gombrowicz question

Here is my book report, by xero, age 8.

Summary/Description: An adult man is inexplicably forced to live as a teenage boy. Utterly demented, venomous, and hilarious absurdist satire of modern (that is, mid-20th century) European culture. Witold G. to world: BITE ME.

Importance: First published in Poland in 1937; banned by the Nazis and the Soviets, un-banned in Poland in the late 1950s, then banned AGAIN when too many dissidents started getting into it. Still relevant, and a fantastic and deeply disturbing read. Several English translations are now available; to my mind the best one is the first, by Eric Mosbacher, from 1961. I tried to read the Danuta Borchardt one but just couldn't hack it, attached as I am to the original one.

"Spoiler" to give you a better idea of what this book is like than anything else I could say: By the end of the novel, the sun has turned into a giant ass in the sky.

Discuss.

TS Pupa vs Berg.

You just made my entire week, if not my life. I may have to make a t-shirt with that printed on it.

In Mosbacher's translation of Ferdydurke, "pupa" is given variously as "bum," "backside," and (worst/best of all) "backsidikins." But that insane little monologue toward the end of Cosmos ... "bamberging in the berg" ... gaaah! It has been quite a while since I looked at Cosmos -- clearly it is high time to dig it out again.

Have you seen Gombrowicz's Diary? What an incredibly bilious person, more than a little self-obsessed, and very funny with it, just as one would expect. The first four entries, verbatim:

Monday
Me.

Tuesday
Me.

Wednesday
Me.

Thursday
Me.

Also: a FILM of Ferdydurke exists. I sort of dread films based on novels I'm into, this one above all, yet I must see it. Naturally Crispin Glover is in it.

Backsidikins? Weird. I read pupa as having a more ambiguous meaning than simply arse, he is, after all fleeing a state of enforced infantilism innit.

Naturally, I have to see that film.

started to post as new thread but found this, so here's what I was going to say:

I just heard a PRI World Books interview with Danuta Borchardt (yes wise guys, Borchardt, idk if there's any relation), who's translated his novels directly from Polish into English - something which, unless I was listening lazily (a possibility tho), is the first direct translation of this writer admired by Sartre & Camus. Anybody read him? He sounds interesting. I know a fair bit of postwar Polish poetry, which is really stinging great stuff in my opinion - Milosz of course is good but Rozewicz & Anna Swir are just terrific. Anyway. Anybody know anything about Witold Gombrowicz?

I own Ferdydurke but haven't read yet — maybe I'll give it a go next.

I read 'Pornografia', which I enjoyed, though it was a fairly bleak and unrealistic book. Very stylishly written/translated, though. Two old geezers enjoy perving on a young couple in love, and decide to see whether they can manouver them into committing a murder.

'Cosmos' is AMAZING. I'd love to read it in direct translation. If I remember, Yale (?) put out a couple of direct polish-english translations a few years ago (perhaps these are what mr aerosmith is talking about) but my library didn't have 'em and I was poor. So it might be something I'll look at getting soon now that the financial situation has improved.

But yeah. Cosmos. Amazing.