Nietrafiony rytm : wybrane problemy twórczości prozatorskiej Michała Choromańskiego

Abstract

The author discusses the role of the works by Michał Choromański in the history of the literature, placing it in three main contexts: the Young Polish Movement, the Interwar Period and Post-War Literature. In its most metaphoric meaning, the title of the work refers to particular traces of presence and absence of the output in question in the historio-literary process conceived of holistically. It was shown that the texts ignored or superficially read by experts have a very important place in the very process and are inscribed, which is obvious, into the novel world of Choromański, allowing for tracing the changes of his writing technique, but also reflect important tendencies of the 20th century prose becoming, as Zazdrość i medycyna (Jealousy and medicine), an important element in the development of the 20th century psychological prose. At the same time, by means of its ambiguity, resulting from, among other things, the writer’s inclination to a parodic travesty of literary conventions, are interpreted here as, above all, the reflection of a modernist awareness of the antinomy between the literature/culture and reality and between the need for an artistic expression and conditions limiting its author. Such an interpretation is made from a characteristic original perspective — the analysis of what is forgotten (all works by Choromański), unfairly avoided and ignored by researchers (Biali bracia, eng. White brothers) already being discovered (the foreign reception of Choromański’s prose) as well as imprecisely described (the language of Różowe krowy i szare scandalie, eng. Pink cows and grey scandals). The details overlooked so far and fragments avoided in the literary discourse have become the subject of thorough microanalyses on the basis of the first and one of the last novels by Choromański, which allowed for describing the evolution of his writing technique model. As early as in White brothers (1931) the laboratory of forms and topics was discerned, which left its imprint not only on all works by Choromański, but was important in reference to the evolution of novel forms: the inspiration by the film language in the narration (a thorough analysis by foreign researchers in Jealousy and medicine), reference to musical categories in the structure of the narrative texts, including above all the one used in a slightly modified form in Beethoven’s pots later on), the outline of an asymmetric or irrational development of interpersonal relations (visible, for example, in Głownictwo, moglitwy i praktykarze founded with the atmosphere of expectation and mystery), the role of landscape (or nature) and its correlation with the fate of characters (from Jealousy and medicine to Pink cows and grey scandals). The dispersion of boundaries between literary genres, especially between poetry and prose is also important. The split of a realistic novel convention has become possible thanks to a complex of modernist breakthroughs within the scope of thinking about the language and identity. The realization of the avant-garde aesthetic conception was discerned in such aspects of the prose in question as the combination of the narrator with the author of the text, the development of narrator-character relationship, the status of meta-narrative messages, genre and stylistic differentiation with the parody of linguistic styles. In the case of “late” novels, the historio-literary process reflected in, among other things, the engagement of the contemporary literature in various commitments, its situation towards state institutions interfering with its shape (through censorship or pressure) plays a very important role. In this context, an up-to-date and especially precious piece of evidence constitutes Memuary (Memoirs), posthumously published in 1976, being the literature of a personal document which, according to the perspective proposed by Jerzy Smulski, was treated as the key-book to the works under investigation. Choromański at the time of small realism goes back in these texts to literary, artistic and social traditions of the 20th century period. It is the most interesting fragment of the collection in question, constituting a document of the most important part of author’s biography. That is why the evolution of Choromański’s prose was described through the analysis of the narrator and the language of selected works. Thus, one can observe in his writing a gradual withdrawal from the third person narration (in White brothers, Jealousy and medicine, Scandal in Wesołe Bagniska, The Red Cross Hospital and Digressions on wellingtons) to the personal one (in Upstairs…, Słowacki of tropical islands, Beethoven’s pots…, Pink cows…, Głownictwo…, A love anatomic atlas). As early as in the first volume he aims to go beyond the realistic and psychological model of prose — through the multiplicity of perspectives, focusing not on the processes, but the symptoms, the description of the effect of single behaviours and distancing himself from the mechanism of interiorisation. Late novels are characterised by multivoiceness, disintegration of the narrators position and knowledge. On the example of Pink cows… it was shown how the linguistic text surface is becoming (at the moment of