Books of the Highway, Stones of Venice
Andrzej Stanislaw Kowalczyk
0000-00-00Brilliant careers are not exclusive to human beings; a literary genre can have one too. A hundred years ago, the essay was a rare and exotic phenomenon within Polish literature. Although the first Polish essays appeared as early as the 17th century, it was not until the 20th century that the genre began to flourish. Every art form offers new possibilities of expression and invitations to explore the unknown. Since 1918, Polish literature has seen a long procession of writers for whom the essay is clearly a distinctive, independent form. Jozef Wittlin's Wojna, pokoj i dusza poety (War, Peace and a Poet's Soul, 1925) interprets world war as a symptom of the crisis, not only of the modern state but of the whole of European civilisation. In his excellent essay Filozofia koralowa a religia (Coral Philosophy and Religion, 1919), Karol Irzykowski analyses the consequences of war in more depth, and hence more pessimistically, and indicates those psychological and philosophical foundations of collectivism which would soon pave the way for totalitarianism and attempt to justify its crimes. Defending thought and imagination against the banality of the cliché, the poetics of the essay helped Irzykowski recognise the portentous omens for the future very early. From now on, the prophetic tone would become a permanent feature in the best of Polish 20th-century essays. Futile prophetism, or the Cassandra complex, is the subject of Jerzy Stempowski's Esej dla Kassandry (An Essay for Cassandra, 1950). Identifying and analysing omens would become a distinctive mark of the Polish essay.
As early as the 1930s, the essay - a non-fiction form - began to compete with the novel as the most authoritative literary genre. There appeared a new generation of writers - Boleslaw Micinski, Stefan Napierski, Ludwik Fryde, and, above all, Jerzy Stempowski - for whom the essay would be the most important form of expression. Between 1932 and 1939, the essay is the fullest expression of literature's intellectual aspirations; at the same time becoming a more and more popular alternative for psychological fiction. Once a minor, exotic genre, the essay becomes a respected form practised by the most outstanding writers: Stempowski in Pan Jowialski i jego spadkobiercy, (Mr Jowialski and His Heirs, 1931) and Nowe marzenia samotnego wedrowca (New Dreams of a Lonely Wanderer, 1935); Napierski in Proby (The Trials, 1937); Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz in Niemyte dusze (Unwashed Souls, written in 1936 and published in 1975); Henryk Elzenberg in Ahimsa i pacyfizm. Rzecz o gandyzmie (Ahimsa and Pacifism. A Book about Ghandism, 1934); Micinski in Podroze do piekiel (Journeys into Hell, 1937); Stanislaw Vincenz in Uwagi o kulturze ludowej (Some Remarks on Folk Culture, 1938). In the 1930s, the essay began probing the most important issues of modern times: inquiring into the reasons behind man's spiritual degradation within urban industrial civilisation, and looking to folk culture in the search for an alternative life model which would protect individual integrity (Stempowski, Vincenz); reflecting on attitudes towards violence, attempting to find a new, non-Romantic justification for heroism, raising questions about the ethics of fighting (Elzenberg); offering a critical analysis of Polish collective psychology (Witkiewicz); representing the loneliness of man faced with existential choices, negating determinism and recognising the authority of the Gospel and tradition (Micinski); reacting against the sense of absurdity experienced by man in a hostile and inscrutable world (Stempowski, Micinski); defending the autonomy of culture against naturalism and ideology (Napierski); exploring catastrophism (Stempowski, Napierski).
Rather than engage in polemics with totalitarianism, the essay of the World War II period portrayed it as a deviation, a dead end within European culture, and concluded that there is no level on which it would merit a response; this is a stance taken by Juliusz Kronski in his Faszyzm a tradycja europejska (Fascism and the European Tradition, published in 1960). The essay highlights the ethical dimension of the experience of totalitarianism, as seen in Stanislaw Ossowski's Z nastrojow manichejskich (Manichaean Moods, published in 1958); Jan Strzelecki's Proby swiadectwa (Attempts to Testify, 1971); Boleslaw Micinski's O nienawisci, okrucienstwie i abstrakcji (About Hatred, Cruelty and Abstraction, 1947) and Uwagi o polityce (Some Remarks on Politics, 1946); Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski's Zywi i umarli (The Living and the Dead, 1945) and Upiory rewolucji (Phantoms of the Revolution, 1969). The essayists investigated not only the roots of evil, but also the moral and social consequences of war. In Herling-Grudzinski's own words, the question of totalitarianism "had moved within the European consciousness from the plane of intellectual experience to the very foundations of the morality of human co-existence." In Zniewolony umysl (The Captive Mind, 1953) and Zycie na niby (Life As If, 1957), Czeslaw Milosz and Kazimierz Wyka respectively take a wider sociological and psychological perspective. An analysis of the reasons behind artists' compliance with communist totalitarianism, Milosz's book started the debate on the situation of art within society and the essence of the artist's moral responsibility; a debate which would last until the downfall of communist Poland. The relation between art and authority in the Soviet Union is analysed by Aleksander Wat in Swiat na haku i pod kluczem (The World under Lock and Key, 1985). In Rocznice Ghandiego (Ghandi's Anniversaries, 1951), Stanislaw Vincenz presents the cultural situation in contemporary Europe from a universal perspective.
