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donate Summary of FA-art 74 (4/2008)
Krzysztof Unilowski
Critical experiences of the 80s: Jerzy Malewski and Tadeusz Komendant
Krzysztof Unilowski reviews two literary criticism books from the 80s, which were published outside of the government-sanctioned censorship: Widzialem wolnosc w Warszawie by Jerzy Malewski (pen name of Wlodzimierz Bolecki) and Zostaje kantyczka by Tadeusz Komendant. He finds in them two totally different views on literary and public language which stem from and recall the same source experience. Malewski writes about language which sanctions the experience of the common ground between position and value. Komendant describes the experience of difference, the "positional aspect of truth", and literature as a "linguistic gesture." Instead of sharing the common ground, Komendant advocates the participation in a varied social practice and taking responsibility for its shape and direction. The difference between the positions of these two critics heralds characteristic for the Polish public scene of the 90s split into "communistic" and "liberal" factions. During that period, both Bolecki and Komendant participated in the controversial dispute about postmodernism in Poland regarding it as an non-existent problem, one that does not reflect Polish historical experiences, and as a mere linguistic proposition which might be useful to potentially express those experiences.
Monika Swierkosz
Historical experiences and physical memory in the prose of Olga Tokarczuk
Monika Swierkosz analyses different variants of historical narration as presented in selected works by Olga Tokarczuk. Referring to the work of F.R. Ankersmit, she introduces such anthropological categories as: experience, physical memory, trauma, nostalgia, testimony and trace. Using these categories, she interprets Tokarczuk's later novels. She also postulates that the writer, even though she employs an epiphanic idea of creation, which works towards capturing the very traces of inexpressible and non-presentable reality, she does so in a particular manner. In her early works, Tokarczuk concentrates almost exclusively on the issues of language and truth of presentation building the "myth of the Word" yet at the same time debases the physical body which always blocks and falsifies communication. However, in Bieguni this position begins to shift – the body determines the expression. As a result, everything that is non-linguistic and non-verbal begins to interest the writer and starts to show artistic value. In this sense Tokarczuk's creative evolution describes the changes which took place within the last twenty years in humanism – a slow and gradual liberation from the rule of the written word for the benefit of material reality of discourse.
Miroslaw Golunski
Teodor Parnicki and Friedrich Nietzsche – on the title of the Nowa Basn [new fairytale] series
Miroslaw Golunski points out, as suggested by the title of Teodor Parnicki's series of novels ("New Fairytale" – Nowa basn), connections to a well-known fragment from The Will to Power by Friedrich Nietzsche: "And that's how this reality becomes a fairytale." Nietzsche's work, just like Parnicki's consists of six parts and presents the story of how the European thinking lost touch with reality. The author contrasts opening and ending excerpts from both Nietzsche and Parnicki. In this context, he discusses selected story lines and confronts the main characters' musings on the possibilities of reaching historical truth.
Tomasz Markiewka
"Perpetuum Mobile cannot exist" – letters from Teodor Parnicki to Andrzej Madeyski from 1957 to 1988
The piece consists of an initial presentation of an extensive collection of letters from Teodor Parnicki sent to his friend in Canada – Andrzej Madeyski. This correspondence, spanning nearly 30 years from 1957 to 1988, shows an interesting commentary from the point of view of a writer regarding the literary work of a novelist. It allows us to reconstruct the stages in the creative process of particular novels and series of stories, as well as being presented with traces of intellectual inspiration utilized by the author of Nowa Basn.
Published 2009-06-25
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