2020. 2. 14. 19:20ㆍ카테고리 없음
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 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. 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.' Long live its sublime mockery.'
Susan Sontag. From the foreword 'A masterpiece of European modernism. Susan Sontag ushers this new translation into print with a strong and useful foreword. Calling Gombrowicz's tale 'extravagant. Publishers Weekly Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969) wrote three other novels.
Which together with his plays and his three-volume Diary have been translated into more than thirty languages. '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 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 '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 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. 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. 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. 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!'
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, another incredible major figure of Polish literature. Oh and Ian, this is definitely Literary Comedy. 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. Ferdydurke is some sort of abracadabra and the novel can be defined as an absurdist abstraction. “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 Ferdydurke is some sort of abracadabra and the novel can be defined as an absurdist abstraction. “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.” And 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.
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 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. 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!!! I remember a song from my youth—one we played on record players before households had stereos. A time when said record players still had a setting for 78 rpm, which is what we had to use to play this tune.
One of those childhood memories which never really goes away. A song that was already old when we started listening to it. We was out in California one time, And we wandered lookin’ for a room, and this mad hotel, And we got upstairs and opened the door and turned on the lights, And there on th I remember a song from my youth—one we played on record players before households had stereos. A time when said record players still had a setting for 78 rpm, which is what we had to use to play this tune. One of those childhood memories which never really goes away.
A song that was already old when we started listening to it. We was out in California one time, And we wandered lookin’ for a room, and this mad hotel, And we got upstairs and opened the door and turned on the lights, And there on the middle of the bed sat this great big mouse eatin’ a onion and cryin’ like a baby. —The Three Flames, 1947, or if you prefer. So what has this got to do with Ferdydurke?
Possibly nothing. Maybe everything. In the sense that Grombowicz’s classic is about everything—all the major themes—art, maturity/immaturity, class, privilege, rape, naivety vs. Idealism, coming of age/reverting of agereally. And one can’t forget the pupamake that: The pupa! (read it, you’ll see) And, BTW, the pupa (one of its meanings) should never be considered cute by anyone, other than a parent or grandparent, certainly not a priest.
An absurdist adventure that won’t appeal to everyone, but will appeal to those with a zest for the peculiar, the bizarre, the political, and/or national literatures other than one’s own (in this case Poland). Deserves reading for being banned by both the Nazis and the Communists.
Among the many lines I liked: Normality is a tightrope-walker above the abyss of abnormality. Reminds me of Sontag’s “Sanity is a cozy lie.” I have a GR buddy who’s an avid reader from Poland. I share him with many of you. He knows who he is. Some of you know who he is. Read this book, I think I’ve figured out whatuhhappened to him. Good 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 parent Good 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. 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.
E 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. 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.
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 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: '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. Comments and reviews on this classic of interwar Polish absurdism seem to oscillate between adoration and ambivalence. This actually makes some kind of sense as my own reactions oscillated somewhat between those poles, even as I read it.
Because for all of the rebellious wit and satiric insight on display throughout the novel, despite the excellence and memorable quotability of so many individual lines, there's also something very wordy and over-analyzed about this. Polish new wave filmmaker Jer Comments and reviews on this classic of interwar Polish absurdism seem to oscillate between adoration and ambivalence.
This actually makes some kind of sense as my own reactions oscillated somewhat between those poles, even as I read it. Because for all of the rebellious wit and satiric insight on display throughout the novel, despite the excellence and memorable quotability of so many individual lines, there's also something very wordy and over-analyzed about this. Polish new wave filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski did an aptly bizarre film adaptation. which, even with sporadic narration, has a quality of fascinating inscrutability, especially as to the motivations of the characters and the significance of many of their acts. In the novel however, everything is extensively explained and broken down into its own insane logic.
