this morning i started reading the 1937 polish novel "ferdydurke" by witold gombrowicz -- nothing like an eastern european black comedy to lift my spirits.
even page one seems appropriate after a rough patch:
i lay in the murky light while my body, unbearably frightened, crushed my spirit with fear, and my spirit crushed my body, whose tiniest fibers cringed in apprehension that nothing would ever happen, nothing ever change, that nothing would ever come to pass, and whatever i undertook, nothing, but nothing, would ever come of it. it was the dread of nonexistence , the terror of extinction, it was the angst of nonlife, the fear of unreality, a biological scream of all my cells in the face of an inner disintegration when all would be blown to pieces and scattered to the winds. it was the fear of unseemly pettiness and mediocrity, the fright of distraction, panic at fragmentation, the dread of rape from within and of rape that was threatening me from without -- but most important, there was something on my heels at all times, something that i would call a sense of inner, intermolecular mockery and derision, an inbred superlaugh of my bodily parts and the analogous parts of my spirit, all running wild.
There is something about Polish writing -- every author makes readers work hard. Nothing is said simply, yet after one gets through it you can see each word is carefully chosen. This is made even moe amazing by the fact we are both probably reading in translation, too. I've recently been reading Reymont's, The Peasant. After staying in Reymontowka, a manor house named after him, I thought I should read some of his work. I've also read Sienkiewicz's, The Deluge, and started Teutonic Knights this summer. Polish writers make us work hard, but it's worth it.
ReplyDeletewell, that was uplifting. sorry you're down bro
ReplyDelete