che siamo una parte della natura. Giuso, inspiegabilmente si ritrova a essere un adolescente trentenne in un mondo di adulti immaturi che finiscono puntualmente a prendersi a schiaffi! Infatti tutte le scene hanno questo buffo, grottesco e infantile epilogo. Questa parodia che lui mette in scena assesta dei colpi profondi alla società che viene ridicolizzata, all'istituzione scolastica che viene descritta come vecchia, obsoleta e strategicamente pianificata di modo che gli allievi non coltivino mai un proprio pensiero, viene massacrato tutto il mondo culturale: gli scrittori mediocri, gli artisti mediocri, i critici mediocri e che non vedono al di là del proprio naso! E poi, la maturità cos'è di preciso?! E' la normalità? Esiste la normalità o è solo "una corda tesa sopra l'abisso dell'anormalità"? La normalità, l'ordine, le regole civili sono solo una prigione che intrappola la freschezza e la natura più profonda dell'uomo. La maturità cambia il nostro viso, si inizia ad atteggiare e a fare smorfie, a mettere maschere su maschere, a seguire il "quieto vivere" e conseguentemente a perdere di vista noi stessi. I punti sui quali Gombrowicz riflette sono tanti, e se nella gran parte del libro lo fa velatamente e scherzosamente, attraverso i due capitoli portanti del libro "Filidor foderato d'infanzia" e "Filibert foderato d'infanzia" con relative Premesse, il discorso prende una vera e propria piega filosofica che nasconde anche il senso più profondo del libro. Questi quattro capitoli inframmezzati nella prima e nella seconda parte del testo, analoghi, rappresentano la base che sorregge il tutto. Per tutti questi motivi, la lettura di questo strambo ma bellissimo libro, mi ha ricordato Kafka -impossibile non associare Giuso a Gregor di "la Metamorfosi"- ma anche Thomas Bernhard per la ferocia ustionante, corrosiva con la quale accusa istituzioni e mondo culturale e artistico e per l'ostilità verso la natura.
Spendo le ultime parole per la prosa: innovativa, fresca, giocosa, a tratti poetica a tratti un gioco di scioglilingua assurdo, mi ha ricordato molto quella di Nabokov, maestro giocoliere della parola.
"Il silenzio è tale che si sentono persino le pietre fredde e scivolose affondare nel terreno. Cammino senza sapere più nulla, nelle orecchie il fischio del vento, il ritmo dei passi mi culla... La natura. Non la voglio la natura, per me la natura sono le persone, Mentino, torniamo, preferisco la calca del cinematografo all'ozono dei campi. Chi ha detto che di fronte alla natura l'uomo diventa piccolo? Al contrario io cresco, divento enorme e più delicato, mi sento come spogliato e offerto sul vassoio delle immense distese naturali in tutta la mia umana innaturalezza, oh, dov'è il mio bosco, la mia brughiera di occhi, bocche, parole, sguardi, facce, sorrisi e smorfie?"
August 24, 2020
Basılı kağıtlar, kültürel teyzeler, çeyrek yazarlar, yarım eleştirmenler, toprak sahjplerinin, kolejli kız öğrencilerin, küçük memurların, taşra avukatlarının, talebelerin, ihtiyarların, gazetecilerin, doktor hanımların ezberlenmiş yargıları üzerine bir satir... "Anılar! İnsanlığın laneti şu ki bu dünyadaki varoluşumuz hiçbir belirti ve değişmez hiyerarşiye katlanamıyor, fakat her şey sürekli akıyor, dökülüp gidiyor ve hareket ediyor ve her insan her bir insan tarafından algılanmak ve değerlendirilmek zorunda ve cahillerin, dar görüşlülerin ve gerzeklerin bize dair görüşleri zeki, aydın ve hassas olanların görüşlerinden daha az önemli değil. Değil mi ki insan bir diğer insanın ruhundaki yansımasına en derininden bağımlıdır, bu ruh budala bir ruh olsa da. Ve gerzeklerin görüşleri karşısında aristokrat ve kibirli bir tutum benimseyip odi profanum vulgus diyerek insan sürüsünden nefret ettiklerini ilan eden o kalem erbabı meslektaşlarımın fikrine karşı çıkıyorum. Bu, gerçeklikten kaçmanın nasıl da ucuz, basitleştirilmiş bir yolu, yalan bir yüceliğe nasıl da zavallı bir firar! Tam tersine, bir görüşün ne denli aptalca ve darsa, bizim için o ölçüde önemli ve etkili olduğunu iddia ediyorum; hani dar bir ayakkabı varlığını ayağa tam uyan bir ayakkabıda nasıl daha şiddetli duyuruyorsa, işte aynen öyle."
July 18, 2018
Unlike PORNOGRAFIA, this takes its sweet time revving up, but once the motor is cranked FERDYDURKE delivers some bizarro batshit thrills, memorably unnerving encounters, and genuine belly laffs. The intro essay by Susan Sontag praises "its sublime mockery of all attempts to normalize desire," which is spot on.
With its tumbling prose, psychological acuity, and surreal gambits, the novel was so far ahead of its time that Gombrowitz included several digressions to discuss his methods and demonstrate that he knew what he was doing. Often, he lets these mini-essays and playlets tilt toward contradiction and paradox. By way of further explanation.
With its tumbling prose, psychological acuity, and surreal gambits, the novel was so far ahead of its time that Gombrowitz included several digressions to discuss his methods and demonstrate that he knew what he was doing. Often, he lets these mini-essays and playlets tilt toward contradiction and paradox. By way of further explanation.
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