As a result the novel makes a great deal of sense, and as I said often conveys itself very well, but takes a very long time to do so, with any actual action requiring pages of explication to get them off the ground. And so, the divided aspects of this brilliant, boring, notable and annoying little book. On the other hand, pages of stalling does help ramp up the absurdist tension at a couple peak scenes - how long will everyone stand unspeaking in the darkened house, unable to make a move because of the terrible inertia of having stood around unspeaking int he dark too long already to possibly be able to explain it.For some reason, Skolimowski made this in English rather than the Polish it is so much better known in (and in 1991, filming in Poland shouldn't have been restricted), and not even Crispin Glover's manic turn as Mientus could find it an audience.
He didn't direct again for 17 years. Another one of my all time favorites.
Gombrowicz' modernist masterpiece, his first novel, came out in the 1930's, causing a brief literary sensation only weeks before his native Poland was invaded by the Nazis. The author fled to South America and since Europe had other things on its mind in the coming years both author and book were pretty much forgotten. Gombrowicz was rediscovered however amid the renewed experimentation of the 1960's, and enjoyed a renaissance in his lifetime, after decades Another one of my all time favorites. Gombrowicz' modernist masterpiece, his first novel, came out in the 1930's, causing a brief literary sensation only weeks before his native Poland was invaded by the Nazis.
The author fled to South America and since Europe had other things on its mind in the coming years both author and book were pretty much forgotten. Gombrowicz was rediscovered however amid the renewed experimentation of the 1960's, and enjoyed a renaissance in his lifetime, after decades of obscurity. For sheer madness, bizarre surrealistic humor and force of invention this book is unequalled - however it is definitely not for everyone. The story of the protagonist, who is compelled for strange reasons to return to high school as an adult, and thereby suffers again all the agonies of adolescence, is intertwined with bizarre non-sequitur chapters concerning arcane philosophical arguments between schools of thought represented by a pair fictional professors, along with all sorts of other sometimes irritating, sometimes brilliant, and sometimes impenetrable digressions.
And we never find out why it's called 'Ferdydurke'. Well, I said it wasn't for everyone didn't I? But I myself, for inexplicable reasons, love it. Unhinge your mind and you just might too. But I'll warn you, you may never be the same again. I can’t remember why I decided to read this book, but it has been on my “pending” list for about two years now.
I questioned a Polish friend about it fairly extensively (luckily he didn’t get annoyed, which I probably would if someone started to pester me about Dickens simply because I’m British, which is essentially what I was doing) and he said that I would probably enjoy it because I have a “sick brain”. I decided to take this as both a compliment and a recommendation rolled into one, and I’ I can’t remember why I decided to read this book, but it has been on my “pending” list for about two years now. I questioned a Polish friend about it fairly extensively (luckily he didn’t get annoyed, which I probably would if someone started to pester me about Dickens simply because I’m British, which is essentially what I was doing) and he said that I would probably enjoy it because I have a “sick brain”. I decided to take this as both a compliment and a recommendation rolled into one, and I’m glad I did. The easiest way that I can describe this book is as a philosophical novel with the anarchic feel of a cartoon.
When I first started reading, I was fully expecting to lazily stick Gombrowicz into the same “box” as Kafka (dreamlike, obfuscated plot, characters that act for no reason, vaguely sinister overtones) but this wasn’t the case upon completion-gradually it becomes more arse-obsessed, slapping-obsessed and sometimes plain sillier than Kafka ever gets. Barking peasants, psychological warfare used in love, and terrifying Rabelaisan face-making duels can all be enjoyed for their simple absurdity, but it’s rare that they aren’t also being excellent intellectual viands. The plot is something you shouldn’t get too hung up about if you are going to enjoy this novel-the scatterbrained attack of ideas was exactly what was bothering me about its tone until I just relaxed and let myself bob along with the maniac torrent. Gombrowicz (or the character he has used to portray Gombrowicz,) starts off experiencing a type of early mid-life crisis in his writing career, one published book under his belt, frustrated that he is hovering somewhere between being taken highly seriously and with great acclaim by certain pointless artistic circles to no end, and totally lampooned by the general public.
