Sławomir Mrożek

Personal Comments

Amid all the brutal pushing and shoving of nouns and adjectives of as little value as the air they pollute, suddenly I read the following sentence: “Just in case, I’m saying farewell to the Public”. It comes from a very short introduction to "Personal Comments" by Sławomir Mrożek. He explains that since having a stroke on 15 May 2002 he has hardly written any so-called literature, and just in case, he is saying farewell.
Let’s get this straight and clear: “I’m saying farewell to the Public” is probably the most important sentence to have been written in Polish lately. And even though it didn’t come from the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Sejm or the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, it is more important than all their collective ramblings, for the simple reason that Sławomir Mrożek is incomparably more crucial to Polish intellectual life than all these gentlemen put together.
He has always been fanatical about fine craftsmanship and sticking to the point. In his quintessential, crystal-clear Polish he has done enough talking about the world and the human race that inhabits it for us to live on for decades to come. Many writers have stopped writing, not just because their pens have dropped with old age, or they have chosen to spend their time on something more interesting. There have also been some who discovered the metaphysical pointlessness of blackening paper and came to a standstill over a blank white sheet of it. Mrożek has not stopped wanting to write, nor has he been possessed by persecution mania. In any case, he has never been prone to any great passions, or at least he has never shown it in speech or writing. He has been more like a careful surgeon than a psychoanalyst, and more like a sober architect than an inspired sculptor. This book consists as much of the writer’s random material as – to be plain about it – his waste material. It includes a handful of solemn thoughts, but also some short pieces of literary fun and games. But in the light of his remark about saying farewell to the public, it reads differently – like pebbles cast our way, as if to say “Remember me”. And suddenly trivial things start to take on weight.

Tadeusz Nyczek
Przekrój No. 42/2007