"Dotykalna treść" obcego świata : o doświadczeniu Ameryki w powieści Feliksa Netza "Urodzony w Święto Zmarłych"

Abstract

America observed and experienced from the perspective of a newcomer from beyond the ocean in a sense continues the regional theme of Netz’s novel, but also goes beyond it. The protagonist, Kazimierz Kranz, during his stay in New York where he confronts a highly mythologized space, marked for years by very specific characteristics, is prompted to sketch his own “autoportrait” against the background of a thoroughly alien culture. In his American notes — conscious of his otherness — Kranz reveals that the feeling of a loss of identity which has accompanied him since childhood intensifies, indeed attains its apogee on the other side of the Atlantic. More than ever, he feels spiritually disinherited, alienated from himself and other people. New York as the paradigm of the modern city is a space of contradictions, a mosaic of characters and stories lacking coherence, a shattered kaleidoscope of contemporary life. The narrative of Kranz’s encounter with the New World dramatizes the sense of rootlessness so characteristic of so many of today’s human beings.