This is one of several reasons why anyone that has spent any time honing (or getting disillusioned with) any type of artistic talent should read this book. Some of it is real nail on the head stuff- discussions of how stupidity and stupid actions aren’t distributed equally throughout all social groups, but seems to reach new heights in artistic circles is eminently quotable to piss off arts graduates like myself. The concepts that the novel addresses are sometimes hinted at in the plotlines, other times overtly stated, and there are a couple of joyful interludes that seem to have been inserted just for a (belly) laugh- the Philimor story about the tennis match had me creasing up and caused me to order a collection of his short stories straight away ( Baccacay). Some readers will see this as a disparate book, with no flow to it at all, but this to me is where it’s brilliance lies, and the fact that Gombrowicz breaks the fourth wall and starts to explain almost petulantly why he’s written his book like this just as you start thinking what the fuck is he doing just makes it all the more special. One of my favourite parts of this book is the awkward “chase” for the characters associate, Mientus throughout the house and grounds of his aunt and uncles house. Nobody wants to admit who they are looking for, they simply drift off purposefully, all the while trying to assume an air of nonchalance.
The whole thing ends in crumbling social norms and weirdly unsettling slapstick in a way that nicely emulsifies a few of the writer’s hitherto nebulous ideas-although try not to get too bummed out (sorry) about the love of your life at the end. Best enjoyed with some Zubrowka (sorry for more Polish stereotyping) under the blinding rays of the arch-bum, when you feel like having some conventional traps of thought about who you are turned on their head- don’t take any of it too seriously and you’ll start to find it takes you to some pretty serious departments of the self. Where has this book been all my life?
Gombrowicz might be a 20th century version of Swift. It's all fart jokes and nose-picking until you realize it's actually one of the smartest books you've ever read. But be warned: if you come looking only for the fart jokes and nose-picking, you could easily be disappointed. Many reviewers, perhaps misled by Susan Sontag's introduction, and Gombrowicz's own much later statements, suggest that this is a book in praise of immaturity and damnation of adults. C Where has this book been all my life? Gombrowicz might be a 20th century version of Swift. It's all fart jokes and nose-picking until you realize it's actually one of the smartest books you've ever read.
But be warned: if you come looking only for the fart jokes and nose-picking, you could easily be disappointed. Many reviewers, perhaps misled by Susan Sontag's introduction, and Gombrowicz's own much later statements, suggest that this is a book in praise of immaturity and damnation of adults. Certainly adults are damned, but not because they're mature. Also, like Swift, what could look like anal expulsiveness is nothing of the sort. Taking the expulsiveness issue first, Ferdydurke is almost overly structured.
The narrator wanders around, yes, but his wanderings have very distinct waypoints: first, a fight between schoolboys, over whether schoolboys should be noble or, well, expulsive; second, a fight between parents, their daughter, and two men who lust after said daughter; third, a fight between the narrator's 'aristocratic' family members, one of their peasants, and the narrator's friend. Our man leaves all of these fights still in progress, and we're given to believe they remain in progress till the end of time. There are also two short stories inserted into the novel, involving fights between professors, on the one hand, and the high bourgeoisie, on the other. You get the point. As for the immaturity point: you could certainly read the novel as an attack on maturity, if you were so inclined, but the self-consciously immature come off just as badly, as do those who are infantilized, and those who do the infantilizing. No doubt Gombrowicz would have been horrified to hear me put it in these terms, but what we have here is basically a dialectical book.
The stupidities of the mature/noble/aristocratic cause stupidity of an immature/base/slumming kind. The more someone insists, falsely, that so and so.is. mature/noble/aristocratic, the more people react and insist that they are immature or base or try to sleep with farmhands. And the cycle continues, as the stupidities of the immature cause others to set themselves up as mature or noble, and then everyone fights, and the fight does not end. And the genius of this book is how much of humanity it describes, just in those terms. It concludes with our narrator 'giving in' to a dream and kissing a woman he's just 'abducted'-dream or ideal vs reality being another of these dialectical situations.