After World War II, the essay became one of the most important genres in Polish literature. The change in its status reflected both the situation within literature (the crisis of narrative, the search for new art forms) and the social circumstances of the period (showing the personal dimension of culture, opposing totalitarian ideology). During the period when social realism (1948-1956) was imposed upon Polish art by the authorities, the essay - a form totally incompatible with this doctrine - temporarily disappeared. At the same time, a number of outstanding Polish émigré essayists - Jozef Czapski, Witold Gombrowicz, Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski, Konstanty A. Jelenski, Czeslaw Milosz, Jerzy Stempowski, Stanislaw Vincenz - formed around Kultura, a Polish independent cultural monthly published in Paris, and its editor Jerzy Giedroyc. Their books were published in the West by the émigré publishing house Instytut Literacki, but they would also reach readers back in Poland. Freedom became one of the main subjects of the 20th-century essay in Poland and it was analysed on several levels: historical and political (the independence of the state, the sovereignty of a nation); ethical (the individual's duty as against moral rights); artistic (the freedom and responsibilities of art).
Many essays explore the idea of the journey as a metaphor for intellectual and spiritual development (in communist Poland, travelling meant also liberation): among these are Jerzy Stempowski's Od Berdyczowa do Rzymu (From Berdyczow to Rome, 1970) and Ziemia bernenska (Bernese Land, 19549); Zbigniew Herbert's Barbarzynca w ogrodzie (Barbarian in the Garden, 1962) and Martwa natura z wedzidlem (Still Life with Bridle, 1992); Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz's Podroze do Polski (Journeys to Poland, 1977) and Podroze do Wloch (Journeys to Italy, 1977); Jan Jozef Szczepanski's Swiat wielu czasow (The World of Many Times); Wojciech Karpinski's Pamiec Wloch (Remembering Italy, 1982); Zygmunt Kubiak's Sycylia (Sicily, 1972); or Vincenz's Krajobraz jako tlo dziejow (The Landscape as History's Background, 1943). In Milosz's Rodzinna Europa (Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition, 1959, trans. Catherine S. Leach, London, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1981), the journey motif is combined with an attempt to reconstruct family genealogy, which adds an autobiographical dimension to the book. The spatial and temporal dimensions of tradition and an individual's attempts at self-orientation in cultural space are the subjects of essays about cities: Kazimierz Wyka's Zima w Bruges (Wintertime in Bruges); Tymon Terlecki's Paryz odnaleziony (Paris Recovered, 1951); Jozef Wittlin's Moj Lwow (My Lwow); Stanislaw Vincenz's Dialogi lwowskie (Lwow Dialogues, 1966-1968); Pawel Hertz's Wieczory warszawskie (Warsaw Evenings, 1974); Iwaszkiewicz's Petersburg (1976); Milosz's Dykcyonarz wilenskich ulic (A Dictionary of the Streets of Vilnius) and Do Tomasza Venclovy (To Thomas Venclova, 1979); Wlodzimierz Pazniewski's Pozny barok (Late Baroque, 1982); Malgorzata Baranowska's Pamietnik mistyczny (A Mystic Diary, 1987); Adam Zagajewski's Dwa miasta (Two Cities, 1991); Ewa Bienkowska's Co mowia kamienie Wenecji (What the Stones of Venice Say, 1999).
Among the most frequent themes of the Polish essay is reading treated as a spiritual adventure. A new - or an individual - interpretation of a given work of literature is the focus of Jan Parandowski's Godzina srodziemnomorska (The Mediterranean Hour, 1949); Vincenz's Kallirrhoe (1983); Stempowski's Czytajac Tukidydesa (Reading Thucydides, 1957); Kubiak's Wedrowki po stuleciach (Wandering through Centuries, 1969); Czapski's Tumult i widma (Tumult and Phantoms, 1981); Zbigniew Bienkowski's Piekla i Orfeusze (Hells and Orpheuses, 1960); Jan Kott's Szekspir wspolczesny (Shakespeare Our Contemporary, 1965); Maria Janion's Odnawianie znaczen(Renewing Meanings, 1980); Ryszard Przybylski's Wdzieczny gosc Boga... (God's Graceful Visitor..., 1980); Karpinski's Ksiazki zbojeckie (Books of the Highway, 1998); Jan Blonski's Romans z tekstem (An Affair with the Text, 1981); Marcin Krol's Podroz romantyczna (A Romantic Journey, 1986). For the essayist, reading is a cultural attitude synonymous with seeing the world as a universe of meanings which die as soon as we try to capture reality in the net of doctrine, method, or ideological orthodoxy. Only a given individual, a concrete person, can recognise values and respond to them. The essayist, then, sees culture as communication between people. The essay reminded its readers of the personal and axiological dimension of culture at the time when the humanities in Poland were controlled by the Marxist ideology of materialism. The essay also offered a vision of the humanities completely different to that offered by structuralism. The perceived degeneration of academic style within the humanities made a number of scholars turn to an essayistic mode of expression..
