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Just before the outbreak of World War II, young Witold Gombrowicz left his home in Poland and set sail for South America. In 1953, still living as an expatriate in Argentina, he began his Diary with one of literature's most memorable openings: Monday - Me; Tuesday - Me; Wednesday - Me; and, Thursday - Me. Gombrowicz's Diary grew to become a vast collection of essays, short notes, polemics, and confessions on myriad subjects ranging from political events to literature to the certainty of death. Not a traditional journal, Diary is instead the commentary of a brilliant and restless mind.
Widely regarded as a masterpiece, this brilliant work compelled Gombrowicz's attention for a decade and a half until he penned his final entry in France, shortly before his death in 1969. Long out of print in English, Diary is now presented in a convenient single volume featuring a new preface by Rita Gombrowicz, the author's widow and literary executor. This edition also includes ten previously unpublished pages from the 1969 portion of the diary.
Widely regarded as a masterpiece, this brilliant work compelled Gombrowicz's attention for a decade and a half until he penned his final entry in France, shortly before his death in 1969. Long out of print in English, Diary is now presented in a convenient single volume featuring a new preface by Rita Gombrowicz, the author's widow and literary executor. This edition also includes ten previously unpublished pages from the 1969 portion of the diary.
783 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Witold Gombrowicz
110books984followersGombrowicz 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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July 2, 2017
Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969) was a Polish author and this is his diary. According to Wikipedia he was one the most important Polish writers of the 20th century. I never heard of him before I read his name in Karl Ove Knausgård’s final volume of the
Min Kamp
series. The Norwegian highly praises the Pole while at the same time lowers himself:
Elsewhere Knausgård compares Gombrowicz with “Cervantes and Shakespeare in one person�. Gosh! � I thought. You have to check out this Gombrowicz guy yourself. That’s what I did, I read his Diary of 1953-69, and this is the result:
The book starts, as Knausgård also notices, with four memorable and, in retrospect, very telling entries:
So, the tone is set. What follows is no ordinary diary, however. Gombrowicz’s writing was meant for publication from the start in a series in Kultura, an important exiled Polish magazine (published in Rome and later Paris). He was in Argentina at that time and had been there since 1939. Back then he wanted to visit the country in South America and shortly after his ship had landed in Buenos Aires, WWII broke out and his native country was attacked by the Nazi hordes. Gombrowicz (then 35 years old) got stranded and decided to sit the war out in Argentina. He was able to return to Europe as late as 1963 when he was offered a grant from the Ford foundation and spent the last years of his life in Paris, Berlin, and finally Vence (Southern France), where he died in 1969. He never went back to Poland. So the major part of his “diary� is set and written in Argentina and the author wasn’t too happy about it:
When you read this book be prepared to be bombarded with lots of names, mainly of Polish authors, publishers, critics and so on. I knew almost none of those names (except for Henryk “� Sienkiewicz). But it didn’t matter. The way Gombrowicz writes about his contemporaries, his friends, foes, and fellow writers is quite remarkable for its candor. Criticizing the critics who wrote about him, his books, and in general, apparently was one of Gombrowicz’s major concerns:
But it’s not only the Polish literature and exile=literature scene he handles on these 1000+ pages (German hardcover). It’s impossible for me to list all the topics from the book, but a few of them that reoccur quite often are:
� Existentialism and philosophy in general (although Gombrowicz didn’t consider himself a philosopher at all),
� Communismn / Marxismn
� Catholicism
� Music (Chopin, of course, and also an unforgettable essay about why Beethoven needs to be worshipped, while Bach has to be hated)
� Fine arts
And then there are large sections in which he talks about his own works, novels and a play, and how they are often misunderstood by people. This includes books written and published before he went to Argentina, as well as those he was writing in parallel to his diary. I admit, he was pretty successful at promoting himself. I will certainly check out his first novel with the somewhat mystical title and another one called . While in Buenos Aires he wanted to produce a Spanish translation of Ferdydurke. The problem was, that his Spanish wasn’t very good and he wasn’t able to pay for a professional translator. So he invited some of his writer friends (from Argentina and Mexico, who didn’t know Polish at all) and together they spent weeks in coffee houses stringing the text together, without even a Polish/Spanish dictionary. Those were the days.
The writing style in this book varies greatly. There are long essay-like entries, and short ones with only one line or so. There are reflections and attacks, parts of letters written by him or sent to him, articles from magazines, and some great travel logs about visits to other Argentinian cities and his encounter with the people there that have some kind of dream-like quality, and subtle observations like this:
Later on, in a piece unofficially called Notes on Berlin, there’s also some entries that strongly reminded me of . This can’t be a coincidence. Gombrowicz had most likely read Döblin’s novel, and applied the style accordingly.
I’d say the tone in this book is from the ground up tragic, but with humorous/sarcastic undertones. Gombrowicz was a clown, a shrewd tragic/comic harlequin, who holds up a mirror in front of many people � including himself! � in order to bring them back to the bottom of reality. Not long ago I read . Gombrowicz was an intellectual Eulenspiegel, who liked to do a dump in the homes of foes and friends at times � metaphorically speaking of course. He was an inflated balloon only waiting for a needle to come and burst him. He provokes, is destructive, enervating, indecent, embarrassing, arrogant and thereby virtuous, thought-provoking, and always confident. Too bad his name is somewhat bulky, otherwise one would probably have to include the word “gombroviczesque� in the dictionary. He was a real jester at the court of not only the Polish literary circles. For instance fans of Dante, Proust, or Borges, will probably hate him (and love him for that � it’s paradoxical, but I felt that way) A hodgepodge between youthful immaturity and intellectual maturity - half-naked, if you will.
This is a book that will thoroughly flush your cerebral gyrus and is highly recommended.
This work is licensed under a .
Fuck you, Karl Ove. You stupid little shithead. I did’t even reach Gombrowicz to the sole of his shoes.
Elsewhere Knausgård compares Gombrowicz with “Cervantes and Shakespeare in one person�. Gosh! � I thought. You have to check out this Gombrowicz guy yourself. That’s what I did, I read his Diary of 1953-69, and this is the result:
The book starts, as Knausgård also notices, with four memorable and, in retrospect, very telling entries:
Monday
Me.
Tuesday
Me.
Wednesday
Me.
Thursday
Me.
So, the tone is set. What follows is no ordinary diary, however. Gombrowicz’s writing was meant for publication from the start in a series in Kultura, an important exiled Polish magazine (published in Rome and later Paris). He was in Argentina at that time and had been there since 1939. Back then he wanted to visit the country in South America and shortly after his ship had landed in Buenos Aires, WWII broke out and his native country was attacked by the Nazi hordes. Gombrowicz (then 35 years old) got stranded and decided to sit the war out in Argentina. He was able to return to Europe as late as 1963 when he was offered a grant from the Ford foundation and spent the last years of his life in Paris, Berlin, and finally Vence (Southern France), where he died in 1969. He never went back to Poland. So the major part of his “diary� is set and written in Argentina and the author wasn’t too happy about it:
I write this diary reluctantly. Its dishonest honesty wearies me. For whom am I writing? If I am writing for myself, then why is it being published? If for the reader, why do I pretend that I am talking to myself? Are you talking to yourself so that others will hear you?
When you read this book be prepared to be bombarded with lots of names, mainly of Polish authors, publishers, critics and so on. I knew almost none of those names (except for Henryk “� Sienkiewicz). But it didn’t matter. The way Gombrowicz writes about his contemporaries, his friends, foes, and fellow writers is quite remarkable for its candor. Criticizing the critics who wrote about him, his books, and in general, apparently was one of Gombrowicz’s major concerns:
Teachers, educators, spiritual leaders? In reality, they taught the Polish reader this truth about literature: that it is something like a school essay, written in order that the teacher could give it a grade; that creativity is not a play of forces, which do not allow themselves to be completely controlled, not a burst of energy or the work of a spirit that is creating itself but merely an annual literary “production,� along with the inseparable reviews, contests, awards, and feuilletons. These are masters of trivialization, artists who transform a keen life into a boring pulp, where everything is more or less equally mediocre and unimportant. A surplus of parasites produces such fatal effects. To write about literature is easier than writing literature: that’s the whole point. If I were in their place, therefore, I would reflect very deeply on how to elude this disgrace whose name is: oversimplification. Their advantages are purely technical. Their voice resounds powerfully not because it is powerful but because they are allowed to speak through the megaphone of the press.
But it’s not only the Polish literature and exile=literature scene he handles on these 1000+ pages (German hardcover). It’s impossible for me to list all the topics from the book, but a few of them that reoccur quite often are:
� Existentialism and philosophy in general (although Gombrowicz didn’t consider himself a philosopher at all),
� Communismn / Marxismn
� Catholicism
� Music (Chopin, of course, and also an unforgettable essay about why Beethoven needs to be worshipped, while Bach has to be hated)
� Fine arts
And then there are large sections in which he talks about his own works, novels and a play, and how they are often misunderstood by people. This includes books written and published before he went to Argentina, as well as those he was writing in parallel to his diary. I admit, he was pretty successful at promoting himself. I will certainly check out his first novel with the somewhat mystical title and another one called . While in Buenos Aires he wanted to produce a Spanish translation of Ferdydurke. The problem was, that his Spanish wasn’t very good and he wasn’t able to pay for a professional translator. So he invited some of his writer friends (from Argentina and Mexico, who didn’t know Polish at all) and together they spent weeks in coffee houses stringing the text together, without even a Polish/Spanish dictionary. Those were the days.
