The Puzzling Poet

By Marcin Mierzejewski

4 November 2004

In his writings, he mocked official stances, contested the traditional notion of the artist's role in society, and caused indignation for questioning national values. One hundred years after his birth, the writer was put on a national pedestal and deemed "great." In Poland, this year is celebrated as the Year of Witold Gombrowicz.

"Gombrowicz was a child of the 20th century, one of the many people whom God endowed with great talents and anxiety, and who failed to handle those talents. He chose to flee Poland and destroy all things Polish." With these words, deputy Antoni Stryjewski of the Catholic National Movement (RKN) objected to the initiative to proclaim 2004 the Year of Gombrowicz during a Sejm debate late last year. In support of his words, Stryjewski even quoted a selection - which he believed testified to Gombrowicz's anti-Polishness - of the writer's commentary from his novel Trans-Atlantyk (Trans-Atlantic). Stryjewski added that indicating Witold Gombrowicz as a role model for the young generation would be "a waste of time."

Gombrowicz, whose element was provocation, and whose specialty was self-promotion, would undoubtedly have been delighted with the course of the Sejm debate devoted to him. As a man equipped with a healthy dose of self-effacement, he might not have even protested against most of the epithets used by his critics. Stryjewski introduced a element of the grotesque to the debate with his dramatic national-patriotic rhetoric, something that Poles have found precisely in Gombrowicz's works. Unintentionally, Stryjewski joined the ranks of the characters so pointedly described in Trans-Atlantyk, the novel he referred to in his statement - which would certainly have added to the author's satisfaction.

At the great poet's side

Despite arguments by the nationalist right, the Sejm passed the resolution. An overwhelming majority of deputies recognized that the 100th anniversary was a good opportunity to "honor the memory of the great writer and underline the fundamental role his writings played in the development of our national culture." The resolution also mentions "paying tribute to the outstanding artist" and "many initiatives confirming his achievements in the awareness of Polish society."

In one of the best known scenes from Gombrowicz writings - his first novel, Ferdydurke - a teacher of Polish explains to students that they should enjoy the poetry of Romantic poet Juliusz Słowacki simply because "Słowacki was a great poet." This sentence, repeated by the teacher in this comic chapter, has become part of colloquial Polish as a jocular expression, but also as a symbol of the undiscriminating attitude to national tradition and intellectual ossification of some people and institutions.

In this context, the Sejm debate on Gombrowicz acquires a peculiar dimension: true, not all parliamentarians agree that "Gombrowicz was a great writer," however, the text of the adopted resolution clearly says so. Professor Pimko - the name of the Polish teacher from Ferdydurke - ruthlessly derided by Gombrowicz, would be satisfied to see Gombrowicz fall into his own trap and join "the greats" side by side with Słowacki.

Atmosphere of a gentry house

Gombrowicz was born Aug. 4, 1904 in the village of Małoszyce near Opatów, Sandomierz region, as the youngest of four children. Both branches of his family were of old gentry background. To the end of his life, the writer enjoyed boasting about his noble heritage. The Gombrowiczs came from the territories of the Duchy of Lithuania belonging to the Polish Commonwealth. The documented history of the family reaches back to the 16th century. Witold's grandfather Onufry Gombrowicz, after the anti-Russian January Uprising of 1863, was imprisoned and sentenced to long exile. Subsequently, the whole family, forced to leave Lithuania, settled on the lands of the former Polish Kingdom.

Witold's father, a landowner and industrialist, was an economic activist known beyond the region of Sandomierz. The house of the Gombrowiczs was a typical, well-to-do Polish landed gentry house of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Its atmosphere was permeated by education and culture and Witold was raised in conditions favorable to intellectual development.

The family settled permanently in Warsaw in 1911 to ensure a better education for the children. In a large apartment on Służewiecka Street, the young writer wrote his first works, including Ferdydurke. The manor in Małoszyce became the family's summer residence. Witold also spent a great deal of time in the country estates of his brothers, Janusz in Potoczek and Jerzy - in Wsola. The characteristic scenery and atmosphere of a Polish country manor house would later appear frequently in his novels.

A table at Ziemiańska

Gombrowicz finished the prestigious St. Stanisław Kostka high school in 1922, graduating five years later with a degree in law from Warsaw University. After living in Paris for nearly two years, where he continued to study philosophy and economics, Gombrowicz began legal training in a court. Soon, however, it became apparent that the law was not his calling. In high school, the writer was already known for his talent in "Polish studies." Early on he demonstrated interest in literature, devouring massive amounts of reading material and engaging in related discussions with a group of friends.

