Prochy doświadczenia w urnie pamięci : nad pudełkiem "Nieszczęsnych" B.S. Johnsona

Abstract

In the article, the author discusses the artistic output of B.S. Johnson and he suggests that the writer’s desire to confine his subjective experience to the work of art seems to be the common element of his novels. As a heir of Joycean and Beckettian literary traditions, Johnson declares that the only chance for literature — pushed to the margins of cultural communication by the cinema — is to present everything that is individual and unique; everything that is internalised in one’s personal experience. This claim for the explication of an individual thought in the pages of a novel comes to the fore in “The Unfortunantes”. The form of separate pages placed in a box (an element of liberature) is perceived here as a reflection of the random activeness of the mind and memory. Simultaneously, it illustrates the described experience in its whole chaotic and incoherent form. Moreover, it allows the readers to reduce the distance which usually exists between them and the book, so that not only can they become its witnesses but also its confidants.