The writing style in this book varies greatly. There are long essay-like entries, and short ones with only one line or so. There are reflections and attacks, parts of letters written by him or sent to him, articles from magazines, and some great travel logs about visits to other Argentinian cities and his encounter with the people there that have some kind of dream-like quality, and subtle observations like this:
We drove to Tigre in the delta of the Paraná. Our motorboat cruised along the dark and quiet surface that ripples through a forest of islands. All is green, blue, pleasant, and fun. We stopped and picked up a young girl who, how should I say this? Beauty has its secrets: there are many such beautiful melodies but only a few are like a hand that strangles. Her beauty was so “fetching� that everyone felt strange and perhaps even bashful. No one dared betray that he was watching her, even though there was not a pair of eyes that was not casting furtive glances at her luminous being.
The girl then calmly began to pick her nose.
Later on, in a piece unofficially called Notes on Berlin, there’s also some entries that strongly reminded me of . This can’t be a coincidence. Gombrowicz had most likely read Döblin’s novel, and applied the style accordingly.
I’d say the tone in this book is from the ground up tragic, but with humorous/sarcastic undertones. Gombrowicz was a clown, a shrewd tragic/comic harlequin, who holds up a mirror in front of many people � including himself! � in order to bring them back to the bottom of reality. Not long ago I read . Gombrowicz was an intellectual Eulenspiegel, who liked to do a dump in the homes of foes and friends at times � metaphorically speaking of course. He was an inflated balloon only waiting for a needle to come and burst him. He provokes, is destructive, enervating, indecent, embarrassing, arrogant and thereby virtuous, thought-provoking, and always confident. Too bad his name is somewhat bulky, otherwise one would probably have to include the word “gombroviczesque� in the dictionary. He was a real jester at the court of not only the Polish literary circles. For instance fans of Dante, Proust, or Borges, will probably hate him (and love him for that � it’s paradoxical, but I felt that way) A hodgepodge between youthful immaturity and intellectual maturity - half-naked, if you will.
This is a book that will thoroughly flush your cerebral gyrus and is highly recommended.
This work is licensed under a .
May 12, 2022
Literature remains, unfortunately, the romance of older, subtle men in love with one another, who shower one another with favours! Break out of that magic circle! Seek new inspirations! Allow a child, a puppy, a halfwit to seduce you, bind yourself to people of other conditions. [...]
Yes! to be sharp, wise, mature, to be an “artist�, “thinker�, “stylist� only to a certain degree but never too much. [...]
Herein lies the difficulty.
For if I had entered culture as a pure barbarian, an absolute anarchist, a complete primitive [...] you would break into applause immediately. [...]
But then I would be a manufacturer like all the rest: like they for whom the product becomes more important than they themselves are. [...]
The real battle in culture (about which one hears so little) does not take place, according to me, between enemy truths or between different life-styles. [...] The most important, the most extreme, and most incurable dispute is waged in us by two of our most basic strivings: the one that desires form, shape, definition and the other, which protests against shape, and does not want form.
For those who’ve read his novels, the crux of Gombrowicz’s concerns here will not be surprising, though his insistence on them may be. Here is a man who, again and again, is faced by the same bald mistake in the culture at large, and who � like a zealot predicting the Earth’s destruction � wages (again, again) the same battle, but always in that voice of deliberate exaggeration and “unseriousness� that can only bring mockery from the establishment he disdains and envies. As philosophy, everything he writes is no doubt flawed. Yet his brash confidence will not be undermined. Gombrowicz is a zealot, but proud of it, seeing it as the only fitting rejoinder to the bland pompous voice of his oppressors.
Lately, we artists have allowed ourselves to be led around too sheepishly by philosophers and other scientists. We have proved incapable of being sufficiently different. An excessive respect for scientific truth has obscured our own truth. In our eagerness to understand reality, we forget that we are not here to understand reality, but only to express it. We, art, are reality. Art is a fact and not commentary attached to fact. [...] Science will always remain an abstraction, but our voice is the voice of a man made of flesh and blood.
I’ll admit I’m barely a quarter of the way through this tome, but as it may take me years to finish it (as I may, allowing for skipped sections and random movements through the text, never finish it) I feel the need to write about it while my first impressions are still lucid. Gombrowicz’s ouevre (so far, in English) is patchy, with several of his titles having existed until only recently in translations to English from French, in turn translated from Polish. The 1960 novel Pornografia, for me, is the centrepiece, a virtuosic, succinct, thoroughly enjoyable distillation of the key Gombrowicz tropes: the popular form (wartime thriller) used to “smuggle� the “contraband� of his deeper concerns, the obsession with youth and its paradoxical power over maturity, the warped sensuality, the theatricality, the black humour. Other than this, Cosmos (a kind of less entertaining repeat of Pornografia), the ten or so short stories in Bakakai (half brilliant, half dull), the apparently untranslatable (and damn near unreadable) Transatlantic, a few plays (I haven’t read them), the serialised early gothic novel Possessed (pretty good, if messy) and the most famous novel, Ferdydurke, which must have been a blast of excoriating fresh air in Poland between the wars, but which I have been so far unable to finish, maybe for the very reasons it was supposedly so revolutionary. For a key modernist writer, this may not seem like much; the missing link is his Diary, out of print for years and now available in a one-volume paperback for roughly twenty bucks.
No, this ain’t the Blue Octavo Notebooks � it’s far from personal, far from introverted, and gives away no seeds of stories or half-formed suddenly-vivid scenes direct from the uncensored imagination of its author. Famously, this is a work of self-invention, on the public scale, published by the Polish emigré journal Kultura in monthly instalments from 1953 to 1969 (a period which Gombrowicz spent mostly in Argentina, where he worked as a teller in a Buenos Aires bank). So, in between critical responses (at one remove) to French existentialism and Polish literature/politics, we get sudden bursts of Argentinian local colour (a trip to the Pampas during a heatwave; a dinner party with Borges, Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo during which Gombrowicz, too proud to self-promote, is shunned as a no-talent pretender; a few terse descriptions of meetings with local literati � including lone famous Argentine writer-friend Ernesto Sabato � in bars and sidewalk cafes), and gluing it all together the cod-philosophical outpourings and deliberately provocative pose-strikings of this man who would invent himself as Shakespeare invented Hamlet (I’ve lost the exact quote), all the while analysing his own technique of invention.
I would like people to see in me that which I suggest to them. I would like to impose myself on people as a personality in order to be its subject forever after that. [...] To travel as far as possible into the virgin territory of culture, into its still half-wild, and so indecent, places, while exciting you to extremes, to excite even myself. [...] I want to meet you in that jungle, bind myself to you in a way that is the most difficult and uncomfortable, for you and for me. [...] I want to uncover my present moment and tie myself to you in our todayness. [...]
That is all. If only I could summon the spirit. But I don’t feel equal to the task. Three years ago, unfortunately, I broke with pure art, as my kind of art was not the kind that could be cultivated casually, on Sundays or holidays. I began to write this diary for the simple reason of saving myself, in fear of degradation and an ultimate inundation by the waves of a trivial life, which are already up to my neck. Yet it turns out that even here I am incapable of total effort. One cannot be nothingness all week and then suddenly expect to exist on Sunday.
Reading such passages, I’m tempted to think of Gombrowicz as a kind of anti-Pessoa (or of “Gombrowicz� as an anti-Bernardo Soares), going about his insignificant life on some Rua dos Douradores of Buenos Aires, but instead of consigning his entries to the trunk under his bed, mailing them to Paris to assure his continuing status in Polish letters. Granted, his language is not as beautiful, his achievement (on the level of craft) not as palpable, but his invention is as striking. A leader, with a manifesto:
Assuming that I was born (which is not certain), I was born to spoil your game. My books are not supposed to say to you: Be who you are. They say rather: You pretend that you are who you are. I would like that which you have long thought barren and shameful in yourselves to become fruitful. If you hate acting so much, it is because it is a part of you. For me, acting becomes a key to life and reality. If you are repelled by immaturity, it is because you are immature. In me, Polish immaturity delineates my entire attitude to culture. Your youth speaks with my lips [...] You hate that which you try to eliminate in yourself. [...] Ah, but I would like you to be conscious actors in this game!
On a fundamental level, I feel myself enriched every time (or every second time � sometimes the arguments on Polish culture are, to me, banal) I open this book. I don’t claim it’s fun to read, but every few pages I think, “That’s worth remembering.� And when at one point Dos Passos, Robbe-Grillet and a bunch of other luminaries arrive by state-sponsored jumbo jet in Buenos Aires to voice their opinions and theories on literature to a roomful of journalists, it’s touching the contortions our hero goes through in his self-confessed envy, pride and disgust at his own insignificance.
Gombrowicz, the man, may well have been the sardonic, self-obsessed dinner guest from hell � I have no idea. Other writers I don’t dislike (Tadeusz Rozewicz is one) have accused him of wanton exaggeration at the service of self-promotion, and it’s hard to argue with that. But deep in his make-up is the kind of rebel-jester (think Alfred Jarry, Johnny Rotten, Buster Keaton) who, all but alone among the po-faced official arbiters of culture, can only be health-giving.
Lightness � this is perhaps the most profound thing the artist has to say to the philosopher.
Amen to that, Mr Gombrowicz. But pull up your fly before you scare the Minister for Culture � he’ll think you’re frightfully uncouth!
August 16, 2022
To jest książka totalna. Czytałem Dzienniki wiele lat temu, gdy byłem bardzo młodym licealistą. Chyba nie zdawałem sobie wówczas sprawy z tego, jak bardzo mnie ukształtowały. W podejściu do "polskości", "europejskości", "uniwersalizmu" i sztuki jako wyrazu siebie samego. Gombrowicz bardzo nie chciał dać się wtłoczyć w bycie "polskim pisarzem" i jego Dzienniki są w dużej mierze o tym. Oczywiście są też o wielu innych rzeczach, których nie da się tu wymienić. Wszystkie pokazują, jak był wielkim i nowoczesnym oraz nowatorskim artystą. Rozumiem teraz dlaczego tak bardzo pod ich wrażeniem był Knausgård.