Since the early 1970s, the essay played an important part in reviving democratic and independent thought. Mieroszewski's political essays published in Kultura in Paris, and Pawel Jasienica's Dwie drogi (Two Ways, 1963) and Rozwazania o wojnie domowej (Meditations on Civil War, 1978) placed their authors among the forerunners of the political current. In their debate on the freedom of culture and independence of the nation, some essayists invoked history, e.g. Andrzej Kijowski in Listopadowy wieczor (A Night in November, 1972), Wojciech Karpinski and Marcin Krol in Sylwetki polityczne XIX wieku (Political Figures of the 19th Century, 1974), Tomasz Lubienski in Bic sie czy nie bic (To Fight or Not To Fight, 1978), Jaroslaw Marek Rymkiewicz in Wielki ksiaze. Z dodaniem rozwazan o istocie i przymiotach ducha polskiego (The Grand Duke. With Meditations on the Essence and Qualities of the Polish Soul, 1983), or Michal Glowinski in Pismak 1863 (A Literary Hack 1863, 1985). Other essayists stated openly that proclaiming the ideals of truth and culture against the lies of totalitarian ideology would lead to a conflict between the individual and the communist authorities: an argument pursued by, for example, Leszek Kolakowski in Tezy o nadziei i beznadziejnosci (Theses on Hope and Hopelessness, 1971), Adam Michnik in Cienie zapomnianych przodkow (The Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, 1975) or Z dziejow honoru w Polsce (From the History of Honour in Poland, 1985), Stanislaw Baranczak in Etyka i poetyka (Ethics and Poetics, 1979). Joseph Conrad was the patron saint of essayists concerned with moral attitudes and the question of values; he appears in a number of works including Maria Dabrowska's Szkice o Conradzie (Sketches on Conrad, 1959), Jan Jozef Szczepanski's W sluzbie wielkiego armatora (In the Service of the Grand Skipper, 1975), Michal Komar's Pieklo Conrada (Conrad's Hell, 1979).
Within the sub-genre of the anti-totalitarian essay, a separate place was assigned to the Jewish theme. Anti-semitism and the Holocaust were considered in the context of national and European culture in works like Jan Jozef Lipski's Dwie ojczyzny, dwa patriotyzmy (Two Homelands, Two Patriotisms, 1981), Henryk Grynberg's Prawda nieartystyczna (The Non-Artistic Truth, 1984), Jan Blonski's Biedni Polacy patrza na getto (Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto), and Andrzej Stanislaw Kowalczyk's Pan Petlura? (Mr Petlura?, 1998).
In the 1970s and 1980s, religious and metaphysical questions returned to the Polish essay. Similar questions had been asked before by Stempowski and Micinski; Zygmunt Kubiak asked them again in Polmrok ludzkiego swiata (The Twilight of the Human World, 1963). The role of myth and the place of religion within culture was the subject of Leszek Kolakowski's Obecnosc mitu (The Presence of the Myth, 1972), Milosz's Ziemia Ulro (The Ulro Land, 1977), Krzysztof Dorosz's Maski Prometeusza. Eseje konserwatywne (Prometheus' Masks. Conservative Essays, 1989). Religion, ethics and the relation between faith and creation is discussed from the Christian perspective in collections such as Jacek Salij's Rozpacz pokonana (Desperation Conquered, 1983), Jozef Tischner's Myslenie wedlug wartosci (Thinking According to Values, 1982), and Andrzej Kijowski's Dopiski do Wyznan sw. Augustyna (Notes on St Augustine's Confessions, 1985).
In the mid 1980s, the domination of social themes in the Polish essay was criticised in Adam Zagajewski's Solidarnosc i samotnosc (Solidarity and Loneliness, 1986). Zagajewski claimed that the artist's duty was to his own individual quest, and thus that art should be free from responsibilities towards the community; the awareness of the autonomy of artistic expression has always been a vivid feature in the Polish essay (Jozef Czapski, Konstanty A. Jelenski, Jerzy Stempowski).
I would like to introduce two essays: Wojciech Karpinski's Ksiazki zbojeckie (Books of the Highway) and Ewa Bienkowska's Co mowia kamienie Wenecji (What the Stones of Venice Say). The former narrates its author's adventures in reading, focusing on Karpinski's favourite writers and those books he considers to be of particular importance. The latter portrays a foreign city which - through art - becomes the visitor's home. Karpinski shows the European character of Polish culture; Bienkowska treats us to a brilliant reading of the European tradition. Both books have a lot in common: they show how we can make friends with art and how art is our home.