At the turn of the 1920s and '30s, he started to publish articles in newspapers and was later linked with the daily Kurier Poranny as a reviewer. The most colorful elements of the artistic bohemia in prewar Warsaw became his environment. Young Gombrowicz was a regular visitor at the cafes Ziemiańska and Zodiak, the legendary rendezvous of the capital's bohemian set and literary elite, where he met with his closest companions and first "followers." These meetings included heated philosophical and literary discussions that influenced the writer's opinions and work, as well as gossip. At Ziemiańska, Gombrowicz's "table" competed with other literary tables, including of the well-known Skamander poets, among them Julian Tuwim and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz.

In his childhood, Gombrowicz was said to be a silent and shy boy, but as a man of thirty he could twist his interlocutors around his little finger, ferreting out "victims" for polemics and philosophical tirades. In an exchange of views, he almost always sought confrontation and reveled in finding an adversary. With all his erudition, personal refinement and aristocratic attention to manners, in discussions Gombrowicz could be ruthless, malicious, cynical and painfully direct. Not everyone was able to withstand this kind of confrontation; his battlefield was peopled by those who realized that these verbal struggles had a deeper meaning - seeking paradoxes, exposing deviations from the truth and provoking situations revealing one's authentic character.

Gombrowicz dedicated most of his writings to similar ideas. He developed his passion for provocation into a personal philosophy and a system he later built into his writings, including the novels Kosmos (Cosmos) and Pornografia (Pornography). The latter title has in fact nothing to do with eroticism, but refers to the process of revealing hidden aspects of human nature.

Form - determining relationships between people and their way of perceiving the world - is one of the most important themes addressed by Gombrowicz the writer and philosopher. He devised the intellectually sophisticated concept of the "inter-human church," or the social and cultural environment in which people "create one another" through mutual interaction.

One-way ticket

Gombrowicz was a realist in his assessment of the political fate of the Second Republic and interwar Poland. He not only believed in the inevitability of approaching war, but was also one of few voices that predicted Poland and Europe's imminent disaster. That might explain why, as a well-known writer, he accepted the invitation of the Polish shipping industry to participate in the exclusive maiden voyage of the transatlantic liner Chrobry to far-off Argentina. Aged 35 and with three major literary works under his belt, Gombrowicz boarded a ship and left Poland Aug. 1, 1939, permanently as it turned out, and exactly one month before the attack by Nazi Germany on Poland.

Joanna Siedlecka, an expert on the writer comments: "In 1939 he went to America because he wanted to be as far away as possible. He sensed war was in the air and the army was the very last thing he was fit for. Physically, he was an ascetic. During a holiday in Jastarnia, he went in a boat out to sea with his cousin Stasia Cichowska and did not have the strength to return. Miss Cichowska had to man the oars, and thanks to her they somehow reached the shore. It was just as well, since he could not swim." Gombrowicz himself also wrote about the motives behind his decision to leave: "I do not conceal that [...] I was afraid. But not so much of the army and the war as of not being able to face up to them, despite my best will. I am not meant for that. My field is different. From the earliest years, my development has taken a different direction. I would be a disaster of a soldier. I would bring disgrace to myself and to all of you. Do you think that, if such patriots as Mickiewicz and Chopin did not take part in fighting, that it was only out of cowardice? Rather, it was an attempt not to make a fool of oneself. I think they had the right to defend themselves against what was unbearable."

The decision to stay in Argentina, however, was for Gombrowicz neither easy nor obvious. When, four days before the outbreak of war, the captain of the Chrobry received an order to head immediately for ports belonging to Great Britain, Gombrowicz was tormented by conflicting feelings. According to a biographical source, at first he decided to return. He got on board the ship and only changed his mind when the horn sounded announcing the liner's departure, escaping down the gangway to shore, holding two suitcases, trembling and repeating "I can't, I can't..."

Pimko speaks Spanish

For the first 10 years in Buenos Aires Gombrowicz lived on the verge of poverty, suffering from a perennial shortage of money, accommodated in miserable lodgings incomparable with his apartment in Warsaw on Służewiecka Street. After years of doing odd jobs and accepting help from a group of compatriots living in Argentina, he succeeded in getting a clerk's position in Banco Polaco (Polish Bank) - a job he so thoroughly detested that he celebrated the anniversary of its conclusion to the end of his life. Moreover, Banco Polaco was a Polish institution but subordinate to the new "people's" authorities in Warsaw, and consequently some in anti-communist émigré circles considered him a "collaborator." In fact, Gombrowicz distanced himself from and never supported the changes that took place in Poland after the war. The Polish communist regime in the country took its revenge by blacklisting his books and name for many years.

However, despite these difficulties, even during the long period when he could not have his works published, Gombrowicz did not give up his calling and never stopped writing. The Spanish edition of Ferdydurke, translated by a few friends, appeared in Argentina only in 1947. Gombrowicz also gained a new "table," winning a circle of listeners fascinated with his personality and power of persuasion in Buenos Aires. Thanks to Virgilio Pinera, Humberto Rodriquez Tomeu, Adolfo de Obieta, Luis Centurión and others, including many future poets and writers, the memory of Gombrowicz is alive in Argentina. The famous Jorge Luis Borges also recollects meeting Gombrowicz.