Sama książka ma łatwiejsze i trudniejsze momenty. Okres "argentyński" jest genialny, ale w pewnym momencie widać, że się wyczerpał. Że Argentyna już go nudzi i męczy. Na szczęście przyszła wtedy szansa na powrót do Europy, dzięki której Dzienniki odzyskują wigor i świeżość i tak jest już do samego końca, do ostatnich lat życia, których wcześniej nie znałem.
Ostatnie rozdziały są wspaniałe. To prawdziwy testament, który zostawił po sobie. Poznanie jego przemyśleń, pisanych nad grobem, jest niezwykłe.
Trudno oceniać takie książki. Dlatego oczywiście daję ⭐⭐⭐⭐� jak zawsze przy okazji dzieł, które mnie przerastają.
Ale w niczym nie zmienia faktu, że tę książkę czyta się wielką przyjemnością.
Sama książka ma łatwiejsze i trudniejsze momenty. Okres "argentyński" jest genialny, ale w pewnym momencie widać, że się wyczerpał. Że Argentyna już go nudzi i męczy. Na szczęście przyszła wtedy szansa na powrót do Europy, dzięki której Dzienniki odzyskują wigor i świeżość i tak jest już do samego końca, do ostatnich lat życia, których wcześniej nie znałem.
Ostatnie rozdziały są wspaniałe. To prawdziwy testament, który zostawił po sobie. Poznanie jego przemyśleń, pisanych nad grobem, jest niezwykłe.
Trudno oceniać takie książki. Dlatego oczywiście daję ⭐⭐⭐⭐� jak zawsze przy okazji dzieł, które mnie przerastają.
Ale w niczym nie zmienia faktu, że tę książkę czyta się wielką przyjemnością.
December 29, 2019
Gombrowicz is a Polish writer of the middle of the 20th century. He spent the Second World War and the following years in emigration in Argentina. After 24 years he returned to Europe, but never went back to the Communist Poland. He is considered the one of the most prominent Polish writers and his diary is considered to be his masterpiece.
It took me almost 6 months to read this Diary. I found out about its existence while reading the 6th volume of “My struggle� by Knausgard. He was huge fan. And I can see now quite a strong influence of Gombrowicz on Knausgard work. In fact, he might be a trigger for examining Hitler’s life in 200 pages essay within the 6th volume. At one point, Gombrowicz is exclaiming: “Nations of the world, do you still believe that Hitler was only a German?� Knausgard probably took it just like his starting point then. Both are quite contrarians and have strong opinions. But the difference is that Gombrowicz never focuses on the banal or the mundane.
The diary was written with the idea of publication. In there, he discusses his novels, his views on philosophy and politics or other writers. He is not big fan of Dante, Proust or Borges’s fans. But he likes Sartre and does not mind Senkevich, Milosz and Shultz. Though he finds a few faults with those as well.
He is very self-centred to the point of being narcissistic. Famously, his diary starts from 4 days entries just Monday: Me. Tuesday: Me, and another two days of just that. But he is passionate, he is antinationalist , he is youth lover and a defender of the individual. I liked to read about Argentina through his eyes.
Many parts were very alive and interesting, but quite a few others were the polemics with Polish emigration culture which I did not care about.
I guess it is worth reading if you are interested in the alternative thinking from the middle of the last century or if you are fascinated by the precursors of the modern auto fiction. But it might be better to dip into him rather then dive in.
It took me almost 6 months to read this Diary. I found out about its existence while reading the 6th volume of “My struggle� by Knausgard. He was huge fan. And I can see now quite a strong influence of Gombrowicz on Knausgard work. In fact, he might be a trigger for examining Hitler’s life in 200 pages essay within the 6th volume. At one point, Gombrowicz is exclaiming: “Nations of the world, do you still believe that Hitler was only a German?� Knausgard probably took it just like his starting point then. Both are quite contrarians and have strong opinions. But the difference is that Gombrowicz never focuses on the banal or the mundane.
The diary was written with the idea of publication. In there, he discusses his novels, his views on philosophy and politics or other writers. He is not big fan of Dante, Proust or Borges’s fans. But he likes Sartre and does not mind Senkevich, Milosz and Shultz. Though he finds a few faults with those as well.
He is very self-centred to the point of being narcissistic. Famously, his diary starts from 4 days entries just Monday: Me. Tuesday: Me, and another two days of just that. But he is passionate, he is antinationalist , he is youth lover and a defender of the individual. I liked to read about Argentina through his eyes.
Many parts were very alive and interesting, but quite a few others were the polemics with Polish emigration culture which I did not care about.
I guess it is worth reading if you are interested in the alternative thinking from the middle of the last century or if you are fascinated by the precursors of the modern auto fiction. But it might be better to dip into him rather then dive in.
January 4, 2019
Not always thrillingly engaging, and some of his rants and rambles on the state of polish literature can drag, but a great deal of wonderful fun stuff here.
August 28, 2016
Zo'n 25 jaar geleden was ik helemaal idolaat van Witold Gombrowicz. De gebundelde heruitgave van zijn verhalen en romans die kort geleden uitkwam las ik onlangs met veel vreugde: Gombrowicz' volkomen groteske en onherhaalbaar eigenzinnige proza was in mijn beleving nog net zo fonkelend als toen. Daardoor aangestoken trok ik zijn "Dagboek 1953-1969" weer eens uit de boekenkast, het boek dat volgens veel fans Gombrowicz' beste is en ook door o.a. Knausgard zeer is geroemd. Ook nu amuseerde ik mij weer hevig, al ben en blijf ik toch vooral een fan van Gombrowicz verhalen en romans. Gombrowicz proza is altijd een uniek mengsel van groteske en barokke fantasie met scherpzinnig lucide denkvermogen: zijn "Dagboek 1953- 1969" geeft echter meer ruimte aan dit lucide denkvermogen, terwijl zijn verhalen en romans (en toneelstukken) meer ruimte geven aan zijn groteske en barokke fantasie. En van dat laatste hou ik nog net iets meer, omdat Gombrowicz daarmee naar mijn gevoel nog net wat dieper en pregnanter inzicht geeft in de grillige rijkdom van onze binnenwereld en buitenwereld. Als Gombrowicz analyseert en beschouwt swingt hij naar mijn smaak zeker, maar als hij fantaseert swingt hij echt de pan uit.
Dit boek is uiteraard geen gewoon dagboek, want bij Gombrowicz is nooit iets gewoon, maar een verzameling van lucide en eigenzinnige beschouwingen, essays en grillig-bizarre fantasieën over kunst, kunstenaars, filosofie, cultuur, literatuur, de Poolse identiteit, Mann, Hitler, Borges, Dante, Proust, het existentialisme, en zo meer. Ook werpt Gombrowicz een origineel licht op zijn eigen verhalen, toneelstukken en romans: een licht dat soms scherpzinnig verheldert, en soms op baldadige wijze het raadsel nog vergroot. In al deze verschillende beschouwingen onderzoekt Gombrowicz bovendien het pluriforme en rijk gefacetteerde raadsel van zijn eigen ik, van zijn eigen identiteit als scheppend kunstenaar. Elke beschouwing, of die nu gaat over Dante of over werk van Gombrowicz zelf of over welk ander onderwerp dan ook, is een klein brokstukje van die identiteit. Maar elke beschouwing vergroot ook het raadsel, ten eerste door de grillige en ongrijpbare stijl van die beschouwing zelf, en ook doordat die beschouwingen zich nauwelijks laten combineren tot een sluitend geheel. En zo schotelt Gombrowicz ons 900 bladzijden lang een steeds ongrijpbaarder en ondefinieerbaarder wordend beeld voor van de mens en schrijver Gombrowicz. Vooral DAT pluriforme beeld intrigeerde mij dan: de passages over m.n. Hitler, Mann, het existentialisme en Bruno Schulz gaven mij prachtige nieuwe inzichten in de betreffende onderwerpen zelf, maar nog interessanter vond ik steeds wat deze passages mij vertelden over Gombrowicz zelf.