There are many ways to talk about literature. It is discussed by literary historians, critics, teachers, politicians, censors, and finally by ordinary readers who read simply for their own pleasure: a disposition which the essayist would immediately recognise as his own. When an essayist sits down to write about the books he has read, he avoids academic punctiliousness, journalistic in-jokes, didactic moralising. The essay as art form keeps its distance from specialist jargon and avoids the rigid framework of academic or philosophical analysis. Without abandoning his intellectual integrity, an essayist will also highlight the associative, fragmentary and unsystematic nature of discourse, and will frequently emphasise the paradox of a reasoning which is aimed neither at solutions (presenting a given viewpoint, stating a truth) nor at conclusions (intended as a finishing touch to the composition). Thought is rendered not only as a function of intellect, but also as a function of imagination, personality, temperament, biography and aesthetic preferences. The essay documents a search for truth, in this case synonymous with an intangible purpose of individual experience; which is why an essayist's method is characterised by scepticism and the refusal of dogma. The essay sets empirical data against rigid formulae; the ordering function of reason against the chaos of impressions and experiences. It demonstrates thought which tempts and seduces the reader with its intellectual appeal and unusual phrasing. The language of essays is never a transparent, neutral medium because the essayist deliberately marks its presence; its active role is confirmed in the very search for a way of articulating thought and ideas. Language becomes an intellectual adventure.
Wojciech Karpinski, whose Books of the Highway is the subject of this article, is a literary scholar as well as a passionate reader, but his essays confirm that he can talk about literature just as an essayist should: without pedantry or loftiness. He writes about books which shaped him, at the same time being aware that within the last five decades they also made an indelible mark upon Polish culture, and, indirectly, upon the culture of the eastern part of our continent. The works and the authors he discusses - emphasising the bond between text and its creator - belong to émigré literature. In the second half of the 20th century, nearly all of Poland's most outstanding writers found themselves in exile. Their emigration was a political act of defying communism and a refusal to accept the loss of independence. In the 1940s, more than half a million Poles decided against returning to a country deprived of sovereignty and ruled by a totalitarian régime. Many continued their struggle for independence and democracy. The Polish Government in London, which had directed the nation's military resistance during World War II, was not dissolved; a number of institutions and political parties remained active - although their significance would diminish as years went by. On the other hand, the role of literature gradually grew. In 1955, Jerzy Stempowski would write, "Literature is the only manifestation of the incalculable power of the émigrés. Without it, they will be reduced to mere statistical phenomena whose total sum, soberly reckoned, will be close to zero. [...] As long as there is émigré literature, there are appearances of some nation behind the political institutions in exile. Without these appearances, the problem of the émigrés will be solved and the Kremlin will breathe a sigh of relief." In his book, Karpinski demonstrates how literature did preserve the deposit of freedom; how it guarded itself against the dangers of didacticism and propaganda; how, while defending the freedom of the nation, it kept its own sovereignty. Gombrowicz saw the role of literature very clearly: "Serious art has another task - either it will remain for centuries to come what it has been since the beginning of the world, i.e. a voice of an individual, an expression of man in the first person singular; or it will be lost. In this sense, one page from Montaigne, one poem by Verlaine, one sentence by Proust, is more 'anti-communist' than an accusing chorus. They are free - they offer freedom." (The Diary 1953-1956)
If I were to characterise Books of the Highway in one sentence, it would read, "For Karpinski, art is the source of freedom." He avoids political subjects; one would look in vain for direct criticism of totalitarianism, or analyses of authoritarian personality. Analysing the human condition in the shade of totalitarian régimes only reinforces the constraint and narrows the field of vision. Slavery is a historical predicament which, especially in literature, must not be written of in absolutist terms. Karpinski asks, "How do we learn about another man's existence? How can we see him, so different and so like us? [...] How can we reconcile our freedom and our worldly existence? How can we creatively exist within a culture and not lose our individuality and freedom?" In his search for the answers, he frequently develops Gombrowicz's idea of 'the tasks of serious art'.
Within the Polish language, Mickiewicz's metaphor of 'books of the highway' has come to denote not just the literature of Romanticism, but also a certain type of reading; a relation between text and reader. Books of the highway have the power to change their readers' life; they destroy the comfort of unquestioning existence and make us pursue ideals; they push us towards the sublime. Such books can only exist under special conditions. Writers must assume the role of spiritual guides because readers see them as an authority which is both aesthetic and moral. Readers believe in literature's fatal power and agree to obey its counsel. The world of literature, however unworthy of being taken seriously, competes with the world of empirical experience. In Mickiewicz's metaphor, we hear the complaint of a man made unhappy by the pursuit of ideals. If he could but choose again, in all probability he would be a different, more restrained, reader. Karpinski, a 20th-century writer, keeps away from the exaltation of Romantic authors and their readers. He extends the meaning of Mickiewicz's metaphor with a motto from an essay by Jozef Czapski, who wrote of books becoming part of the reader's intimate, interior world. 20th-century literature, or at least Polish émigré literature, was the reader's ally in his everyday resistance of totalitarianism. It would not allow for a compromise with what seemed omnipotent and unavoidable. Unlike the writings of social realism, it did not administer ideological warnings and interdictions; it did not admonish. Quite the contrary, by demanding freedom and opposing censorship, it liberated its readers. In this way, the metaphor of 'books of the highway' is modernised and reinterpreted. Karpinski uses it to measure the intensity of understanding between the writer and the reader. "The style of [Gombrowicz's] Diary was liberating," he remembers. "It made one smile with joy; and sometimes it made one shiver. So this is how one can talk about oneself; about Poland, about literature, about politics, about science, about landscapes and events; about moments of boredom and moments of exultation?"