developing the linguistic store of the speaking subject) the space of pressures between the author and the narrator (endowed with a certain biography). The narrator, situated between the characters, loses the privileged cognitive perspective, begins to hesitate and forgets, thus the narration is characterised by numerous retrospections and the maintenance of the cause and effect structure. Despite describing the reality of the interwar epoch in late novels (in Upstairs, downstairs, To enter a thing, Słowacki of tropical islands, Beethoven’s pots, Pink cows…, and A love anatomic atlas) which may also be interpreted as an important author’s gesture, Choromański refers to the state of the interwar literature. Introducing the genre stylization into the novel, he refers to the closed convention (a folk tale) or the one typical of the popular culture. In this way, he clearly withdraws from “social commitments” of the literature, promoted by the official ideology, consciously entering the centre of literary quality. The narrator’s position is thus a dynamic element in the works under discussion. It gradually goes away from the “objectivised” narration to the subjectivised one, loaded with biography and condition by narrator’s identity. In late novels, he becomes known as an ironist parodying traditions and conventions of the literature yet distancing himself from his own novel through self-irony. In this way, the moment of “telling” the narration is highlighted, intimacy or the kind of familiarity is built with the reader, which largely broadens the possibilities of playing a game with him. The researchers of Jealousy and medicine already paid attention to it, however, in his later works, one can notice the intensification of the effects of surprising the reader, boiling serious topics down to a joke and literature to the entertainment. Later works point to the literary quality of the message, convention and plot more often. Both in the first novel and pre-war works the narration is conducted in a succinct and precise way. In some fragments of Jealousy and medicine one can already observe a direction towards different poetics, diversified models of picturing the reality described. A realistic prose was expected to have a “transparent” style whereas, starting from the first novel, the development of the aesthetic function of the message, underlining the autonomic construction of the message. It is so, among other things, by means of the mechanism of lyrization, revealing the sound-linguistic surface of the message and thus starting a rhythmical structure of the prose fragments. In late novels one can see the stylistic contrast, play with the language aiming at transmitting the real expressive and semantic intentions more often than in first novels. Choromański traced back to stylization a larger extent, both the grotesque and the ones typical of the forms of popular literature (a spy, detective or crime novel). Late prose is much more directed at telling, the example of which is the narrator — folk tale teller in Pink cows… The awareness and freedom in operating different literary conventions were highlighted through the language (for instance the density of neologisms). It is connected with the crisis of presenting, “crisis of novel” at the time of which one tries to search for different forms of expression. Thus Choromański separates his own works from the objective reality, trying to, also through the mechanism of self-irony, underline the literary quality of the world presented. The very literary quality tends to be often exaggerated, which proves its conventionality and artificiality. However, the mechanism as such, constituted the only possible way of defense from the pressure of the outside world. The undermining of balance, order and proportion is the main problem in the ideological sphere of the works in question. It is being noticed in the first novel, transformed in late novels in which the movement and the rhythm of interactions and events dominate being fundamental for the plot. This irregularity characterising the course of events in novels is also true of Choromański’s works. Moreover, it may constitute the definition of this phenomenon in the historio-literary context. Going beyond the conventions (even the liveliest ones), going back to the closed genre tradition at the time of promoting realism, destructing the model of the novel to which the narrator refers — these are the elements of the writing technique going beyond the ordered history of literature. However, the author of the dissertation treats this wrong rhythm as a positive characteristic, creative and original reference to the tradition of literary forms. Irregularity is also visible in yet another aspect, i.e. the reception of the works under investigation is characterised by an exuberant reaction of the audience, a real interest (both in the 20th century and after the war). However, the critique does not say a word about the late period — does not hit the reader’s phenomenon with its spearhead. From the perspective of time, once can notice the complexity of the contexts of Choromański’s prose contributing to our knowledge about the last century and constituting a real and interesting trace on the 20th century Polish culture map better after the period of 30 years after his death.