Eerder zei ik al dat ik nog net iets meer hou van Gombrowicz romans en verhalen, omdat hij daarin meer ruimte geeft aan zijn barokke en groteske fantasie. Aan de andere kant maakt Gombrowicz in het "Dagboek 1953-1969" wel wat explicieter duidelijk wat de INZET is van die fantasie. Een levenslange obsessie van Gombrowicz was de 'vorm': de wijze waarop ons denken en voelen steeds gevormd en misvormd wordt door de invloed van anderen om ons heen en van normen en waarden die wij niet hebben gekozen maar ons wel sturen. Een andere obsessie was het verlangen naar onrijpheid: wat onrijp is heeft immers nog geen vorm, zodat het onrijpe en onaffe kansen biedt om aan die ons vervormende vorm te ontsnappen. Bovendien, onrijpheid betekent voor Gombrowicz ook jeugd en Proteische flexibiliteit, terwijl rijpheid (klassieke, afgeronde vorm) voor hem neerkomt op verstarring, onbeweeglijkheid, ouderdom, dood. En dat was - zo maakt dit "Dagboek 1953-1969" scherp duidelijk- voor Gombrowicz een existentieel probleem: na je dertigste zet het verval in, nemen je creatieve en scheppende vermogens af, en ga je steeds meer verstarren in vormen (denkwijzen, gedragswijzen, leefstijlen) die totaal niks te maken hebben met jouw eigen uniciteit. En tegelijk takel je ook lichamelijk nog eens af. Dit probleem nu, van lichamelijke aftakeling en van geestelijke verstarring in de vorm, zet Gombrowicz in "Dagboek 1953-1969" echt vlijmscherp neer. Dat vond ik, nu ik het als geleidelijk aftakelende 57-jarige weer herlas, nog imponerender dan 25 jaar geleden. Ik bewonder bovendien wat Gombrowicz zegt over hoe wij allemaal met de bek vol tanden staan bij fenomenen als verval, lijden, en (massale of individuele) dood. Maar toch bewonder ik zijn voortdurende onrijpheid, opstandigheid, eigenzinnigheid en groteske grilligheid nog meer. Elke alinea, ja, elke zin van Gombrowicz fonkelt en zindert daarvan. Elke uitspraak die hij doet is daardoor onverwacht, ongrijpbaar, vol van grillige tegenspraak. Elke uitspraak ontsnapt dus aan de verstarring van de vorm. Het "Dagboek 1953-1969" geeft veel inzicht in de mens en schrijver Gombrowicz, en in zijn persoonlijke obsessies. Maar dit inzicht stolt nooit in een afgeronde en voltooide vorm: het "is" niet, maar blijft voortdurend in wording. Dus: onrijp, jong. Dat vind ik fenomenaal, zeker als ik bedenk dat Gombrowicz hele stukken van dit dagboek schreef in slechte gezondheid en met de dood op zijn hielen. Wat een moed om ook als oude en bijna stervende schrijver nog te schrijven als een onaffe puber. Wat een geestkracht om ook als gearriveerd en inmiddels gevierd auteur zo ongrijpbaar en pluriform te blijven. En hoe inspirerend is dat alles niet voor een 57-jarige burgerman als ik.....
Citeren heeft eigenlijk geen zin, maar toch een lang citaat om een beetje te laten proeven van Gombrowicz' stijl. "Ik zie bijvoorbeeld de asbak op mijn tafel (de andere voorwerpen op tafel vallen weg). Als ik kan verklaren waarom ik juist de asbak heb opgemerkt ('ik wil er de as van mijn sigaret in doen'), is alles in orde. Als ik de asbak toevallig heb gezien, zonder enige bedoeling, en niet meer op die waarneming terugkom, is er ook niets aan de hand. Maar als je, na dit onbetekenende voorwerp te hebben opgemerkt, er opnieuw een blik op werpt.... dan wee! Waarom heb je er opnieuw naar gekeken als het zonder betekenis is? Ah, het betekent dus iets voor je, nu je er opnieuw naar kijkt... Op deze wijze, alleen door het feit dat je je zonder reden een seconde lang op dit verschijnsel hebt geconcentreerd, begint het voorwerp zich te onderscheiden en betekenis te krijgen... Nee, nee (verdedig je je), het is een gewone asbak! - Gewoon? Waarom verdedig je je dan als hij zo gewoon is? Zo wordt een verschijnsel een obsessie. Zou de werkelijkheid, in haar kern, het karakter van een obsessie hebben? Gegeven het feit dat wij onze werelden construeren door het associëren van verschijnselen, zou het mij niet verbazen als er aan het begin der tijden een tweevoudige associatie was geweest die een richting vastlegde in de chaos en orde schiep. Er is iets in het bewustzijn dat het tot een valstrik maakt voor zichzelf". Dit vind ik dus een prachtige passage, omdat Gombrowicz hier naar mijn smaak fonkelend en lucide een van zijn heel bizarre kerngedachten heel duidelijk uitlegt: elke vorm en orde is volgens hem eigenlijk een arbitraire en associatieve constructie, waarin sommige zaken naar de voorgrond worden gehaald en andere naar de achtergrond verdwijnen, zodat er een betekenisvol patroon en perspectief LIJKT te ontstaan. Maar die betekenis heeft altijd een associatieve en dus irrationele herkomst, of we dat nou beseffen of niet. Elke 'vorm' is dus van vormloosheid doordesemd, of we dat nou leuk vinden of niet. Precies die vormloosheid, die Gombrowicz in zijn dagboek zo scherpzinnig beschrijft, staat centraal in zijn romans, met name in "Kosmos": een boek vol dolzinnige associaties waarin de werkelijkheid voortdurend van gedaante verandert. Maar hij staat ook voorop in het "Dagboek 1953-1969", hoeveel helderder dat boek ook is: ook de identiteit van Gombrowicz is in dit dagboek immers een werkelijkheid die voortdurend verandert, omdat hij opgetrokken is uit associatieve beschouwingen waarin steeds verschillende facetten naar voren komen en weer verdwijnen. Zo blijft 'Gombrowicz' het hele boek een ongrijpbare figuur vol beweeglijke en Proteische veelvormigheid, die nooit "is" maar voortdurend "wordt". Het antwoord op de vraag wie of wat Gombrowicz precies is blijft daardoor een obsederend raadsel, dat nooit in een antwoord verstolt.
Ik ben kortom blij dat ik nu een lading Gombrowicz herlezen heb. Vrij binnenkort herlees ik denk ik ook zijn verzamelde toneelwerk en zijn minder bekende roman "De beheksten". Of Gombrowicz ook voor jullie wat is weet ik niet, want voor veel mensen is die man te gekunsteld of te grotesk. Maar toch zou ik aanraden het eens te proberen: eerst misschien een aantal van zijn verhalen, of anders "Ferdydurke". Als dat niks is, laat dan de complete Gombrowicz liggen. Maar misschien word je net zo aangestoken door die geniale gek als ik, en dan liggen er vele uren vol ongeremd leesplezier voor je in het verschiet.
Dit boek is uiteraard geen gewoon dagboek, want bij Gombrowicz is nooit iets gewoon, maar een verzameling van lucide en eigenzinnige beschouwingen, essays en grillig-bizarre fantasieën over kunst, kunstenaars, filosofie, cultuur, literatuur, de Poolse identiteit, Mann, Hitler, Borges, Dante, Proust, het existentialisme, en zo meer. Ook werpt Gombrowicz een origineel licht op zijn eigen verhalen, toneelstukken en romans: een licht dat soms scherpzinnig verheldert, en soms op baldadige wijze het raadsel nog vergroot. In al deze verschillende beschouwingen onderzoekt Gombrowicz bovendien het pluriforme en rijk gefacetteerde raadsel van zijn eigen ik, van zijn eigen identiteit als scheppend kunstenaar. Elke beschouwing, of die nu gaat over Dante of over werk van Gombrowicz zelf of over welk ander onderwerp dan ook, is een klein brokstukje van die identiteit. Maar elke beschouwing vergroot ook het raadsel, ten eerste door de grillige en ongrijpbare stijl van die beschouwing zelf, en ook doordat die beschouwingen zich nauwelijks laten combineren tot een sluitend geheel. En zo schotelt Gombrowicz ons 900 bladzijden lang een steeds ongrijpbaarder en ondefinieerbaarder wordend beeld voor van de mens en schrijver Gombrowicz. Vooral DAT pluriforme beeld intrigeerde mij dan: de passages over m.n. Hitler, Mann, het existentialisme en Bruno Schulz gaven mij prachtige nieuwe inzichten in de betreffende onderwerpen zelf, maar nog interessanter vond ik steeds wat deze passages mij vertelden over Gombrowicz zelf.
Eerder zei ik al dat ik nog net iets meer hou van Gombrowicz romans en verhalen, omdat hij daarin meer ruimte geeft aan zijn barokke en groteske fantasie. Aan de andere kant maakt Gombrowicz in het "Dagboek 1953-1969" wel wat explicieter duidelijk wat de INZET is van die fantasie. Een levenslange obsessie van Gombrowicz was de 'vorm': de wijze waarop ons denken en voelen steeds gevormd en misvormd wordt door de invloed van anderen om ons heen en van normen en waarden die wij niet hebben gekozen maar ons wel sturen. Een andere obsessie was het verlangen naar onrijpheid: wat onrijp is heeft immers nog geen vorm, zodat het onrijpe en onaffe kansen biedt om aan die ons vervormende vorm te ontsnappen. Bovendien, onrijpheid betekent voor Gombrowicz ook jeugd en Proteische flexibiliteit, terwijl rijpheid (klassieke, afgeronde vorm) voor hem neerkomt op verstarring, onbeweeglijkheid, ouderdom, dood. En dat was - zo maakt dit "Dagboek 1953-1969" scherp duidelijk- voor Gombrowicz een existentieel probleem: na je dertigste zet het verval in, nemen je creatieve en scheppende vermogens af, en ga je steeds meer verstarren in vormen (denkwijzen, gedragswijzen, leefstijlen) die totaal niks te maken hebben met jouw eigen uniciteit. En tegelijk takel je ook lichamelijk nog eens af. Dit probleem nu, van lichamelijke aftakeling en van geestelijke verstarring in de vorm, zet Gombrowicz in "Dagboek 1953-1969" echt vlijmscherp neer. Dat vond ik, nu ik het als geleidelijk aftakelende 57-jarige weer herlas, nog imponerender dan 25 jaar geleden. Ik bewonder bovendien wat Gombrowicz zegt over hoe wij allemaal met de bek vol tanden staan bij fenomenen als verval, lijden, en (massale of individuele) dood. Maar toch bewonder ik zijn voortdurende onrijpheid, opstandigheid, eigenzinnigheid en groteske grilligheid nog meer. Elke alinea, ja, elke zin van Gombrowicz fonkelt en zindert daarvan. Elke uitspraak die hij doet is daardoor onverwacht, ongrijpbaar, vol van grillige tegenspraak. Elke uitspraak ontsnapt dus aan de verstarring van de vorm. Het "Dagboek 1953-1969" geeft veel inzicht in de mens en schrijver Gombrowicz, en in zijn persoonlijke obsessies. Maar dit inzicht stolt nooit in een afgeronde en voltooide vorm: het "is" niet, maar blijft voortdurend in wording. Dus: onrijp, jong. Dat vind ik fenomenaal, zeker als ik bedenk dat Gombrowicz hele stukken van dit dagboek schreef in slechte gezondheid en met de dood op zijn hielen. Wat een moed om ook als oude en bijna stervende schrijver nog te schrijven als een onaffe puber. Wat een geestkracht om ook als gearriveerd en inmiddels gevierd auteur zo ongrijpbaar en pluriform te blijven. En hoe inspirerend is dat alles niet voor een 57-jarige burgerman als ik.....
