His Own Pornografia Preying On Them

No need to shield your computers from your coworkers—this book isn’t what it sounds like. Witold Gombrowicz’s Pornografia is sexual without being graphic, a surreal psychological thriller set in the Polish countryside during World War II.

The narrator, who is named Witold Gombrowicz but is not necessarily the Witold Gombrowicz, meets Fryderyk in a café in Warsaw. They become friends, and soon they’re taking a train to the country to stay at a farmhouse in the country. There, they meet a teenage girl named Henia, who is engaged to marry Vaclav, a young lawyer. Fryderyk sets his sights on Henia, and starts scheming to have his way with her.

All this happens in 1943, but this isn’t the wartime Poland you’re used to. There are German soldiers, resistance fighters, and refugees from destroyed cities, but the main characters are far removed from the atrocities that the reader knows are happening around them. There’s just one line about the war that stands out, when Witold and Fryderyk go into town to buy supplies and notes “Just one thing, an absence that was palpable, namely, there were no Jews.” But all this is just the backdrop for Fryderyk and Witold’s schemes.

Fryderyk’s plans aren’t what you would expect. Instead of trying to seduce Henia himself, he’s determined to set up a tryst between her and a teenage boy named Karol. Witold and Fryderyk both notice the sexual tension between the two teens, but it’s Fryderyk who hatches the plan. Witold agrees to help. The profound creepiness of what they’re doing intensifies as the book goes on and they continue to reassure each other that they’re doing the right thing.

Things get more complicated when violent events start happening. Vaclav’s mother is murdered, and soon afterward the men at the farm are entrusted with killing a rogue resistance captain.

It may sound like I’m giving away the whole story, but this is all in the synopsis on the book jacket. The real focus of the story isn’t the events on the farm, but the narrator’s psychology. At times the book reminded me of Lolita, with a middle-aged narrator ogling a much younger girl. Early in the book, Witold seems aware of the tension between Henia and Karol. “Nothing, nothing!” he thinks to himself. “Nothing but my own pornography preying on them! And my fury at their bottomless stupidity—the kid, stupid as an ass, she an idiot, goose!… Oh, if only they were a few years older!”

Witold becomes of aware of the madness of his obsession, but continues with it anyway. Fryderyk writes him a letter about Henia and Karol, and Witold observes that it’s the letter of a madman, but that he understands it perfectly. Witold knows that what he’s doing is wrong. He says that he’s repulsed by Fryderyk and his plans, but he does it anyway. There are hints of sexual tension between Witold and Fryderyk—maybe they’re driven by a desire for each other that they can’t or won’t act on.

Southern Polish countryside viewed from a train, 2008

So what does it all mean? It’s interesting that Gombrowicz named the narrator after himself, and chose to set it during World War II. He was never in Poland during the war. He left on vacation in 1939, unaware of what was about to happen, and settled in South America when he found himself unable to return. He lived another thirty years, but never made it back to Poland. In the introduction, Gombrowicz writes that he set it during the war because the wartime atmosphere suited the story, because this atmosphere is very Polish, and because he wanted to be contrary and do something different. But he never specifically explains why he named the narrator after himself.

I read the newer of the two English versions of the book; this is a more accurate translation by Danuta Borchardt. (The previous edition was translated from from the French edition, not the original Polish.) This is the second of Gombrowicz’s books that I’ve read—the first was Ferdydurke, a story of a man who wakes up to find himself back in high school. Ferdydurke was written much earlier than Pornografia (1937 and 1960, respectively), and the two books are difficult to compare. The one thing that holds true for both books is Gombrowicz’s writing style. He alternates between short and long sentences, and he uses a lot of repetition and unexpected punctuation. His metaphors are weird but evocative—the “night’s sauce” fills nooks and crannies.

I love this book. It’s short, it’s energetic, and it’s beautifully written. It’s creepy and hilarious at the same time. Its style also sheds some light on Dorota Masłowska’s Snow White and Russian Red, which I read just last week.

Pornografia was adapted into a movie, and I’d like to watch it if I get a chance. (I’m assembling quite the list of Polish films to watch.) The 2003 film got rather mixed reviews, largely because it didn’t stay true to the book, adding a back story for Fryderyk and a Holocaust subplot. It seems like the changes were necessary to make the book filmable, since so much of the story takes place in the narrator’s mind.

Shock And Something Else I Can’t Name

Since I’m at the limit of what I can take, of shock and something else I can’t name. Because what I’m hearing is over the top, a stretch, pure ethical flimflam that, in the longer run, is not to be tolerated. Magda takes advantage of the moment of silence between us. She rolls out a monologue on the subject of her goodness, of her devotion, and suddenly she became mad talkative, like a mental whore, like a mental escort.

So says Andrzej “Nails” Robakoski near the beginning of Snow White and Russian Red. He’s a paranoid, lazy, misogynistic and generally unlikable character. But even though he’s the centre of Dorota Masłowska’s first novel, the book itself is surprisingly enjoyable.

This is a quick and dirty book. Released to massive critical acclaim in Poland in 2002, it’s the story of a few speed-fueled days of Nails’s life in his hometown on the Baltic coast. His only interests seem to be speed and sex, and the sex gets more and more complicated after Magda dumps him. He’s also deeply concerned about the war that’s brewing between Poland and the Russians who run the black market.

There’s a war between Poland and Russia? Nails’s hallucinatory narration is so frenetic and detailed that there were times when I wasn’t quite sure whether things were really happening. A girl vomits rocks, the police demand that Nails paint his house in the pattern of a Polish flag—these stories seem implausible, of course, but Nails tells them so convincingly that it’s not always clear. Maybe this takes place in a surreal, alternate version of Poland. Or maybe it’s all in his head. Everything becomes clearer near the end of the book, but the ending is so shocking and surreal that the unsettled feeling stayed with me.

This unnerving quality is the most impressive part of the book. It’s one of those indescribable feelings, like listening to one of your favourite songs for the first time and realizing that it captures an emotion you’ve been feeling for your entire life but have never been able to define.

It’s all due to Masłowska’s writing style. Her sentences are short and snappy, and they come rushing out of Nails’s mouth so quickly that he propels the book along just by talking. This isn’t a book in which a lot happens: Nails spends 300 pages wandering around doing a lot of drugs and trying to get laid. But it doesn’t matter that not much happens, because what’s going on inside his head is so intense.

Critics hailed the book as a masterpiece, and Masłowska as the voice of an entire generation of Poles. It’s not an optimistic portrait of a generation. From Masłowska’s (and Nails’s) perspective, they’re disaffected and confused, born near the end of Communism but reaching adulthood right around the time Poland joined the European Union. I’ve been to Poland, though only as a tourist, and it’s still clearly caught in limbo between Eastern and Western Europe.

Critics also called Masłowska the saviour of Polish literature, an argument that I’m not qualified to judge. (The only other Polish book I’ve read is Witold Gombrowicz’s weird and wonderful 1937 novel Ferdydurke. There are echoes of Gombrowicz in this book, but stylistically it owes more to contemporary drug books and movies like Trainspotting and Requiem For A Dream.)

I suspect that a lot of the hype surrounding this novel comes from the fact that Masłowska was only 18 when it was published. This isn’t to diminish its quality: it’s worth reading, and her writing is youthful without being too juvenile. I’m interested in reading more of her work if and when it’s translated into English.

Addendum: I just discovered that the book was adapted into a film last year, and I’m putting it on my list of films to watch (if I can find a subtitled copy.)