The genius of this book, also, is that it does all that in the form of fart jokes. Only really funny books should be taken seriously. How does once approach a work that, the moment you touch it, dissolves into all manner of mugs, attitudes, and outright wackiness?
This is my first work by Witold Gombrowicz, and I am mightily impressed by it - but. Or like, Joe Kowalski, the narrator, I will be entrapped and dealt the pupa. What is this pupa? It seems to be everywhere. As I understand it, it's the fulcrum of a boy's immaturity, centered in his butt, from which radiates Hoo, boy! How does once approach a work that, the moment you touch it, dissolves into all manner of mugs, attitudes, and outright wackiness?
This is my first work by Witold Gombrowicz, and I am mightily impressed by it - but. Or like, Joe Kowalski, the narrator, I will be entrapped and dealt the pupa. What is this pupa? It seems to be everywhere. As I understand it, it's the fulcrum of a boy's immaturity, centered in his butt, from which radiates all the craziness in the world. But it seems that the pupa is dormant in most adults as well and can suddenly burst out in wild acts of meaningless thrashing about, such as when Joe sets up one of his schoolmates and one of his professors in a trap with a young woman, the unforgettable schoolgirl Zuta Youngblood, in the middle of the night. Gombrowicz comes close to the heart of Ferdydurke when he writes: One would need to establish, proclaim, and define whether the work at hand is a novel, a memoir, a parody, a lampoon, a variation on a fantasy, or a study of some kind - and what prevails in it: humor, irony, or some deeper meaning, sarcasm, persiflage, invective, rubbish, pur nonsens, pur claptrapism, and more, whether it's simply a pose, pretense, make-believe, bunkum, artificiality, paucity of wit, anemia of emotion, atrophy of imagination, subversion of order, and ruination of the mind.
Yet the sum of these possibilities, torments, definitions, and parts is so limitless, so unfathomable and inexhaustible that one must say, with the greatest responsibility for one's words and after the most scrupulous consideration, that we know nothing, chirp, chirp, little chickie.That just about sums it up. It is hard to think of Gombrowicz in exile in Argentina, at a time and place where Jorge Luis Borges was the great panjandrum of literature. The two are so opposite that a physical encounter must have resembled a matter/anti-matter explosion. I haven't sussed it all out yet in my mind. All I can say for now is that I likes it. The curse and joy of returning to one's youth with all of one's thirty-something literary grown-man cultural baggage intact.
Lovely, troubling, a punk rock slap in the face to all our feigned adulthood, seriousness, and sobriety. A rather serious lark. I disagree with Susan Sontag's introduction, however.
Gombrowicz's presentation of youthful extravagance, tension, and conflict is a far cry from modern American popular culture's re-presentation of youth as some sort of white bread yesteryear of The curse and joy of returning to one's youth with all of one's thirty-something literary grown-man cultural baggage intact. Lovely, troubling, a punk rock slap in the face to all our feigned adulthood, seriousness, and sobriety. A rather serious lark. I disagree with Susan Sontag's introduction, however. Gombrowicz's presentation of youthful extravagance, tension, and conflict is a far cry from modern American popular culture's re-presentation of youth as some sort of white bread yesteryear of tamed revolution out of Happy Days and the Fonz or little mamma's boy Elvis Presley standing in for the big black dick of jazz, rock n roll, marijuana and true virgin estrogen and testosterone in a high school gym. This is real youth. The modern schoolgirl's potency intact.
The sodomy of two boys fighting over innocence or youthful cynicism with their mugs. This is some serious frivolity.
It does make the classical adult world look ridiculous through the ridiculousness of youthful idealism, mugging, and all of its (semi-literal) spunk. Hated the translation, however. 'Pupa' just wasn't fair. And there were so many Briticisms in a translation trying so hard to be American that it was clearly a foreigner's work, not native to either idiom-and not in a good way. Confused, in the way of the meaning of the story rather than facilitating it. Felt like I was getting the book in spite of rather than because of the translation. Maybe I wasn't getting it at all.