Citeren heeft eigenlijk geen zin, maar toch een lang citaat om een beetje te laten proeven van Gombrowicz' stijl. "Ik zie bijvoorbeeld de asbak op mijn tafel (de andere voorwerpen op tafel vallen weg). Als ik kan verklaren waarom ik juist de asbak heb opgemerkt ('ik wil er de as van mijn sigaret in doen'), is alles in orde. Als ik de asbak toevallig heb gezien, zonder enige bedoeling, en niet meer op die waarneming terugkom, is er ook niets aan de hand. Maar als je, na dit onbetekenende voorwerp te hebben opgemerkt, er opnieuw een blik op werpt.... dan wee! Waarom heb je er opnieuw naar gekeken als het zonder betekenis is? Ah, het betekent dus iets voor je, nu je er opnieuw naar kijkt... Op deze wijze, alleen door het feit dat je je zonder reden een seconde lang op dit verschijnsel hebt geconcentreerd, begint het voorwerp zich te onderscheiden en betekenis te krijgen... Nee, nee (verdedig je je), het is een gewone asbak! - Gewoon? Waarom verdedig je je dan als hij zo gewoon is? Zo wordt een verschijnsel een obsessie. Zou de werkelijkheid, in haar kern, het karakter van een obsessie hebben? Gegeven het feit dat wij onze werelden construeren door het associëren van verschijnselen, zou het mij niet verbazen als er aan het begin der tijden een tweevoudige associatie was geweest die een richting vastlegde in de chaos en orde schiep. Er is iets in het bewustzijn dat het tot een valstrik maakt voor zichzelf". Dit vind ik dus een prachtige passage, omdat Gombrowicz hier naar mijn smaak fonkelend en lucide een van zijn heel bizarre kerngedachten heel duidelijk uitlegt: elke vorm en orde is volgens hem eigenlijk een arbitraire en associatieve constructie, waarin sommige zaken naar de voorgrond worden gehaald en andere naar de achtergrond verdwijnen, zodat er een betekenisvol patroon en perspectief LIJKT te ontstaan. Maar die betekenis heeft altijd een associatieve en dus irrationele herkomst, of we dat nou beseffen of niet. Elke 'vorm' is dus van vormloosheid doordesemd, of we dat nou leuk vinden of niet. Precies die vormloosheid, die Gombrowicz in zijn dagboek zo scherpzinnig beschrijft, staat centraal in zijn romans, met name in "Kosmos": een boek vol dolzinnige associaties waarin de werkelijkheid voortdurend van gedaante verandert. Maar hij staat ook voorop in het "Dagboek 1953-1969", hoeveel helderder dat boek ook is: ook de identiteit van Gombrowicz is in dit dagboek immers een werkelijkheid die voortdurend verandert, omdat hij opgetrokken is uit associatieve beschouwingen waarin steeds verschillende facetten naar voren komen en weer verdwijnen. Zo blijft 'Gombrowicz' het hele boek een ongrijpbare figuur vol beweeglijke en Proteische veelvormigheid, die nooit "is" maar voortdurend "wordt". Het antwoord op de vraag wie of wat Gombrowicz precies is blijft daardoor een obsederend raadsel, dat nooit in een antwoord verstolt.
Ik ben kortom blij dat ik nu een lading Gombrowicz herlezen heb. Vrij binnenkort herlees ik denk ik ook zijn verzamelde toneelwerk en zijn minder bekende roman "De beheksten". Of Gombrowicz ook voor jullie wat is weet ik niet, want voor veel mensen is die man te gekunsteld of te grotesk. Maar toch zou ik aanraden het eens te proberen: eerst misschien een aantal van zijn verhalen, of anders "Ferdydurke". Als dat niks is, laat dan de complete Gombrowicz liggen. Maar misschien word je net zo aangestoken door die geniale gek als ik, en dan liggen er vele uren vol ongeremd leesplezier voor je in het verschiet.
April 12, 2015
Wo0o. Alto viaje. Leer el diario de Gombrowicz fue lo mejor que me pasó en la vida. Lo voy a amar hasta que me muera. Es una reivindicación absoluta del humano y su yo, por sobre toda la sanata artística, científica, religiosa y política con la que nos revestimos socialmente. Pero lo hace con tanto nivel y humor, que no pude más que encontrar un amigo. Patriotismo de lado: que la mayor parte transcurra en Argentina, es un golazo. Lo recomiendo fervientemente por sobre todos los otros libros del universo.
March 2, 2018
Well, now my journey with the great Gombrowicz has come to an end. There was a time where I couldn't imagine what life would be like after "The Diaries". Gombrowicz, a mindblowing master of his mother tongue, delivers rather an intriguing Bildungroman of an exotic foreigner in the likewise exotic foreign country (which I could partly relate to) than a classical diary and teaches simultaneously about his, that is a headstrong artist's, views on poetry, art and music. This book is tremendously enriching. I will miss it and most certainly come back to it from time to time.
May 4, 2018
Bezapelacyjnie najlepsza książka, jaką przeczytałam w tym roku! (Nie sądzę, żeby cokolwiek mogło zdeklasować "Dziennik" Gombrowicza). W "Dzienniku" jest wszystko za co kocham Gombrowicza: ironia, styl, szydera, humor, cynizm, szczerość, bezkompromisowość, błyskotliwość. Mogłabym długo wymieniać. Po prostu Gombrowicz <3
March 26, 2018
"Rimtoji literatura yra ne tam, kad gyvenima palengvintu, o tam, kad ji apsunkintu".
January 6, 2025
Kod nas prevedeno kao "Dnevnik 1953-1969". Disput, Zagreb, 2024. Izvrstan prijevod Adriana Cvitanovića.
Dnevnik ekscentrika, narcisa i egocentrika koji bi komotno mogao nositi naslov Ja i svijet. Jer dnevnikom dominira opsesivni egoizam, snažno Ja koje usisava sve oko sebe i komentira književne i kulturne pojave iz iskošene perspektive autsajdera i emigranta koji o svemu misli drukčije od vladajuće većine. Kritizira Poljsku, poljskost i Poljake zbog želje da ne budu to što jesu nego da ropski oponašaju zapadnoeuropske narode. Poljska kultura po njemu je nadgradnja bez baze. Gombrovicz ne želi biti ni u jednoj ladici: ideološkoj, političkoj, nacionalnoj. Želi biti samo svoj, sa svojim skepticizmom, rezignacijom, samoćom, nespokojem. On nameće sebe i svoje stavove svijetu, ali se istodobno pred nama svlači, razgolićuje, pokazuje svoju krhkost. Neobičan svat u želji da stvori svoju filozofiju, svoju formu, čak i svoj jezik. Jednostavno drukčiji od svega, izvan kalupa, bez kompromisa. Izbacuje čovjeka iz ravnoteže, budi ga iz građanske komotnosti i svakodnevne rutine. Gombrovicz! Solna kiselina, strast osporavanja. Nikoga ne ostavlja ravnodušnim. Radikalan, lud, oštrouman, samohvalisav, sav u paradoksima. Za njega je zamjenica JA temeljna i urođena, ispunjena najopipljivijom zbiljom. Ozbiljna književnost ne služi tome da život učini lakšim, nego upravo da ga oteža.
4.5
Dnevnik ekscentrika, narcisa i egocentrika koji bi komotno mogao nositi naslov Ja i svijet. Jer dnevnikom dominira opsesivni egoizam, snažno Ja koje usisava sve oko sebe i komentira književne i kulturne pojave iz iskošene perspektive autsajdera i emigranta koji o svemu misli drukčije od vladajuće većine. Kritizira Poljsku, poljskost i Poljake zbog želje da ne budu to što jesu nego da ropski oponašaju zapadnoeuropske narode. Poljska kultura po njemu je nadgradnja bez baze. Gombrovicz ne želi biti ni u jednoj ladici: ideološkoj, političkoj, nacionalnoj. Želi biti samo svoj, sa svojim skepticizmom, rezignacijom, samoćom, nespokojem. On nameće sebe i svoje stavove svijetu, ali se istodobno pred nama svlači, razgolićuje, pokazuje svoju krhkost. Neobičan svat u želji da stvori svoju filozofiju, svoju formu, čak i svoj jezik. Jednostavno drukčiji od svega, izvan kalupa, bez kompromisa. Izbacuje čovjeka iz ravnoteže, budi ga iz građanske komotnosti i svakodnevne rutine. Gombrovicz! Solna kiselina, strast osporavanja. Nikoga ne ostavlja ravnodušnim. Radikalan, lud, oštrouman, samohvalisav, sav u paradoksima. Za njega je zamjenica JA temeljna i urođena, ispunjena najopipljivijom zbiljom. Ozbiljna književnost ne služi tome da život učini lakšim, nego upravo da ga oteža.
4.5
December 2, 2024
In his Diary, Gombrowicz shares his thoughts on Poland, Polish literature, Polish politics and Polish culture. A lot of the inside-baseball is lost on me, but I enjoyed his creative thinking about literature and communism and what it meant for Poland. Although it is often fun reading � frequently funny, occasionally insightful � Gombrowicz never quite wiggles his way out of the crank-in-exile persona he casts for himself.
