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Title: Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz, Danuta Borchardt, Susan Sontag ISBN: 0-300-08239-8 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Zany to the point of seriousness
Comment: Ferdydurke is out of print! It has been a battle to get this book openly published in Poland, but look at how English-speaking consumers conduct their own censorship scheme. Yet there is a touch of Anglo-Saxon to the novel's madness: the upper class school boys, the title borrowed from the netherlands of H.G.Wells' corpus and much, much more. The novel questions whether there is such a thing as maturity, sending its main character back to school as an adult, where he is among boys who treat him as another boy (as does everyone else!). It also asks one of the great questions of our time: our characters are made by others; is it possible to escape this or are we merely prisoners of other people's influences? Something for us living under states who idolize individual choice to think about. But Gombrowicz's book is also full of comedy: slapstick, sharp irony, plot twists and philosophical fables. Jokes are used as an ideal way to pose serious questions. Furthermore, in its giant bums and staring contests it shows how much more you can talk about reality, including prudent insights into totalitarian life, through wild fantasy. The experiments of the novel - the unique fantasy, the invasion of the author and the symmetrical interjections - put it at the heart of European modernism. It is a landmark, albeit buttock-shaped.
Rating: 5
Summary: Who, or what, is Ferdydurke?
Comment: You may well ask the above question, but you will never discover the answer, for there is no character, or thing, in this darkly comic masterpiece named Ferdydurke. It just appears to be some play on words, or a nonsense title to intrigue the potential reader. This book, written in Polish between the two world wars, is extremely capably translated, with a good use of slang and diminuitive terms which must have caused endless hours of trouble and frustration for the translator. It appears to be an indictment of the state of society as it existed in Poland in the 1930's, and may appear a bit dated since must of what is excoriated by the author no longer exists. There is particular emphasis upon the type of relationship which existed between the nobility (of a sort) and the peanant and serving classes. There is a lot about the threat of modernity in the country, and a great emphasis upon infantilism and immaturity. The work takes some getting used to by the reader, but read in the context of its time it is very well done, and should be read to be appreciated for what it has to say about the human condition.
Rating: 5
Summary: Review
Comment: Among the great works of Central Europe litterature, Ferdydurke had a profound influence in my life and my writings.
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Title: Cosmos and Pornografia: Two Novels by Witold Gombrowicz, Eric Mosbacher, Alastair Hamilton ISBN: 0802151590 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: April, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Trans-Atlantyk by Witold Gombrowicz, Carolyn French, Nina Karsov, Stanislaw Baranczak ISBN: 0300065035 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: December, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, Celina Wieniewski ISBN: 0140186255 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: January, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Sleepwalkers by Hermann Broch ISBN: 0679764062 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 30 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: The Man Without Qualities Vol. 1: A Sort of Introduction and Pseudo Reality Prevails by Robert Musil ISBN: 0679767878 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 December, 1996 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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