Karpinski writes mostly of his own reading adventures, but at the same time he manages to convey many important messages about several decades of Polish culture preceding the independence of 1989. It is literature - the way we read it, understand and evaluate it, or, to use another phrase, it is literary communication - that provides insight into the factors which shaped Polish culture in the second half of the 20th century. Communist totalitarianism destroyed social bonds and isolated individuals; art appeals to people and communities, integrating them by the circulation of its works. In Prywatna Historia Wolnosci (A Private History of Freedom), Karpinski describes how, in the 1960s, classic and modern literature helped him to comprehend the world and articulate his own, individual views: dialogue is integrated into art; works of art constantly appeal to new audiences and constantly ask new questions. The meanings of an important text are not exhausted in an encounter with one generation of readers. Similarly, the reader is not satisfied with reading a text once; he keeps returning to it again and again.
Socialist realism was an attempt to make all art unanimous. It was not just a doctrine artists were obliged to follow; it was also a programme of artistic reception - a tool used for ideological manipulation of works by old masters. Karpinski refuses to accept the official restraints with which the authorities wish to police creators and recipients of art. He wants to restore the personal character of the relationship between man and art. It would be impossible to overestimate the role of art, and especially literature, in the process of restoring freedom in Eastern Europe. A significant voice in the discourse of democratic opposition, literature's impact was different than that of political publicism. Books of the Highway can also be read as a documentary from this important period in our culture.
Since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, Poland's literature has been free: there are no émigré writers and no forbidden books. The experience of emigration and struggle with totalitarianism has become history, but the works - the truly outstanding ones - created in the old conditions have not 'expired'; a phenomenon which Karpinski's book helps to understand. Karpinski notices many aspects of the issue, and his perspective is not limited to that of a reader: for many years he was an émigré writer himself. More than that, as a historian of ideas, he has researched philosophical and political thought of Polish 19th-century émigrés. Personal experience, a reader's sensitivity, academic background, and a talent for writing - what more can an essayist wish for?
'Books of the highway' - it would be hard to find a better phrase to describe the way in which, before 1989, many Poles read Gombrowicz, Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski, Jerzy Stempowski, Czeslaw Milosz, Stanislaw Vincenz, Aleksander Wat and other émigré writers. Their books really did restore the clarity of vision, at the same time offering a glimpse of new horizons which would send many readers out on a journey. Karpinski's critical essays take us to the heart of a Romantic metaphor which makes us believe that literature can shape its readers' imagination and their ways of articulation; if not their lives directly. For Karpinski, to exist means to speak with one's own voice; to acquire the power of making language obey. He finds the essence of art in the expression of the artist's personality.
Shaping his work as an expression of his soul, a writer has to keep crossing the language horizon of a community in order to show new perspectives of self-knowledge and cognition. Art, especially great art, has an important social role: it transmits the voice of outstanding individuals who, proclaiming their freedom in a language accessible to them, share their spiritual experience with others. Developing one of Milosz's ideas, Karpinski writes about a 'fourth Polish language' and gives the exact date of its first coming into light: 1951, or more precisely, the May issue of Kultura, a Polish independent cultural monthly published in Paris, where fragments of Gombrowicz's Trans-Atlantic, Stempowski's essay "Wronia i Sienna" ("Wronia Street and Sienna Street"), and Milosz's article "Nie" ("No") commenting his decision to emigrate from a communist Poland, were published. The authors of 'books of the highway' escape the traps of appearances, falsehood, non-authenticity, set by a society-shaped language. Karpinski also writes about a 'metaphysical school' of writers who make "the effort to reach reality; to talk [...] about issues that matter. Those artists try to define themselves against a changeable world - never ultimately, never entirely; but genuinely, without the masked masks that contemporary literature is swarming with. They reveal reality; they create serious literature; because, using literary forms, they go beyond pure literariness." Karpinski has little regard for literature which is marked with masks symbolising insincerity, 'pure literariness', 'shallowness of fictitious worlds', fantasies 'smacking of falsehood, and falsehoods smacking of betrayal'. All of these separate what should be a uniform whole: the writer and his work. To use a definition by a turn-of-the-century critic, art is a personal reaction of an individual, and creative work is 'a stream of confidences and personal confessions'; an expression of internal struggles and aspirations, victories and defeats, of a particular human being. For example, in his discussion of Herling-Grudzinski's prose, Karpinski emphasises the role of the subject in formulating an utterance. The language of a work of literature is determined directly by the writer's character. A truly great artist must remain totally independent of stereotypes and patterns of social communication, of inherited forms and traditions. "His writing, embarrassed by exhibitionism, is at times deeply personal," Karpinski says of Herling-Grudzinski. "This is when I can relate to it best" - because as we read, we talk to the writer himself. Czapski's essays are "personal texts, with an easily recognisable tone, strongly marked by the author's personality, and at the same time possessing an astonishing power of evocation". When describing the influence of a work of literature, Karpinski frequently turns to a metaphor. He is more fascinated by Gombrowicz's 'ability to look the reader deep in the eye' than by his 'art of writing beautifully'.