Over the course of a half-year, I have read about half of the Diary's contents, casually dipping in and out. I have finally lost interest and decided to put it down, with no intention of picking it up again later.
Over the course of a half-year, I have read about half of the Diary's contents, casually dipping in and out. I have finally lost interest and decided to put it down, with no intention of picking it up again later.
April 14, 2024
live laugh love gombro
August 12, 2024
gdybym mogła wskrzesić jednego polskiego pisarza żeby mógł wypowiedzieć się o XXI wieku, to wybrałabym Gombrowicza
January 10, 2008
Who else can turn a dull unimportant event into a psychological-philosophical thriller? When you read him you are not afraid of your own inner craziness. Damn, you even feel like you should set it on the whole world.
I do not agree with all of his comments on literature but his way of expressing them is still *highly* amusing.
I do not agree with all of his comments on literature but his way of expressing them is still *highly* amusing.
September 14, 2020
Me llevó unos años leer el Diario de Gombrowicz y mentirías si digo que todo fue igual de disfrutable. Por momentos de hecho sentía quedar afuera de toda reflexión o discusión que hiciera, sobre todo en cuanto pelea tuviese con autores de Polonia. Luego su juicio sobre movimientos políticos los sentía acartonados, naif y desactualizados (hoy ya no creemos en ese marxismo y tan enquistado en un bloque de mal y demostró tener inclusive más aristas que el fascismo). Entonces aparecen las bromas, las chicanas, las reflexiones sobre la existencia y si aún uno como lector tiene ganas de volver los pasos y releer esos textos crípticos a la luz de ese polemista irónico y siempre juvenil aparece un tesoro muy grande que posee el libro: la frescura de la vanguardia. Y es entonces que aparece la verdad de este Diario, y se llama Witold Gombrowicz.
El libro es único porque es el mayor intento de uno de los autores de vanguardia del siglo XX por crearse a si mismo. El ejercicio no es simplemente literario, sino existencialista hasta la médula. Piensese en esta perspectiva: un autor de lengua marginal, que nace en los márgenes de un imperio que se desgrana tras la derrota de la Primera Guerra Mundial y que no sobrevive más que 20 años trágicos hasta que el nazismo arrasa con lo que encuentra, se salva por una estúpida casualidad de la masacre europea de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Salvarse de ese hundimiento implica caer en Argentina, país lejano y periférico que arrastra la tristeza de no querer reconocerse latinoamericanos y ser eternos aspiracionales. Esa aspiracionalidad le abre puertas por ser europeo y se las cierra por ser europeo de segunda (el ser polaco no es lo mismo que ser inglés, alemán o francés). Y ese aprender a ser marginal dentro de los márgenes en una mente como la de Gombrowicz es una oportunidad más que una tragedia.
La riqueza más fuerte del Diario se encuentra en su etapa argentina, que abarca casi el 80% del libro. Su regreso a Europa la vive como una pérdida de vitalidad, un desarraigo del desarraigo. Es verdad que fueron los años de los galardones y la vida cómoda, pero cuando uno lee esas páginas sabe que la melancolía está ahí, esperando transformarse en tristeza y rutina.
El diario es único y monstruoso. Impera leerlo despacio y solo en momentos que sean óptimos para su mayor goce. No importa que se tarde años en leerse, vale la pena y creo que todo el que guste de leer libros debe hacerlo alguna vez en la vida (ese lujo que tienen los clásicos). Mi parte favorita es tal vez cuando se interna en Santiago del Estero y su viaje por el delta del Paraná. Ahí entra en comunión con algo más allá, un ser supremo o un nuevo Gombrowicz.
Ojalá estas palabras sean leídas, compartidas y comentadas.
El libro es único porque es el mayor intento de uno de los autores de vanguardia del siglo XX por crearse a si mismo. El ejercicio no es simplemente literario, sino existencialista hasta la médula. Piensese en esta perspectiva: un autor de lengua marginal, que nace en los márgenes de un imperio que se desgrana tras la derrota de la Primera Guerra Mundial y que no sobrevive más que 20 años trágicos hasta que el nazismo arrasa con lo que encuentra, se salva por una estúpida casualidad de la masacre europea de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Salvarse de ese hundimiento implica caer en Argentina, país lejano y periférico que arrastra la tristeza de no querer reconocerse latinoamericanos y ser eternos aspiracionales. Esa aspiracionalidad le abre puertas por ser europeo y se las cierra por ser europeo de segunda (el ser polaco no es lo mismo que ser inglés, alemán o francés). Y ese aprender a ser marginal dentro de los márgenes en una mente como la de Gombrowicz es una oportunidad más que una tragedia.
La riqueza más fuerte del Diario se encuentra en su etapa argentina, que abarca casi el 80% del libro. Su regreso a Europa la vive como una pérdida de vitalidad, un desarraigo del desarraigo. Es verdad que fueron los años de los galardones y la vida cómoda, pero cuando uno lee esas páginas sabe que la melancolía está ahí, esperando transformarse en tristeza y rutina.
El diario es único y monstruoso. Impera leerlo despacio y solo en momentos que sean óptimos para su mayor goce. No importa que se tarde años en leerse, vale la pena y creo que todo el que guste de leer libros debe hacerlo alguna vez en la vida (ese lujo que tienen los clásicos). Mi parte favorita es tal vez cuando se interna en Santiago del Estero y su viaje por el delta del Paraná. Ahí entra en comunión con algo más allá, un ser supremo o un nuevo Gombrowicz.
Ojalá estas palabras sean leídas, compartidas y comentadas.
Read
August 29, 2021moja dwuletnia przygoda z dziennikiem Gombrowicza -- niesamowicie ciekawy labirynt rozważań, który miejscami mnie zachwycał, miejscami irytował, zasmucał albo po prostu zastanawiał. podróż przez 16 lat jego życia i 16 lat jego pisania. nie wiem czy rozumiem go bardziej, ale na pewno nie rozumiem go mniej, co uważam za osobisty sukces.
June 15, 2008
Gombrowicz is one of the most extraordinary writers I've encountered in a long time. Only a truly disciplined musician can play Free Jazz, Don Cherry used to say, and such a musician is Gombrowizc in his Diaries. The sense of structure of a Bach combined with an hallucinatory madness which at the same time is perceptive as an incision--the wildly laughing gallows humor, the continual experimentations--a one man band of meta literatures, meta critiques, meta theories being juggled like so many oranges-truly a breathtaking and awe inspiring performer!
Gombrowicz from page to page investigates, questions, laughs at, rages at, describes in such as way as to totally deform and re arrange--writing itself, and the writings with which it is is surrounded and surrounds itself with. Many of his sentences are complete Conceptual projects in themselves--and one finds whole paragraphs like this, packed to the rafters with a cascade of ideas, a torrent of angles, sounds, dimensions, aspects with which writing may be examined and may be used to examine--itself included.
Gombrowicz is one of those rare writers who reminds one of what an explosive material writing may be--especially in the hands of an excellent artist of the making of explosives! It's a tremendous joy to read a writing which is so alive so incredibly alert and so improvisatory while at the same time having such an incredible range of understandings of writing in all its forms. And best of all, it's staggeringly hilarious!!
I often wonder of late if the really most interesting and "innovative" writing has not been very often in prose and theater.
The Russian Zaum poet Kruchenhyk wrote a small book called "Explodity"--this is a quality which seems to be extremely lacking in American "innovative" writing for a very long time now, except among some of the best non-fiction writers, whom I think of as creators of a form of poetry.
Gombrowicz in the Diary--I have only read abt 2/3s of Volume 2 which I found by chance--so far--and the novel COSMOS--is one of these Explodity characters. Very inspiring!!
Gombrowicz from page to page investigates, questions, laughs at, rages at, describes in such as way as to totally deform and re arrange--writing itself, and the writings with which it is is surrounded and surrounds itself with. Many of his sentences are complete Conceptual projects in themselves--and one finds whole paragraphs like this, packed to the rafters with a cascade of ideas, a torrent of angles, sounds, dimensions, aspects with which writing may be examined and may be used to examine--itself included.
Gombrowicz is one of those rare writers who reminds one of what an explosive material writing may be--especially in the hands of an excellent artist of the making of explosives! It's a tremendous joy to read a writing which is so alive so incredibly alert and so improvisatory while at the same time having such an incredible range of understandings of writing in all its forms. And best of all, it's staggeringly hilarious!!
I often wonder of late if the really most interesting and "innovative" writing has not been very often in prose and theater.
The Russian Zaum poet Kruchenhyk wrote a small book called "Explodity"--this is a quality which seems to be extremely lacking in American "innovative" writing for a very long time now, except among some of the best non-fiction writers, whom I think of as creators of a form of poetry.
Gombrowicz in the Diary--I have only read abt 2/3s of Volume 2 which I found by chance--so far--and the novel COSMOS--is one of these Explodity characters. Very inspiring!!
Read
August 10, 2017Zevrubná deníková filipika (nejen) o Polsku a Gombrowiczovi, kterou je dobré číst formou "co (tý)den to jeden záznam". Ano, padají tu jak na běžícím páse v našich luzích a hájích neznámá jména a události, ale jelikož o ně tu nejde, tak jsou překvapivě o poznání méně na škodu než by jeden čekal.
September 23, 2020
Imagine the protagonist of Thomas Mann’s ‘Death in Venice� didn’t die of cholera but sustained himself on self-deprecating humour and the search for a new muse. Perhaps Gustave von Aschenbach would have turned out a ‘Diary� not unlike this. It is a work of bleak insight, hysterical bemusement, and philosophical rumination. It's also funny in a distinctive Polish style. Curiously, Mann’s model for Aschenbach’s muse, Tadzio, was based on an actual boy who not only went to the same school but was an actual acquaintance of Witold Gombrowicz, and, who in all likelihood, probably served as his muse too.