Two returns

Finally, after years of isolation from readers on the Old Continent, Gombrowicz's writings began to reach Europe with difficulty. In 1953, the French translations of The Marriage and Trans-Atlantic appeared in Paris. Gombrowicz was noticed by members of influential Parisian circles, including Albert Camus.

Gombrowicz's return to Europe, in terms of access to readers, and his subsequent relocation, was possible thanks to the interest of and assistance from Jerzy Giedroyc, the editor of the Kultura monthly magazine published in Polish in Paris. Giedroyc was the first to remember the author of Ferdydurke, acclaimed before the war. He strongly believed in Gombrowicz's writing talent and provided him with access to the periodical's columns, read by many of the Polish émigré intelligentsia. Giedroyc, knowing that he was dealing with an unusual literary personality, never hesitated to publish material that might give rise to controversy.

One case in question was Trans-Atlantic, in which Gombrowicz launches a uncompromising attack on the traditionally understood patriotic/national myths and questions many ideas that are basic to Polish awareness and identity. Some within the émigré community considered the book harmful and anti-Polish and as a result Kultura lost a number of subscribers.

However, this did not disrupt cooperation between Gombrowicz and Giedroyc, which bore fruit in what is recognized as the writer's most outstanding achievement as well as one of the most interesting phenomena in 20th-century European literature: Dziennik (Diary), written from 1953 to 1966. Successively printed in Kultura, it later appeared separately in three volumes.

The Diary, rather than a journal, is a kind of literary, artistic self-commentary that encompasses a wide scope of subjects: from daily themes and descriptions of current events, to profound philosophical commentary. With a variety of writing forms including essays, miscellaneous notes, polemics and private confessions, it is an extraordinarily rich work that imparts its intellectual message with great power and openness. Despite the fact that, in this quasi-sequel to Trans-Atlantic, Gombrowicz devotes a large part of the discussion to "grappling with" the theme of Polish identity intriguing him, the Diary remains a universal work and a compulsory read in the world literary canon.

The Last Chapter: Fame

In the late 1950s, Gombrowicz began to reap real benefits from his creative work; his books, published not only in Polish, gradually gained renown. At long last he could afford to live in more comfort, travel and pay for treatment of his respiratory condition. In 1963, upon obtaining the Ford Foundation's yearly scholarship, Gombrowicz left Argentina, his home for 24 years, for Europe. After one year in West Berlin, he settled for a short time in Royaumont near Paris. A young Canadian student of the Sorbonne, Rita Labrosse, hired as a secretary, later became the writer's wife. Due to health reasons, the couple moved to the town of Vence in southern France, where Gombrowicz, suffering from chronic asthma, died in July 1969.

Whether Gombrowicz is recognized as "a great writer" or not, his character and writings have had an enormous influence on not only literature, but 20th-century Polish culture. His original views and unique perception of certain phenomena influenced generations of Poles, who without a doubt changed their awareness and understanding of their national identity. He is also one of Poland's well-known cultural representatives in Western Europe. Gombrowicz himself liked to stress his own "provincialism," while not sparing Western intellectuals his ruthless and self-confident criticism.

Expressions from Gombrowicz function in everyday life, and some absurd and grotesque situations are said to be "taken from Gombrowicz" - which seems to be an apt term for recent arguments about the artist's greatness among politicians - a pedestal that he himself always ridiculed.

Marcin Mierzejewski

Gombrowicz: A Bibliography

• 1933 - Pamiętnik z okresu dojrzewania (Memoirs of a Time of Immaturity), reissued in 1957 under the title Bakakaj (Bacacay) - stories
• 1937 - Ferdydurke - novel, Iwona, księżniczka Burgunda (Princess Iwona) - drama
  June-August 1939 - print of a "detective story for cooks and hackney drivers" Opętani (The Enchanted) under the pseudonym Zdzisław Niewieski
• 1953 - Trans-Atlantic - novel
  Ślub (The Marriage) - drama
• 1957-1966 - Dzienniki (Diary),
  first printed as a serial in the émigré periodical Kultura, then in book form
• 1960 - Pornografia (Pornography) - novel
• 1965 - Kosmos (Cosmos) - novel
• 1966 - Operetka (Operetta) - drama
• 1968 - essay O Dantem (On Dante)

In 1973, the volume Varia appeared posthumously, including statements by the writer and newspaper reviews of his books as well as Historia (History) - an unfinished drama - and the collection A Kind of Testament.

Gombrowicz's mark on Polish art is still visible today. His Diary opens with words that have become one of literature's well-known quotations. For many artists, these words also position the Artist in the Work:

"Monday
Me.
Tuesday
Me.
Wednesday
Me.
Thursday
Me."