The writer and his work are necessarily bound together. In order to understand a piece of writing, one must turn one's eyes to the writer and never lose the sight of him during the process of interpretation. This, I would think, is the ultimate reason for including a splendid collection of photographs as an integral part of Books of the Highway. The writers' portraits complement Karpinski's essays about their work: by capturing faces, gestures, looks, moments of time, the photographs remind us that behind each book and each word there is a particular person's spiritual world. Although Karpinski has met many of them and befriended several, and although he himself appears in several of the photographs, he carefully avoids cheap memories, anecdotes, or allusions which would be available only to the privileged few.
In his essay on Konstanty Jelenski, Karpinski talks about his own perception of a critic's task: he ought to be seen and heard by the reader, because he writes about "matters he is personally concerned with; so when he writes about them, he is writing about himself." At the other end of the spectrum is the 'solemn impersonality' against which Karpinski, following Jelenski's example, protects his own critical essays. He shows little interest in intellectual methodologies, such as semiotics or structuralism, which view creative work as a way of realising objective norms of social communication.
An important element of Karpinski's critical discourse is evaluation, a concern evident in more than his use of axiological vocabulary. Evaluation is the consequence of Karpinski's assumption that one should only write about books one considers the best; and it is a work of literature in relation to its author that gets evaluated, rather than, for example, the degree in which a particular piece of writing meets some supposedly obligatory or universal norms. One of the most important criteria of evaluation is summarised in the question, "Has the book become part of the reader's biography?" Admiring great artists and their work is part and parcel of our understanding of art; thus evaluation cannot be divorced from the act of reading and is a necessary element of perceiving that which is beautiful, good and wise.
Karpinski's understanding of literature involves the contrast between the community and the individual. The artist does not rebel against collective tyranny in the name of absolute freedom; it would be more accurate to say that he struggles with the resistance put up by the ready-made system of signs which the community uses for efficient communication, but which, in its stagnant form, cannot be the artist's material. The artist offers the world his own truth for which he has to find an adequate linguistic formula. The writer's rank is therefore dependent on the degree in which he can liberate himself from the stagnant substitute reality, by making language a means of gaining insight into his personality and using it as material for the act of creation. "This," Karpinski says, "is what I groped for in the books I read: a voice that would be talking about me, about real matters. The fictitiousness of the official speech around me sharpened my sensitivity for an authentic-sounding voice." The 'official speech' here is probably not only the gibberish of communist propaganda and its servant writers but also 'no man's language', incapable of expressing new individual and social experience. The artist, Karpinski insists, must keep renewing the material at his disposal; he has to create his own poetics out of the stagnant repertoire; or else the omnipresent 'official speech' will gag him and separate him from his audience. This does not refer to all the readers: he is mostly concerned with himself and a small group of readers for whom delight with a work of art is one of the most important experiences, if not the most important experience. They believe that there exist works of literature which communicate with readers in the way described by Mickiewicz's metaphor.
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How does one describe a city? As a stage where the modern comedy of human ambitions, temperaments and passions is acted out? The city, then, appears as a maze, fascinating and dangerous; it tempts with a promise of fame and riches but it sets tough rules for the game. It is a place where people meet and compete; a space with its own order and hierarchy for its inhabitants. Those who ignore the challenge will lose - they will fall down the city's social ladder. Such a vision is only a few steps away from the vision of the city as a modern inferno; a place with no rules, where some fight ruthlessly for power and other fight desperately for survival; and where one's dignity is the price of winning. The city degrades and destroys; it is man's enemy. 19th-century representations of London, Paris or Lodz leave no doubt as to the scale of alienation. Another, more nuanced vision of the city emerges from the works of modernists such as Proust, Joyce, Mann or Rilke. 20th-century essayists will see the city in yet another light. In Polish literature, unusual representations of the city are created by Stempowski, Milosz, Wittlin, Iwaszkiewicz. The city is one's home; a palimpsest which reveals depths of tradition to an attentive reader, it gives generously to its inhabitants. The city teaches culture on a different level to that of home and school education, and it is the more demanding instructor in that it asks its pupils to continue what others began centuries before.