Like Mann’s Aschenbach, Gombrowicz is fascinated by the subterranean co-dependency of youth and age, beauty and ugliness, inexperience and expertise, and the relation between a kind of faith and a necessary betrayal. These oppositions are explored most directly in Gombrowicz’s ‘Pornografica� (1960), an inverted Pascalian Wager of a novel where kneeling and pretending to believe in church can bring down the entire edifice of Catholic metaphysics. As it happens, Gombrowicz recognizes in Mann a worthy contemporary, but, as will prove typical, this won’t prevent him from passing negative judgement, claiming that Mann’s ‘honesty, openness and integrity� as a writer serves him as ‘just one more form of coquetry� (404) in the pursuit of greatness.
It would be easy to level a similar accusation at Gombrowicz. Ostensibly an honest account of a Polish writer in war-exile refusing to return to a Soviet vassal state, Gombrowicz writes what might be termed a philosophical picaresque in a style somewhere between Nietzsche and Sancho Panza. Two parts cynical to one part naïve, perhaps what saves Gombrowicz from the charge of disingenuous is his late-earned success.
Feigned or not, arguably, the best sections of the ‘Diary� are those where he takes to task the pretension of artists and their sophisticated audiences who feign understanding. In the section titled ‘Against Poetry�, Gombrowicz takes a thought experiment on the road, and assembles ‘a poem� composed from random lines and phrases taken from a poet of high repute. Naturally, in his literary circle, many of his friends will profess to admire the reputed poet, so when he shows them the poem (without revealing the process of its manufacture), they will declare its excellence, much to this reader’s amusement. Gombrowicz asks as to how these literattuers can grow so enraptured with a poet when they don’t even recognize a crude forgery?
A similar operation occurs with would-be serious music aficionados. At a gathering; Gombrowicz arranges it so that he is introduced by esteemed composers as a serious musician, and proceeds to strike the piano with gay abandon, thereafter earning their rapturous applause...Of course, after Cage and Warhol we might not wonder so much, and Gombrowicz’s carping might seem philistine: the respective audiences were tricked because they were not experts on the particular poet or musician, and it’s difficult for anyone to ascertain an artwork’s quality at first encounter. Yet he is surely right to point out how easy it is to deceive people who are non-experts but who would like to be thought of as cultured. Naturally, such a critique of elite culture does not refute it: life is short, we don’t read or listen to everything; our practical day-to-day judgments rely on associations, positions, reputations, even book covers. It would be interesting to see what Gombrowicz would have made of the trend for interpreting pop culture as if it were as rich a resource as any other. Give a good critic a poem cobbled together from fragments and a date of publication and they can quite easily generate a whole history of ideas. This needn’t be a bad thing.
When he is not lampooning artistic pretension, Gombrowicz is most persuasive in his understanding of how elite artworks can function as exercises in sensibility. Where Gombrowicz’s own literary taste can only accept poetry when it is alloyed with literary narrative or drama, he is highly perceptive at seeing the disavowed performance of sensibility in others. A trip to the art gallery will prove instructive. A painter-friend takes him along and becomes irritated by what he takes to be affected objections: Gombrowicz asks him what it is you actually gain from going to a gallery? For Gombrowicz, the answer isn’t obvious: Firstly, he notes the problem of the awful attention-seeking competition. Each painting is meant to represent the summit of human artistic creation, and they’re lucky if we give on average a minute to each one. What does the artist or the audience get out of that? The sheer amount of artworks points towards its futility. Secondly, in terms of painting, the tools of expression are inferior to nature, no matter who wields them. Gombrowicz will claim that we overlook the fact that the medium is composed from pig-hair brushes, crumbling pigment and flat rough canvas, and the received idea that a two-dimensional frozen image can somehow capture the richness of our three-dimensional world in motion shouldn’t be accepted on trust. Lastly, if, as a painter, you believed you were blessed with the capacities to appreciate form and colour, then why do you need to make a painting? Isn’t the external world rich enough? Apply your capacities to the museum guard and be done with it.
Art isn’t only mimesis, and the painter-friend is justifiably put out by these provocations. But Gombrowicz’s ‘Diary� well describes how the average would-be cultured person interacts with artworks. We train ourselves to adopt a certain poise, a certain good cheer and lightness, and murmur a discreet approval of a detail in a manner which shows oblique discernment. It is gauche to be angry or anxious by an artwork, and such behaviour betrays unfamiliarity with the gallery’s tacit codes. And yet, aren’t we hoping for some kind of richer experience? Don’t we want to be moved to tears or laughter in some rare transport? And don’t we check the museum text label to ensure we are being moved by one of the greats and not some pretender? For Gombrowicz, culture is not your friend. He describes it as being like a powerful hand which pushes you down on your knees to worship. And the artist-connoisseur’s blithe ease in the gallery only testifies to this self-same power. In this regard he anticipates the findings of Pierre Bourdieu's 'Distinction'.
If the Nietzschean overtones to Gombrowicz’s understanding of art’s pathos of distance is highly effective, then the Nietzschean critiques of the scientific worldview and Marxism via Soviet-Communism are slightly more whimsical and derivative. Nevertheless, he will have the good taste to not indulge in the histrionic anti-communist sentiments of his fellow emigres. Gombrowicz is like a good Catholic, and reminds us that, whatever urgent issue a writer is supposed to take a stand on today, each day millions will die for no other reason than old-age, accident or illness. We are back to Pascal: ‘Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows and, looking at each other with grief and despair, await their turn.� How is it we manage to contemplate each our own doom without much by way of anger or fervor?
Aside from the hundreds of pages Gombrowicz devoted to acerbic and frequently hilarious reposts to his critics, together with his comic-heroic accounts of social-angst amongst what passes for Argentine literary society, there is an unspoken dignity in the way in which Gombrowicz copes with his exile and his final illnesses. His critical animus is reserved for those who misconstrue his literary works, and he never complains about his actual material conditions. This despite the fact that for most of his adult life, Gombrowicz survived on charity and the pittance he earned as a low-level bank clerk. His reticence to talk of the base conditions of life is matched by his decorum regarding his actual sex-life. In the ‘Diary�, he expresses irritation at critics who try to use it to explain the themes of his plays and novels, but it is difficult not to read his many philosophical ruminations on the corruption of youth by age and vice versa as a justification for his hidden pursuits. Today, in an age where everyone must announce their ‘type� and what they are ‘into� as a proof of pride, then Gombrowicz’s unwillingness to be explicit could strike a contemporary reader as cowardly, or as a product of residual self-disgust. Arguably, there is a paradox at work in this ‘Diary� whereby the writer pre-empts enquiry by overloading the reader with personal information: surely, you don’t need to hear more than what he has already confessed? To my mind, there are more than enough honest reflections in the ‘Diary� to compensate for any perceived reservations. Read Gombrowicz’s account of the futility of insect suffering as proof of a meaningless universe, read his account of visiting Berlin in 1963 and his pursuit of the spectre of blame, and if you write, read his surprisingly revealing account of how to construct his stories and be inspired. His secret? You’ll have to pay for it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 2, 2018
GENIUSZ
February 5, 2023
Colosal lección de literatura, arte, filosofía y autenticidad de Witold Gombrowicz en su «Diario 1953 - 1969» (@Seix_Barral); una obra maestra absoluta.
June 5, 2020
Leo este fantástico Diario no en esta edición, sino en la de El cuenco de plata. Seix Barral ha empeorado tanto la edición de sus libros que no merece la pena gastarse los 55 euros que cuesta en este libro. Porque es un libro que leerás muchas veces en tu vida, y necesitarás que las páginas no se desencadenen, la tinta no se corra y que huela bien, a buen libro. El cuenco de plata da esto. Y son 37 euros.
Imprescindible para ser más persona, sobre todo en estos tiempos de dictadura de la opinión y falta de sentido crítico. O de inteligencia.
Una joya en la biblioteca.
Imprescindible para ser más persona, sobre todo en estos tiempos de dictadura de la opinión y falta de sentido crítico. O de inteligencia.
Una joya en la biblioteca.
October 25, 2022
De los mejores libros que he leído en mi vida.
Gombrowicz fue dueño de un ego elegante y jocoso. Este diario trata de todo, y demuestra que el esnobismo y el miedo a ser auténtico siempre han existido.
Gombrowicz era un hombre libre y auténtico.
Gombrowicz fue dueño de un ego elegante y jocoso. Este diario trata de todo, y demuestra que el esnobismo y el miedo a ser auténtico siempre han existido.
Gombrowicz era un hombre libre y auténtico.
August 28, 2019
Hermoso, mi primera lectura del autor.
May 24, 2020
Gombrowicz was a genius. Don't read it.
January 31, 2024
Понимаю, что для польской культуры это великое произведение, поэтому сложновато давать свою оценку, как человека, никакого отношения к Польше не имеющего.
Книга эта конечно не воспоминания, но философия. И философия глубоко личная, индивидуальная, изложенная хронологически (не всегда по датам, иногда указания только дни недели), по ходу размышления, как нынче бы сказали, блог.
Чтение не самое простое для меня, не имеющего привычки читать философию, но всё же осилить можно. Стоит ли - вопрос очень индивидуальный, зависит от интереса к основным темам.
Наверное можно грубо разделить проблематику на три составляющие. Первая - возраст и его восприятие. Темы молодости и старости, красоты молодого тела, права молодости на всё в этом мире просто потому, что она красива и весела. Тема эта очень регулярно всплывает под разными углами.