I'm a rather young 50-year-old myself. There has to be an English word for 'pupa' there has to be. A child could probably tell it to you. An old child. Crazy, brilliant, and frustrating novel from the 1930's by this mad Polish author. The basic theme/question/idea is: do we possess an identity outside of what people think of us or are we mostly shaped by society's perception of who we are?
As all language and all interactions we have with others is little more than mediated societal convention, is there any room to express who we 'really' are? Anyway, the story involves a thirty-something author (Gombrowicz) who, up to now, has produced a single Crazy, brilliant, and frustrating novel from the 1930's by this mad Polish author. The basic theme/question/idea is: do we possess an identity outside of what people think of us or are we mostly shaped by society's perception of who we are? As all language and all interactions we have with others is little more than mediated societal convention, is there any room to express who we 'really' are? Anyway, the story involves a thirty-something author (Gombrowicz) who, up to now, has produced a single book about adolescence (which Gombrowich had up until then) and as such, gets treated as an adolescent or someone not quite developed by all those who meet him. This is all explained in the first few pages. As he sits down to write his great new opus which will show the world who he really is, an old professor shows up and literally kidnaps him and places him into a high school where he is treated as one of the school boys and observes how they interact.
This is the first in a series of adventures which sees the narrator placed in a lodging, falling in love, and then escaping to the country where the old Polish aristocratic order is satirized to no end. In fact, everything here is pure satirical gold with the school scenes among the best if not somewhat dated (ok, all of the book seems dated but since Gombrowicz makes this point directly himself during the course of the book it does not seem like a big deal. In fact, several times Gombrowicz addresses the reader directly and makes some point that the reader might be thinking of which is also fun.) Gombrowicz also inserts several surreal, philosophical, mini-stories complete with their own introductions into the novel. Frustrating but fun. Anyway, it's a fun read in Polish (which is why I picked it up again as I'm going to Poland this week) which might be lost when translated into English but pick this up if any of this sounds interesting.
Ferdydurke is a novel that often times just seems like sorta funny nonsense, and other times like a philosophical take on the importance of 'immaturity' as fuel for creativity. The premise of the story is that our protagonist is somehow regressed into a teenager (all though he still looks like a 30-year-old.everybody just seems to overlook that). In school his classmates debate over purity vs. Vulgarity as the ultimate expression of immaturity. When he is forced to live with a family that inclu Ferdydurke is a novel that often times just seems like sorta funny nonsense, and other times like a philosophical take on the importance of 'immaturity' as fuel for creativity.
The premise of the story is that our protagonist is somehow regressed into a teenager (all though he still looks like a 30-year-old.everybody just seems to overlook that). In school his classmates debate over purity vs. Vulgarity as the ultimate expression of immaturity. When he is forced to live with a family that includes a very beautiful schoolgirl we hear conversations dealing with modernity vs. Old-fashioned values.to an absurd degree.
And lastly we are confronted with a scene dealing with class issues as a friend of the protagonist desperately tries to 'fraternize' with a farmhand/peasant. Since this book was originally published in Poland during the 1930s, I think an American living past the year 2000 cannot possibly understand all of the references and cultural items that are being poked fun. However, there are enough instances where even the basic plot is pretty hilarious or completely strange. It seems fitting that Crispin Glover plays the lead role in the film based on this book that came out in 1991. When the social norms of the old generation collides with that of the young generation, Then, By necessity the concepts of immaturity and maturity will be abducted from its semantic sphere into a distorted and forbidding relation.the drift of the society into infantility and The prevailing of the kitsch as a sign of modernity, the proliferation of triviaity, banality and again triviality, all these factors will take its toll on the writers of that society.
