Witold Gombrowicz’s novels are chock full of absurdity, so
perhaps it’s natural that we find some hilarious moments thrown in. His writing
styles are highly original, and his own personal philosophical concepts
underlie the characters and events in his fiction, providing a lot of depth to
what may appear to be silly, farcical stories on the surface.
Any look one takes at Gombrowicz invariably focuses on his unique biography, but in
Gombrowicz’s novel Trans-Atlantyk, Gombrowicz himself presents to his readers
the most fateful decision of his life. Of course, Trans-Atlantyk is absurd,
fantastical, and written in an archaic Polish form as a mockery (the English
translation is written in a kind of ersatz 17th Century English), but it does
feature a narrator named Witold Gombrowicz, who finds himself sent to Buenos
Aires as a Polish literary representative, and when World War II breaks out in
Europe with the Nazis invading Poland, Witold does not choose to get back on board
the ship with the others and return to Europe to join the war. He remains in
Argentina for dubious reasons, just as the real Witold Gombrowicz did, where he
found himself poor, unable to speak Spanish, and in exile for more than 20
years. (He also wasn’t doing himself any favors by writing a novel in Polish
that could only be read by his fellow Polish émigrés, but using such ancient
Polish that it was difficult for even them to read, and insulting the whole
Polish immigrant culture in Argentina while he was at it! It seems safe to say he didn't get into writing for the money!)
As Jerzy Jarzebski writes in The Exile and Return of Writers from East-Central Europe: A Compendium, "All of the actions of the protagonist-Gombrowicz described in the novel
are outrageously unworthy and dishonorable from the point of view of the
patriotic tradition of emigration." This fits in with Gombrowicz’s
iconoclastic themes. The novel pits the “Fatherland” against the “Sonland.” In
the book’s introduction, Stanislaw Baranczak describes Gombrowicz’s decision
thus, “What Gombrowicz the narrator refuses to suffer any more—taking the
dramatic yes-or-no question of his return as an opportunity to make a clean
break with his half-hearted compliance—is the overwhelming power of stereotype,
of What Is Expected from You, of (to use the term Gombrowicz adopted in his
essays and diary) Form.”
Nevertheless, highly relevant to our discussion here—to this
entire Comic Moments in Literary Fiction series on this blog—Susan Sontag
writes in the introduction to the new translation, “[Gombrowicz's] third,
tongue-in-cheek, message has a more universal portent: issues between
individuals and nations can be so horrific that nothing but humongous laughter
may deliver salvation."
The narrator Gombrowicz of Trans-Atlantyk finds a job with
other Polish émigrés, and he has a lot of dealings with three of the employees
(The Baron, Ciumkala, and Pyckal), who the narrator finds quite buffoonish.
They encounter him at a dance hall and insist on buying him drinks. They start
arguing with each other about who will treat Gombrowicz, and Gombrowicz tries
to give them the slip by excusing himself to the restroom, but he can’t get
away:
“...and I quickly made off. I enter the Privy, they after
me. There was one man who was making water into a Urinal. I to a urinal. They
to urinals. But when that man who had been making water left, they jointly at
me.”
(FYI, this is all [SIC] per above note on his style and all ellipses are
in the original)
Now that they have Gombrowicz alone, the three employees try
to give money to each other, which can be used to treat Gombrowicz so they can
get into his good favor:
“And Ciumkala to the Baron: ‘Here, have six hundred.’ And
Pyckal to Ciumkala: ‘Here seven hundred, have seven hundred. Take when I’m
giving!’ They take cashes out, brandish them under noses for themselves, for
me, and press them each on the others! Haply they are Madmen!
“I reckoned then that, although they are giving these Cashes
each to the others amongst themselves, they would fain give me these Cashes to
purchase my favor . . . save that they feel awkward for want of daring with me.
Ergo I say: ‘Do not fever yourselves, Gentles, easy, easy.’ Yet they were but
seeking a way to press these Cashes on me, and at length the Baron clasped his
head: ‘Aye me, my pocket is torn. I’d better give my Cashes to you as I may
lose them!’ . . . and he started to press the Cashes on me. Seeing that, the
others also press theirs: ‘My pocket is torn, too. Take mine’ —‘And mine.’ Say
I: ‘For God’s sake, gentles, to what end do you give?’ . . .But at this moment
someone came in for the need, so they to Urinals, unbutton, whistle, as if
naught, as if for the need . . . Only when that someone who had come in went
out, they at me again, and since they have become more daring, they indeed
thrust the Cashes on me and ‘Take, take’ they chorus. Say I: ‘In the name of
the Father and the Son, gentlemen, to what end do you give, what purpose you
your cashes with me?’ In this moment, however, someone came in for the need, so
they to Urinals, whistle . . . but as soon as we were left alone, again they
lept at me and Pyckal roared: ‘Take, take when you are given, take, take for he
has three hundred or four hundred Millions!’—’Take not from Pyckal; take from
me,’ cried the Baron, whirring and buzzing as a wasp, ‘from me take, as, for
God’s sake, he may have even four hundred or five hundred Millions!”
This plays out like a side-splitting skit in my mind’s eye.
At first, they’re trying to be coy with the money to impress Gombrowicz, but
then they realize someone is coming into the bathroom and they all run to a
urinal and cartoonishly whistle, pretending to use the facilities until that
guy leaves. Then, like a cartoon character coming up with a new scheme, one of
them says there’s a hole in his pocket, so Gombrowicz should take the money,
and like clowns, the others say they’ve also got holes in their pockets and
shove their money at him—But they all need to put the money away and rush to a
urinal as they realize someone else is entering the restroom!
This goes on for a while longer until they finally wear him
down:
“Wishing not to be disagreeable any longer, I let them press
the Cashes on me. Then all to urinals as Someone was just coming in.”
Things after this continue to intensify for the narrator, as
the guy he’s there with shoves him some money under the table and tells him to
invite his countrymen over to drink with them, and the wild ride continues, but
the scene in the bathroom really tickles me. I also noticed the ingenious way
Gombrowicz uses the “In the name of the Father and the Son” curse like a
standard “OMG!” curse, but it serves the double purpose to reinforce the
struggle between Fatherland and Sonland that lies at the heart of the
narrative. If you liked the taste of Gombrowicz offered through this wacky
scene, you would certainly enjoy reading more. An easier read would be his
novel Ferdydurke (translates to something like “Fiddle-Faddle”). The hook is
that an adult’s old schoolteacher shows up at his house and transforms him back
into a little kid.
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Joseph Patrick Pascale - How to Get a Promotion When Your Boss Is Trying to Kill You (Accurate Accounts of Office Work: Book 1), a comic literary novel coming from Waldorf Publishing on September 1, 2018
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Other Entries in the Comic Moments in Literary Fiction Series:
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