Customer Reviews

Diary Volume 2

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It would be superfluous to praise Gombrowicz's Diary. It is one of the landmarks of European avangarde literature of the 20th century... The French and German translations made Gombrowicz well-known outside Poland. The Vallee perfectible translation, however, not only fails to reflect the most sensitive nuances of the original, but, also commits a lot of material mistakes, too many to quote at this place. Yet, all this could have been avoided, if the Polish-born editor had taken enough trouble to revise the galleys more thoroughly before the work was ultimately published... Even so, this unusual book, the most authentic confession of a great Polish writer, will delight everyone seeking to fathom the European thought of the elapsing century.....

Excellent east European writer. And just as all east Europeans, deeply in love with its country. The book is an exquisite piece of style and subtlety. The suffering of living far from Poland gets mixed to the joy of discovering a new land that fits so well his Romantic vision upon life. His Romantism though is overwhelmed by Naturalism (deep introspections and microscopical descriptions of nature) and even more often by Rationalism. The latter one seems to predominate the book, which is not simply a "book": it is a sample of LIFE in its most unsophisticated and primary values. Gombrowicz questions everything: art, death, human nature. What are these? And all the answers the writer has emerge in one single core: his own personality. No prejudice, no apriorical opinion. The Diary could very well be named "Gombrowicz's main phylosophical work".

The retired literature professor who recommended the Diaries to me commented that they may be superior to any of Gombrowicz' fictional accomplishments. Certainly it's hard to imagine a novel or play of equal scope, or more provocative than these ruminations on culture, society, art, existence, and history, to name some principal themes. I confess I'm only halfway through Volume I and have found it so dense, provocative and wise that if the rest were total bilge I would consider it a wonderful find.

To call Gombrowicz' observations and reflections "ruminations" is to reflect their seeming off-handedness but not their cogency or profundity. I have encountered no other writer of equal penetration, eloquence or insight on these subjects; in fact, in my experience, no one writer has Gombrowicz' compass. One would have to tether together Santayana, George Steiner, William Irwin Thompson, Aldous Huxley, Ad Reinhardt, Wallace Stevens, Agnes Martin and any number of other diarists and intellectuals to create even a straw man for comparison. This is dense thought, beautifully expressed (even in what is supposedly a bad translation!), but never so abstract as to lose the personality of the author. I confess I've underlined or flagged three or four passages on practically every page, remarkable enthusiasm in a student but even moreso in a sixty-something artist like myself.

Gombrowicz is equally effective describing his life in exile in Argentina, the Argentines, the cities and countryside, and sprinkles observations on the minutę of his everyday life that are equally winning. When he reviews the work of a fellow Pole or discusses the literary politics of Polish exiles, his insights are accessible and worthwhile even to those of us a hemisphere and half-century away. It seems criminal that this singular work is out of print, and subsequent volumes of the Diary all but unobtainable, but Gombrowicz himself foresaw this when he noted the publishers who view books as "product" that need "promotion" to affect the "bottom line." Our current, benighted scene would sadden but not surprise him.

(Tantalizingly, the publisher lists this on its website, complete with "Add to Cart." Only to tell you that it is, in fact, out of print. Maybe a financially-strapped university press can't be blamed.)

Gombrowicz was a uniquely poetic writer in prose. His work is full of strange displaced and distorted perceptions and a crabby impatience with human failings, mixed with a singular, often childish, sense of humour.

Nobody else wrote like Gombrowicz; nobody else was like Gombrowicz. The Diary, across all three volumes, is distilled essence of the man - a Polish pure spirit, if you will.

Please refer to my review of Volume 1, which encomiums also apply to Volumes 2 and 3.

The publisher, Northwestern University Press, says it has lost the rights to publish the Diaries but may still have some copies on its shelves. Until another publisher emerges, whatever loose copy can be dredged up is certainly worth having. As i've said elsewhere, it's criminal that these are allowed to go out of print.

Volume 3 is just as good as the first two, perhaps even better for its stylistic flights of fancy. A fascinating visit inside the head of a major 20th century modernist and intellectual and one of the most remarkable of its kind I've ever read.