Środy

This week’s The New Yorker magazine highlighted the recent publication of Witold Gombrowicz’s “complete” Diary by Yale. I returned to the diary, Volume I anyway, to survey my underlinings. Considering the expenditure of pencil, I must agree that he’s a very worthwhile read—leaving me two more volumes, or the new collection, to purchase.

Unintentionally exiled to Argentina at the outset of World War II, Gombrowicz  would seem to represent something of the reverse of my intentions, the unbecoming polakiem: he wanted to move beyond a native Polishness that he found provincial, conventional, self-satisfied, and at the same time, insecure and defensive vis-à-vis the world and "higher" national cultures. I like very much what he had to say, though the post-Polish Polishness he advocated demands more ambition and strenuousness of purpose, more greatness than I can muster for my lesser task. Still, I can learn a great deal from him and take some encouragement from his reflections. For example:

Wednesday

Wind and spindles of clouds crowding the peaks from the south. A lone chicken pecks away on the lawn. . . .

To be a concrete man. To be an individual. Not to strive to transform the whole world. To live in the world, changing only as much as possible from within the reach of my nature. To become real in harmony with my needs, my individual needs.

I do not want to say that collective and abstract thought, that Humanity as such, are not important. Yet a certain balance must be restored. The most modern direction of thought is one that will rediscover the individual man. (I, 90)

On another Wednesday, he wrote:

I know well what sort of Polish culture I would like to have in the future. The only question is: am I not spreading a program that is only my personal need on an entire people. This is it: the weakness of today’s Pole results from his being too monolithic, and too one-sided; therefore, all effort should be aimed at enriching him by one more pole, at completing him with another Pole, an absolutely, radically different Pole. (I, 109)

It would be presumptuous to presume that that other Pole might be an American, but for me, the pole of Polishness might be absolutely, radically different from my Americanness, this Joshness. (I seem to find him particularly enlightening on Wednesdays in 1954.)

W Lecie

In the summertime, this unusually and uncomfortably warm summertime, I attend but messily to my project and without much energy. Books, papers, flipflops, bedclothes, drinking containers, and a plumbing fixture lie ascatter on my study floor, in the only coolable room in my house. My desk supports an even more various micro-chaos. Amidst the miscellany, I scan the headlines of PolskieRadio almost daily and read of storms (burze) and massacres (masakry, i.e. Syria, Colorado), make wordlists two or three times a week from my pocket dictionary, and hoist Leszek Kołakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism into my lap for serious reading and intellection and almost immediate drowsiness. I blame the heat, not the prose.

Kołakowski was arguably the foremost Polish philosopher and intellectual historian of the post-war period, recently deceased (d. 2009). And while I’ve never been mistaken for a marxian—by a Marxist, at any rate—or truckled much with the cultural theories derived from it, that tradition is not without insight, value, and interest. But more importantly, Kołakowski represents a great generation of Polish hearts and minds—Wotyła, Miłosz, Szymborska, Górecki—that is recently passed away, as well as their particular record of Polishness. They consider and mark Polish culture at the rebeginnings of the Polish state (1919), a state that had the misfortune of time and place to re-enter the world at the end of the world and at the epicenter of its destruction. As Polishness emerged from the rubble and emerges now from the ruinous concrete grays of the Soviet system, it seems freer to become itself, but will likely become much more like the cosmopolitan, the global us. Just as the Marxists and marxians warned. Not perhaps the most terrible fate, but neither is that the Poland, or Polands, I’m most interested in. Yet, one must always abide where one is, or hopes to be, while visiting the past.

My request for a recess appointment and six months in Poland has been submitted. I await the final word of the not unsympathetic, but bureaucratic powers-that-be. 

Polskieradio

I took my Polish books on vacation with the best intentions, packed neatly in a squarish black duffel, about the size of a standard concrete block, and about as weighty. I unzipped it once to remove Norman Davies’s Europe, which itself, alone, at 1136 pages of text, and another 250 of notes, appendices, and maps, accounted for much of the structural integrity of that parcel of wishful thinking. Though Davies is the foremost English (Welsh, actually) historian of Poland, and though Poland is understandably and geographically central to his compendious survey, and though reading European history thereby contextualizes Poland and Polish history, I’m feeling lazy and undisciplined so far this summer. And my Polish fades in the sunshine and the heat. It’s 102°F here today, 38.8°C. Grammar puddles, vocabulary evaporates, rippling.