The city is the subject of Ewa Bienkowska's new book, What the Stones of Venice Say. The title, echoing Ruskin's The Stones of Venice, is an attempt to grasp the meaning of the relationship between man and the city in a metaphor. A city's stones are not mute; they tell more than just the history of the past generations carved in them - more than a story with a conclusion and an epilogue addressed to historians. The stones of Venice stand for everything Venetian civilisation is made up of: not just buildings, but also paintings and frescoes; monuments, customs, public institutions, urban design; and perhaps also the citizens' biographies. Still, Bienkowska's essay is nothing like a museum inventory, a guidebook, or a reproduction collection. The stones are signs which - provided they are asked properly - tell not merely about themselves but also about him who asks. In Bienkowska's essay, Venice, or La Serenissima (the name the city used to call itself) is alive, defying those who would wish to see it as nothing but a decrepit ghost, heading slowly straight for the deep. Not for a moment does Bienkowska's Venice talk to us in the stiff language of Baedekers - Bienkowska's purpose is quite different. Admittedly, she makes no attempts to conceal her fascination with the city but she treats it with submissiveness and respect, like we would treat someone who has things of utmost importance to say. Her purpose is therefore not to unveil a mystery, or to communicate some tourist truth about the city. Everyone can discover the truth of Venice for themselves because Venice is an inexhaustible source of meanings. In Bienkowska's own words, "a meeting with Venice extends and deepens our own time with the time captured in and carved on its stones; it creates a sense of belonging to a history which is Venice's history. Imperceptibly, the City becomes a part, or an aspect, of our own life; and its history begins to narrate our secret genealogy. This 'genealogy by choice' - 'Venetian citizenship' - is the most wonderful fruit of communing with Venice."
At the end of the 20th century, instant guidebooks are so well illustrated that leaving the hotel becomes almost unnecessary; and the photographs we take capture everything in such detail that we do not need to bother remembering things, taking notes, or returning to places we found particularly enchanting. In this age of express tourism, Bienkowska reaches back to the old tradition of an educational journey which completed the traveller's schooling and offered him a second motherland. Italy was a common destination especially with the Germans who cherished the myth of the Latin South as the source of European civilisation and polarised it with the Germanic North. Today no one talks of the cradles of culture; instead we talk of 'attractive tourist destinations', 'magic places', and so on. In her book, Bienkowska goes back to the idea of the Europe of motherlands, i.e. areas with a distinct identity expressed in the remembrance of the past; in art; in political traditions; customs; landscape. She wants to see Venetian masters' paintings in the place where they originated: within the community to which the painters belong. Even the works painted elsewhere and for strangers, like Giambattista Tiepolo's fresco in the Bishop's residence in Würzburg, do not lose their Venetian aura. In accordance with the philosophy of the essay, Bienkowska sees culture as an integral phenomenon. For a number of reasons culture is divided into trends, domains, epochs; but we should not forget that its various threads are closely intertwined with one another. Such a perspective requires considerable knowledge and writing skill; Bienkowska certainly does not lack either.
What the Stones of Venice Say reminds me of Joseph Brodsky's Watermark, published a few years ago. The juxtaposition of these two completely different essays indicates the range of possibilities within the genre. Thanks to the differences, the two books can complement each other. Brodsky is not a historian; he is satisfied with the Venice whose image is captured by the retina of his eye. He confronts the city's mystery helpless and happy; concentrated on registering his own impressions, chronicling his own presence, quickly portraying contemporary Venetians. His story is told in an entirely different rhythm; it has a temperament one would not find in Bienkowska's book. I could not tell which essay is the most dear to me; I keep going back to both.
Perhaps the main heroes in Bienkowska's essay are the Venetian masters: Bellini, Giorgione, Lotto, Titian, Carpaccio, Tintoretto, Tiepolo. Among those who have seen their paintings there are many who would not immediately associate them with Venice. As a matter of fact, artists of the 16th century - the greatest period in the history of Serenissima's painting - seem to remain somehow indifferent towards their city. The great masters of the cityscape - Guardi, Canaletto, Mariesechi, Belotto - to whom we owe the presence of Venetian landscapes in all important galleries were to come later, ending the long procession of Venice's brilliant painters. Bienkowska focuses on the masters of the Cinquecento not just because their art appeals to our senses so much. She stresses the fact that the 16th century ends a great period in the history of European art, where "paintings dealt with important issues and let everyone feel them. Aesthetics and religion, the art of representation and anthropology - they all used painting as a medium for their domains." A century later, the discourse on the most crucial matters would be already conducted in another language: Europe would abandon painting for the abstract formulae of philosophy; for literature; for politics. "The feeling one gets in Venice," Bienkowska says, "that civilisation has withdrawn from its most beautiful achievements, a feeling that makes one's heart bleed, is perhaps the reason why Venice has a reputation of a dead city; a form from which all life has withdrawn."
Although the decline of Venice keeps reappearing throughout Bienkowska's essay, the bright colours of her picture are not darkened by the shadow of the late 18th century, when the loss of sovereignty finally sealed the long period of political, economic and cultural regression of Venice. It seems that Bienkowska's book encompasses more than just a happy episode of Mediterranean civilisation, as insular as Venice itself. The city is not only a celebration of the imagination because the intensity of the sensations it evokes becomes a source of hope. Bienkowska sets art - the domain of freedom, harmony and fulfilment, against life and history - the domain of necessity. Are we approaching Schiller's utopia of aesthetic education here? The education taking us into the world of beauty which is the only place where man has a chance to acquire an equilibrium between the sensual and the rational; reconcile the idea of humanity with the particularity of each man's existence; individual desires with higher duties? In art we find the answer to the question about the meaning of humanity. The world created by artistic expression is not at all fictitious, or inhabited by ghosts which the pressure of the matter can instantly disperse. Quite the contrary, art is man's true homeland. Bienkowska's argument does not go quite so far, though. Schiller's utopia is dazzling with its radicalism; it severs the artist's bond with his audience; it tears the work of art away from life and autonomises aesthetic experience. Meanwhile, Bienkowska demonstrates how closely painting or architecture is connected to a moment in history; how works of art spring from life and turn towards life. "Venice," she says, "restores to imagination the function of vitality which lets us feel at home on earth. The world becomes richer; unexpected areas come into view, as if curtain after curtain were opened and an invisible hand led us in." Art does not carry us above life; it helps us understand the meaning of our nature, our limited existence. The are places particularly beloved of art; not shelters for beautiful objects like museums and galleries; but cities which are alive and which relate to the living. Ewa Bienkowska has found one of them.
