From Publishers Weekly
In novels and plays such as Comos, Pornografia and The Marriage, Polish avant-garde writer Gombrowicz delineated the colossal pressures that impinge on us from all sides and force us to falsify our existence. His Diary, kept as an expatriate in Argentina, is a soaring work of the spirit that redeems the crushing uneventfulness of daily reality. The writer rails at his fellow Poles to stop imitating the West and explore their own identity. He delivers a scathing indictment of the Communist collective mentality, yet he finds little to applaud in what he considers American provincialism. By turns lofty and clowning, combative and profound, this first of three projected volumes confronts the spiritual paralysis of our time. Gombrowicz calls his journals "chaotic scribbling," but he comes across as a latter-day prophet, resolutely true to himself.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Exiled from his native Poland by the Nazis and the Communists, Gombrowiczarguably "the world's greatest unknown writer"lived in Argentina from 1939 to 1963 and died in France in 1969. His novels and plays (forerunners of Beckett and Artaud) have captivated some, outraged others. In the first of three volumes of his Diary translated into English, he invites new combatants to the fray. A witty, acerb satirist, he sticks barbs everywhere; the entries (1953-1956) are less gossipy (despite an account of his bisexuality) than ideological and polemical. Gombrowicz's desperate honesty demands concentration and control (at times, not to hurl the book at a wall). But his force compels and deserves a wider audience than he enjoyed in his lifetime. Arthur Waldhorn , City Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