In languorous resistance, I’ve taken to reading the news, wiadomości, from the website Polskieradio, the headlines anyway, nagłówki. Parsing the headlines provides a not overly tedious grammar refresher and a gentle spur to adding vocabulary: I look up and write out 20 words a day (I know! but it’s hot.). Though I’ve noticed it before, I’m beginning to ponder the suffix –karz, which denotes professional activity: lekarz (“doctor”), piłkarz (“soccer player”), bramkarz (“goalie”), piosenkarz (“singer”), dziennikarz (“journalist”), koszykarz (“basketball player,” or “basket-maker”). –Karz or –arz is not the only suffix with this function; there is –ysta or –ista, as in dentysta and tenisista (“tennis player”), but I was wondering if there were a related word karz, meaning “a person who,” or karzać, a verb, “to engage in.” No such word appears to exist. The closest is karzeł, which means “dwarf.” I’m guessing there’s no connection.    

Wakacje

On vacation at home in Pennsylvania, where I Polonize only a little, on the couch, watching the EuroCup, which Poland and Ukraine are hosting. In their second match (mecz), the Poles played to a dramatic 1-1 draw with the bracket favorite, Russia; according to news reports, though, the Muscovite hooliganry scrapped with the native hooligans on the streets of Warszawa and got the better of them. History would seem to repeat itself. On Saturday, the Czechs defeated their hosts, slavic brothers, and sometime allies 1-nic, eliminating Poland from the tournament. Still, one can follow the game sites--Gdansk, Wroclaw, Warszawa, Poznan--and decline them yet in the genitive and locative cases, for practice.

And, of a Sunday morning, driving back from a golf mecz, I listened to polkas on WKST New Castle, 1200 AM, which dialed me back forty years, to a bit of what little Polish cultural exposure I enjoyed growing up. That nostalgia, mix of squeaky clarinet, accordion, and static. Home, even unPolish home in Pennsylvania, can evoke past and future Polish homes through music and the philosopher's stone of poetry.

"There is but one place in this planet whole
Where happiness may be for every Pole:
The land of childhood! that shall aye endure
As holy as a first love and as pure,
Unshattered by the memory of mistake,
That no deceitful hopes can ever shake,
And that the changing tide of life cannot unmake."

Adam Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz, (MacKenzie, p. 582)

Moustache Backdate

It was reported this week in the world electronic press that Ram Singh Chauhan, 54, of India holds the world record for moustache length—14 feet. At fifty-three, I’m not likely to catch him; he has a thirteen foot, nine inch lead, and I certainly don’t anticipate forty years yet of growing season. I concede the cup to Pan Ram.

A Polish moustache, though, is not about length. I don’t know what it is all about, exactly, and size—let no one kid you—does matter, but I’m beginning to suspect that there isn’t so much an ideal Polish moustache as there has been a very real Slavic attitude about them, moustaches, an attention to them, a reverence for them, perhaps even a fetish. How a Pole dresses his upper lip, or undresses it, signals something. As if a small signboard existed under your nose, and Poles, Polish men anyway, especially, read there clues to your character, associations, alliances. Do you live up to its implications, or are you all and only moustache?

Case in point:  Rereading the foundational text, the Polish national epic Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz, and reviewing the movie version by Andrzej Wajda, I follow the moustache motif with heightened sensitivity to subtle rewards and insights. The main character—though not the title character—Jacek Soplica, in his early maturity, “only had a little land/[but] A sword and a moustache from ear to ear.” [“Choć sam nic nie posiadał prócz kawałka roli/Szabli i wielkich wąsów od ucha do ucha.” (72)] (I must confess to delight in being able to actually read this, however haltingly, in the original, note the grammatical niceties, and the liberties that the translator took in rendering these lines comparably but not literally.) That is to say, that Jacek Soplica, though noble and martial and spirited and masculine and worthy, in spite of his many and manly gifts, represented by his ample moustaches, will prove too poor to wed the daughter of the magnatial Horeszkos, a girl who was, in fact, in love with him. Wherefore art thou impoverished.

Among Jacek’s gifts, tragically, was first-rate marksmanship, and he invariably shoots the Horeszko patriarch, earning himself exile and the implacable enmity of Horeszko’s warden, Gerwazy, who identifies the murderer thus, “It was Soplica, and I knew ‘twas he by his moustache and height/His villainy.” (76) Twenty-something years later, the son of Jacek Soplica, Tadeusz, the title character, moustacheless and unproven, though promising, has joined in a hunting party organized by his uncle, the Judge; Gerwazy is a member of that hunting party as well, along with the last of the Horeszko line, the Count, likewise clean-shaven. They’re after bear, niedżwiedz, the symbol also of Russian imperialism. The great beast rambles, then rampages into their midst, threatening both Tadeusz and the Count. A fusillade ensues, but those hunters who don’t actually blanch in the face of the ferocious target miss the shot, except for the priest, Robak, cowled and shaven. Gerwazy celebrates the feat at length,

“My friends, I have lived long and only one

Man have I seen so clever with a gun:

One who was famed for duels, and whose use

It was to shoot the heels from women’s shoes.

That famous scoundrel in an age of fame.

Mustachio Jacek—I’ll not say his name.

No hunting bears for him! He lies below

In hell right up to his mustachio.