Translated by Magdalena Bleinert-Coyle
Selected Bibliography of Polish Essay
Kott, J., ed. Four Decades of Polish Essays. Evanston, 1990.
Bienkowska, Ewa. Co mowia kamienie Wenecji (What the Stones of Venice Say). Gdansk: slowo/obraz terytoria, 1999.
Bienczyk, Marek. Melancholia: o tych, co nigdy nie odnajda straty (Melancholy: About Those Who Will Never Find What They Lost). Warsaw: Sic!,1998.
Brach-Czaina, Jolanta. Szczeliny istnienia (The Slits of Existence). Warsaw: PIW, 1992.
Czapski, Jozef. Oko (The Eye). Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1960.
Tumult i widma (Tumult and Phantoms). Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1965.
Patrzac (While We're Looking). Cracow: Znak, 1983.
Czytajac (While We're Reading). Cracow: Znak, 1990.
Elzenberg, Henryk. Proby kontaktu. Eseje i studia krytyczne (Trying to Make Contact. Essays and Critical Studies). Cracow: Znak, 1966.
Z filozofii kultury (From the Philosophy of Culture). Cracow: Znak, 1991.
Grynberg, Henryk. Prawda nieartystyczna (The Non-Artistic Truth). Czeladz: Almapress, 1984.
Herbert, Zbigniew. Barbarzynca w ogrodzie (Barbarian in the Garden). Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Dolnoslaskie, 1997.
Martwa natura z wedzidlem (A Still-Life with Bridle). Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Dolnoslaskie, 1993.
Herling-Grudzinski, Gustaw. Godzina cieni (The Hour of Shadows). Cracow: Znak, 1991.
Upiory rewolucji (Phantoms of the Revolution). Lublin: Wyd. UMCS, 1999.
Iwaszkiewicz, Jaroslaw. Petersburg. Warsaw: PIW, 1981.
Podroze do Wloch (Journeys to Italy). Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1980.
Podroze (Journeys). Warsaw: T. I. Czytelnik, Warsaw 1981.
Jelenski, Konstanty A. Zbiegi okolicznosci (Coincidences). Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1982.
Kijowski, Andrzej. Dopiski do Wyznan sw. Augustyna (Notes on St Augustine's Confessions). Poznan: W drodze, 1985.
Kowalczyk, Andrzej Stanislaw. Pan Petlura? (Mr Petlura?). Warsaw: OPEN, 1998.
Krol, Marcin. Podroz romantyczna (A Romantic Journey). Paris: Libella, 1986.
Kubiak, Zygmunt. Polmrok ludzkiego swiata (The Twilight of the Human World). Cracow: Znak, 1963.
Wedrowki po stuleciach (Wandering through Centuries). Cracow: Znak, 1969.
Jak w zwierciadle (As If in the Mirror). Warsaw: Akademia Teologii Katolickiej, 1985.
Micinski, Boleslaw. Pisma (Letters). Cracow: Znak, 1970.
Przybylski, Ryszard. Pustelnicy i demony (Hermits and Demons). Cracow: Znak, 1994.
Basn zimowa: esej o starosci (A Winter Tale: An Essay about the Old Age). Warsaw: Sic!, 1998.
Brewiarz Europejczyka (A European's Breviary). Biblioteka "Wiezi", 1996.
Salij, Jacek. Rozpacz pokonana (Desperation Conquered). Poznan: W drodze, 1983.
Stempowski, Jerzy. Esej dla Kassandry (An Essay for Cassandra). Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1961.
Od Berdyczowa do Rzymu (From Berdyczow to Rome). Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1971.
La Terre bernoise. Geneva: Droz, 1954.
Tischner, Jozef. Myslenie wedlug wartosci (Thinking According to Values). Cracow: Znak, 1982.
Vincenz, Stanislaw. Po stronie dialogu (On the Side of Dialogue). Warsaw: PIW, 1992.
Eseje i szkice zebrane (Essays and Collected Sketches). vol. 1. Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Wirydarz, 1997.
Wat, Aleksander. Swiat na haku i pod kluczem (The World under Lock and Key). London: Polonia, 1985.
Zagajewski, Adam. W cudzym pieknie (In Others' Beauty). Poznan: A5, 1998.
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