And here comes the like of Gombrowicz When the social norms of the old generation collides with that of the young generation, Then, By necessity the concepts of immaturity and maturity will be abducted from its semantic sphere into a distorted and forbidding relation.the drift of the society into infantility and The prevailing of the kitsch as a sign of modernity, the proliferation of triviaity, banality and again triviality, all these factors will take its toll on the writers of that society. And here comes the like of Gombrowicz who took the burden uopn himself to confront the triviality of his era with a derisiveness ، for there is nothing better to handle the absurdity of his society other than a tone of voice that infuriate the silliness of the silly and utter his sincere disdain for their pretentious modernity. At first I was thrilled with the book. Being Polish, I guess I could see more of the context. And so, I was absolutely delighted by Gombrowicz's blatant opposition towards the Polish Tradition and Great Authors.
I went as far as to underline some passages which completely refuted the Polish Greatness. However, the further I got into the book, the more I was annoyed with the slapstick humor and sickness of the author's mind.
Call me stiff but I just don't find a miscarried fetus funny (okay, maybe At first I was thrilled with the book. Being Polish, I guess I could see more of the context. And so, I was absolutely delighted by Gombrowicz's blatant opposition towards the Polish Tradition and Great Authors. I went as far as to underline some passages which completely refuted the Polish Greatness. However, the further I got into the book, the more I was annoyed with the slapstick humor and sickness of the author's mind. Call me stiff but I just don't find a miscarried fetus funny (okay, maybe there was something in this total absurd).
The barking villagers (which were obviously a part of a parody of Eliza Orzeszkowa's works and the like) were distasteful for me as well. There is only as far as you can go with the grotesque before overdoing it. Still, the school part was ingenious.
My Polish literature teacher is just like the Gombrowicz's teacher. Trying to implant the awe for all the Polish classics in the students' minds. He hates Ferdydurke by the way. So well, with the school system at large unchanged since those times and Gombrowicz's attitude towards duties of one, it's pretty ironic that this book is now an obligatory read for all high school seniors in Poland. This book is funny and cool yall, starts off like a weird celine sort of fever dream where the narrator is seeing asses in the sky and then the fever dream turns real!!! + lots of funny stuff like a making faces contest, a fight between analysis and synthesis and about 20 pages spent on athletic schoolgirls in their school girl outfits.
Good fetish, and in 1934 may have been ahead of its time, altho perhaps the polish schoolgirl of 1934 was not wearing the pleated gingham skirt of today's f this book is funny and cool yall, starts off like a weird celine sort of fever dream where the narrator is seeing asses in the sky and then the fever dream turns real!!! + lots of funny stuff like a making faces contest, a fight between analysis and synthesis and about 20 pages spent on athletic schoolgirls in their school girl outfits. Good fetish, and in 1934 may have been ahead of its time, altho perhaps the polish schoolgirl of 1934 was not wearing the pleated gingham skirt of today's fetish. I've read this novel twice, and I enjoyed it even more the second time through. The basic plot is absurd - a 30 year old middle-class man is 'kidnapped' and sent back to school; everyone treats him like a boy - but its themes are not: the story is a sustained meditation on 'maturity,' or in other words, on the attempt to escape 'immaturity' into 'maturity.' We discover that the 'child runs deep' even in the seemingly most 'mature' adults.
In any case, the novel is also frequently quite funny; we I've read this novel twice, and I enjoyed it even more the second time through. The basic plot is absurd - a 30 year old middle-class man is 'kidnapped' and sent back to school; everyone treats him like a boy - but its themes are not: the story is a sustained meditation on 'maturity,' or in other words, on the attempt to escape 'immaturity' into 'maturity.'
Witold Gombrowicz Cosmos
We discover that the 'child runs deep' even in the seemingly most 'mature' adults. In any case, the novel is also frequently quite funny; we get a fair amount of slap-stick but also the humor of the incongruous situations Gombrowicz's plot allows him to create. A final comment: the novel also raises a number of questions about the purposes of education, and about the goals of educators. There is nothing worthy or redeeming about either. From the 'profs' we get such claims as: he is a famous poet because he is a famous poet, and you must like him because he is a famous poet; if you do not take my subject seriously, my family will suffer - think of my family as you explain the importance of that poem!