Praise to the monk who saved the lives of two,

Perhaps three. I will not boast—but it is true

That if the last Horeszko had met death

By the beast’s jaws, I should not now draw breath.

And these old bones had given the bear a feast.

So let us drink his reverence the priest.” (194)

But does he, Jacek, lie below? Robak, of course, is revealed to be Jacek Soplica, “Mustachio Jacek,” who now long shorn in contrition, goes unrecognized by his mortal enemy, Gerwazy, and his only surviving brother, the Judge—though in the Judge’s defense, he was quite young when Jacek fled the country. The point cannot be lost: In what other country does a man assume the perfect disguise by shaving his moustache?

Perfectly Imperfectible

Professor Polakiewicz will offer one more two-year cycle of Polish language instruction at the University, after which, it will likely be taught no more forever. Not a particularly “popular” second-language selection, rather difficult, and no longer a “critical” language as defined by national defense authorities—that is, the language of a Communist or terrorist enemy—the future of formal Polish language-learning seems dimmer, even dim. The future of informal Polish language-learning is another question altogether, and insofar as it depends on me, while not particularly bright, burning hard or gemlike, its future will at least smolder on, flickeringly.

My immediate goals for informal language learning are three: consolidate my current grammar, expand my vocabulary, and devise a working set of idioms for my own personal use (personal, yes, as in “idiosyncratic” and not, I trust, “idiotic”). In fact, I have begun on all three counts. Cross-referencing Oscar Swan’s First Year Polish, Polakiewicz’s Supplemental Materials for First Year Polish, and Janecki’s 301 Polish Verbs, I can assemble a table of 500 verbs for memorizing. As I peruse their conjugation and usage, I will have occasion to review and study at greater leisure the grammar of verbs, for example, aspect. You will recall that Polish verbs tend to come in pairs: the first imperfective, indicating that the action is in process, ongoing, repeated or habitual; and a second aspect which focuses on the completion of an action, known as perfective. Interestingly, as I page through my texts I discover fifteen imperfective verbs that have no perfective counterpart. How can this be? What does this mean? That 5% of Polish verbs cannot be perfected? That 5% of Polish activities cannot be completed?

bać się—“to be afraid”

działać—“to function, operate, work”

musieć—“to have to, must”

narzekać—“to complain”

podróżować—“to travel”

polegać—“to depend upon, rely on”

potrzebować—“to need”

sądzić—“to judge, believe, think”

spodziewać—“to expect, hope for, anticipate”

śnić—“to dream”

towarzyszyć—“to accompany, attend, follow”

uczęszczać—“to frequent”

walczyć—“to fight”

woleć—“to prefer”

zawdzięczać—“to owe, be indebted”

Reflecting on the verbs themselves, I love to suppose that the quiet, constant linguistic process itself has recognized and/or decreed that these activities—being afraid, working, being compelled to, complaining (heavens, yes!), traveling, needing, relying upon others, judging but never quite condemning, hoping, hoping, dreaming, accompanying and attending, fighting (of course, alas), preferring, and being indebted to someone are habitual to Poles, ceaseless, always in process, never, ever done.  Janecki observes that "There are also a few simple imperfective verbs that do not come in a perfective aspect.” (xiv) She does not say why. Polakiewicz, who knows his Slavic linguistics pretty thoroughly, would probably answer, “that’s just the way it is in Polish.”

A-

“An easy final,” said Professor Polakiewicz Tuesday night at the beginning of the test period. Well, it certainly could have been harder. Two of the smartest students in the class (very bright, hard-working, and young) polished off the 6-page exam in an hour, perhaps less. I remained considerably longer with my “slower” comrades. I managed to answer, or otherwise respond to, every question, but my confidence level hovered at moderate. I remember thinking in the week prior to the final that I could be studying more, harder, more perspicaciously, but after two years, there was so much to recover, to refresh. How to choose? And really, I just wanted to be done. As it turned out (to okazało się), my final course grade was disproportionately high compared to the actual intensity of my final exam prep. I’m too old to cram. Jestem zbyt stary, żebym przepelnić.

A- showed up on my electronic transcript on Thursday. Generally speaking, A- is a lovely grade for me, because I consider myself an A- kind of guy, you know, reasonably intelligent, reasonably diligent, but not an academic stiff, and not that kind of old school scholar for whom the life of the mind is the fullest and most exclusive expression of humanity, for whom the library, the archives, or the lab form a sort of soft nest of intellection that enwombs them as they give birth to Thought and True Scholarship and Pedagogy: Like Robert Maynard Hutchins, who banished football from the University of Chicago and famously observed, “Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away.” I treasure them, but alas, I slink to the gym or to the courts.

With my A- in hand, I clicked on a Facebook link posted by a cousin of mine in Bydgoszcz, Natalia, on a Nickelodeon cartoon snippet with 1’40” of discourse in Polish. I caught three words. Of a cartoon.