Вторая тема - что есть "польскость", что значит брать поляком. Надо учитывать то время и исторические события в Польше, но в общем это был кризис в национальном самосознании. Поляк - это вроде уже не пан, не давно отжившее прошлое. Но и не товарищ советский гражданин, что является навязанным настоящим. Так кто же это такой, поляк, чем он отличается от других, не-поляков? Тема мне показалась очень близкой нынешним российским реалиям, когда кто-то пытается достать косоворотку из пыльного сундука, кто-то говорит про западный путь развития экономики... Очень интересно понаблюдать за философской мыслью того времени из нашего настоящего, примерить какие-то мысли на себя.
Третья тема наверное наименее интересна, так как наименее понятна, и касается всякой внутренней польской литературной кухни. О чём написал тот или иной, о чём стоит или не стоит писать "в наше время" и т.п.
При этом я бы наверное порекомендовал закончить чтение на моменте переезда автора обратно в Европу, это примерно 2/3 книги. Дальше мне показалось уже совсем сухо, много брюзжания и мало нового. Если до этого чтение покажется не простым, можно наверное и не продолжать.
Также стоит учитывать, что авторский тон часто бывает очень настойчивым, бескомпромиссным, не предполагающим никаких других точек зрения. Это безусловно является отражением характера самого автора, его уникальной и сильной личности, но не всем может оказаться по нраву.
Книга эта конечно не воспоминания, но философия. И философия глубоко личная, индивидуальная, изложенная хронологически (не всегда по датам, иногда указания только дни недели), по ходу размышления, как нынче бы сказали, блог.
Чтение не самое простое для меня, не имеющего привычки читать философию, но всё же осилить можно. Стоит ли - вопрос очень индивидуальный, зависит от интереса к основным темам.
Наверное можно грубо разделить проблематику на три составляющие. Первая - возраст и его восприятие. Темы молодости и старости, красоты молодого тела, права молодости на всё в этом мире просто потому, что она красива и весела. Тема эта очень регулярно всплывает под разными углами.
Вторая тема - что есть "польскость", что значит брать поляком. Надо учитывать то время и исторические события в Польше, но в общем это был кризис в национальном самосознании. Поляк - это вроде уже не пан, не давно отжившее прошлое. Но и не товарищ советский гражданин, что является навязанным настоящим. Так кто же это такой, поляк, чем он отличается от других, не-поляков? Тема мне показалась очень близкой нынешним российским реалиям, когда кто-то пытается достать косоворотку из пыльного сундука, кто-то говорит про западный путь развития экономики... Очень интересно понаблюдать за философской мыслью того времени из нашего настоящего, примерить какие-то мысли на себя.
Третья тема наверное наименее интересна, так как наименее понятна, и касается всякой внутренней польской литературной кухни. О чём написал тот или иной, о чём стоит или не стоит писать "в наше время" и т.п.
При этом я бы наверное порекомендовал закончить чтение на моменте переезда автора обратно в Европу, это примерно 2/3 книги. Дальше мне показалось уже совсем сухо, много брюзжания и мало нового. Если до этого чтение покажется не простым, можно наверное и не продолжать.
Также стоит учитывать, что авторский тон часто бывает очень настойчивым, бескомпромиссным, не предполагающим никаких других точек зрения. Это безусловно является отражением характера самого автора, его уникальной и сильной личности, но не всем может оказаться по нраву.
February 15, 2025
ڱʲż
Gdym Berlin opuścił, w maju zeszłegu roku, osiadłem w Royaumont, o 30 klm. od Paryża. Opactwo z trzynastego wieku, gdzie święty Ludwik sługiwał mnichom, skąd podobno jakiś czas rządzono Francją, gotyk potężny, czworoboczny, czteropiętrowy, mury, krużganki, łuki, rozety, kolumny, w parku spokojnym z wodą kanałów i stawów zmurszałą, zieloną.
Gmach w połowie pusty � refektarze „echowe�, sale o czcigodnych nagrobkach, łacińskich napisach � w połowie zaś zamieszkały, albowiem cele mnichów na pierwszym piętrze, łącznie z celą, w której święty Ludwik jakoby mieszkał, przysposobiono dla zjeżdżających z Paryża intelektualistów, artystów. Ja ciągle byłem chory. Niby to rekonwalescencja po berlińskim szpitalu, ale jakoś niezbyt mi się polepszało, czułem, że sekret trujący wciąż we mnie się gnieździ, kwękałem, przechadzałem się słabowicie pod kasztanami, dochodziłem ospale do drogi, do mostku, siadałem na kamieniu, patrzyłem na ścielący się jedwab słodkiej Francji � gaje, łąki, wzgórza, którymi szły linie wysokiego napięcia, osadzone na wieżach stalowych, przejrzystych, rytmicznych. Patrzyłem na to osowiały, z duszą niechętną, jak morda psia odwracająca się od pełnej miski, i powolutku kierowałem swe kroki z powrotem ku domowi, wkraczałem w grubość murów, w gotyckość sklepień.
Rano goląc się z ręcznikiem na szyi, widziałem z okna snujące się po parku osoby: profesor dźwigający sobie leżak w ustronne miejsce, dwie subtelne damy z parasolkami, malarz zagląda do kanału, student w trawie obłożony książkami. Co kilka dni wdzierały się w ten spokój gromady obcojęzyczne, na przykład sześćdziesięciu biologów, czterdziestu etnologów, siedemnastu parapsychologów (widziałem to z okna), gdyż Royaumont jest ważnym ośrodkiem naukowo-kulturalnym, miejscem kongresów międzynarodowych, takoż odczytów, koncertów, seminariów. Z początku myślałem, że wcale mi tu źle nie będzie, wolałem to niż nudę zwykłego hotelu � a nie mogąc w Paryżu mieszkać (bo Paryż stał się samochodową apokalipsą, wyjącą, ryczącą, pędzącą, śmierdzącą) zadowolony byłem, że tu oto będę miał kombinację rozkosznej zieleni z Café Flore i z Sorboną, ba, z Japonią nawet, z Australią.
Gdym Berlin opuścił, w maju zeszłegu roku, osiadłem w Royaumont, o 30 klm. od Paryża. Opactwo z trzynastego wieku, gdzie święty Ludwik sługiwał mnichom, skąd podobno jakiś czas rządzono Francją, gotyk potężny, czworoboczny, czteropiętrowy, mury, krużganki, łuki, rozety, kolumny, w parku spokojnym z wodą kanałów i stawów zmurszałą, zieloną.
Gmach w połowie pusty � refektarze „echowe�, sale o czcigodnych nagrobkach, łacińskich napisach � w połowie zaś zamieszkały, albowiem cele mnichów na pierwszym piętrze, łącznie z celą, w której święty Ludwik jakoby mieszkał, przysposobiono dla zjeżdżających z Paryża intelektualistów, artystów. Ja ciągle byłem chory. Niby to rekonwalescencja po berlińskim szpitalu, ale jakoś niezbyt mi się polepszało, czułem, że sekret trujący wciąż we mnie się gnieździ, kwękałem, przechadzałem się słabowicie pod kasztanami, dochodziłem ospale do drogi, do mostku, siadałem na kamieniu, patrzyłem na ścielący się jedwab słodkiej Francji � gaje, łąki, wzgórza, którymi szły linie wysokiego napięcia, osadzone na wieżach stalowych, przejrzystych, rytmicznych. Patrzyłem na to osowiały, z duszą niechętną, jak morda psia odwracająca się od pełnej miski, i powolutku kierowałem swe kroki z powrotem ku domowi, wkraczałem w grubość murów, w gotyckość sklepień.
Rano goląc się z ręcznikiem na szyi, widziałem z okna snujące się po parku osoby: profesor dźwigający sobie leżak w ustronne miejsce, dwie subtelne damy z parasolkami, malarz zagląda do kanału, student w trawie obłożony książkami. Co kilka dni wdzierały się w ten spokój gromady obcojęzyczne, na przykład sześćdziesięciu biologów, czterdziestu etnologów, siedemnastu parapsychologów (widziałem to z okna), gdyż Royaumont jest ważnym ośrodkiem naukowo-kulturalnym, miejscem kongresów międzynarodowych, takoż odczytów, koncertów, seminariów. Z początku myślałem, że wcale mi tu źle nie będzie, wolałem to niż nudę zwykłego hotelu � a nie mogąc w Paryżu mieszkać (bo Paryż stał się samochodową apokalipsą, wyjącą, ryczącą, pędzącą, śmierdzącą) zadowolony byłem, że tu oto będę miał kombinację rozkosznej zieleni z Café Flore i z Sorboną, ba, z Japonią nawet, z Australią.
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October 7, 2024Czyliż co? - wyjechał on ciż do tej Argentyny, przez lat blisko dwadzieścia i pięć naśmiewał się z tego świata inteligientów napuszonego, szczypał i gryzł co popadnie, w shitpost czysty niejednokrotnie popadał... je n'aime pas to, je n'aime pas tamto, ale Beethovena to ty szanuj gów..., dumni escritores dookoła się kręcą, kiedy bezustannie na nosach im gra??? Tu mu jakaś krowa w oczy spojrzy i jak grom z nieba jasnego z rytmu wybije, szyki popsuje? Matko Bosko a on teraz statkiem płynie i gdy tak na tym statku jedząc, pijąc, po pokładzie spacerując statkiem płynie (płynąc ciągle) niby to płynie spokojnie, ale jednak A o Polsce czego nie napisze! Aż strach przywołać przykład jaki... A o literaturze! o sztuce(!)!!! Ja sam już nie wiem, nadziwić się nie mogę.
Ogólnie to fajen, polecam 👍
Ogólnie to fajen, polecam 👍
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