Cosmos

by Witold Gombrowicz, Georges Sédir (Translator)

«Perdu, couvert de sueur, je sentais à mes pieds la terre noire et nue. Là, entre les branches, il y avait quelque chose qui dépassait, quelque chose d'autre, d'étrange, d'imprécis. Et mon compagnon aussi regardait cela.
- Un moineau.
- Ouais.
C'était un moineau. Un moineau à l'extrémité d'un fil de fer. Pendu. Avec sa petite tête inclinée et son petit bec ouvert. Il pendait à un mince fil de fer accroché à une branche. Bizarre.»

Genres: Fiction, Polish Literature, Poland, Literature, Novels, Mystery, Classics

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Gombrowicz was born in Małoszyce, in Congress Poland, Russian Empire to a wealthy gentry family. He was the youngest of four children of Jan and Antonina (née Kotkowska.) In 1911 his family moved to Warsaw. After completing his education at Saint Stanislaus Kostka's Gymnasium in 1922, he studied law at Warsaw University (in 1927 he obtained a master’s degree in law.) Gombrowicz spent a year in Paris where he studied at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales; although he was less than diligent in his studies his time in France brought him in constant contact with other young intellectuals. He also visited the Mediterranean.

When he returned to Poland he began applying for legal positions with little success. In the 1920s he started writing, but soon rejected the legendary novel, whose form and subject matter were supposed to manifest his 'worse' and darker side of nature. Similarly, his attempt to write a popular novel in collaboration with Tadeusz Kępiński turned out to be a failure. At the turn of the 20's and 30's he started to write short stories, which were later printed under the title Memoirs Of A Time Of Immaturity. From the moment of this literary debut, his reviews and columns started appearing in the press, mainly in the Kurier Poranny (Morning Courier). He met with other young writers and intellectuals forming an artistic café society in Zodiak and Ziemiańska, both in Warsaw. The publication of Ferdydurke, his first novel, brought him acclaim in literary circles.

Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Gombrowicz took part in the maiden voyage of the Polish cruise liner, Chrobry, to South America. When he found out about the outbreak of war in Europe, he decided to wait in Buenos Aires till the war was over, but was actually to stay there until 1963 — often, especially during the war, in great poverty.

At the end of the 1940s Gombrowicz was trying to gain a position among Argentine literary circles by publishing articles, giving lectures in Fray Mocho café, and finally, by publishing in 1947 a Spanish translation of Ferdydurke written with the help of Gombrowicz’s friends, among them Virgilio Piñera. Today, this version of the novel is considered to be a significant literary event in the history of Argentine literature; however, when published it did not bring any great renown to the author, nor did the publication of Gombrowicz’s drama Ślub in Spanish (The Wedding, El Casamiento) in 1948. From December 1947 to May 1955 Gombrowicz worked as a bank clerk in Banco Polaco, the Argentine branch of PeKaO SA Bank. In 1950 he started exchanging letters with Jerzy Giedroyc and from 1951 he started having works published in the Parisian journal Culture, where, in 1953, fragments of Dziennik (Diaries) appeared. In the same year he published a volume of work which included the drama Ślub (The Wedding) and the novel Trans-Atlantyk, where the subject of national identity on emigration was controversially raised. After October 1956 four books written by Gombrowicz appeared in Poland and they brought him great renown despite the fact that the authorities did not allow the publication of Dziennik (Diaries), and later organized

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cosmos is a very big place… And there is much of everything…

I looked around and saw whatever there was to see, and it was precisely what I didn’t want to see because I had seen it so many times before: pines and fences, firs and cottages, weeds and grass, a ditch, footpaths and cabbage patches, fields and a chimney… the air… all glistening in the sun, yet black, the blackness of trees, the grayness of the soil, the earthy green of plants, everything rather black.

Cosmos is a very strange place… And it is full of strange things… But one must have Witold Gombrowicz’s eyes to see all the strangeness.

…there are substantial obstacles to watching people, it’s different with inanimate objects, it’s only objects that we can truly watch.

Some things are stranger than other things… And human beings are the strangest of them all… And so often strangeness turn into absurdity.
Cosmos is full of absurd events… And some events are more absurd than other events…

All this within time that was reverberating like a gong, filled to the brim, cascade, vortex, swarm, cloud, the Milky Way, dust, sounds, events, this and that, etc., etc., etc…

Cosmos is a mysterious place…
And amongst all the strangeness, absurdity and mystery we do abide… We manage to solve some mysteries but in the process of solving them, we create the new ones.

[BlackOxford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Smoke

For a sign to be a sign there must be an intention which is quite independent of the object which constitutes the sign itself. Finding intention, and therefore meaning, is a tricky business. It requires imagination, which projects meaning onto objects, making them signs by magic as it were. This creates a mystery: “For every sign deciphered by accident how many might go unnoticed, buried in the natural order of things? ... as if the surrounding reality was already contaminated by the possibility of meanings”

This density of ephemeral signs is the character of religious imagery - a multitude of self-referential signs authorised (literally) by accepted convention and extended everywhere. But it is also the character of sex in which the most unlikely objects - “needles, frogs, sparrow, stick, whiffle- tree, pen nib, leather, cardboard, et cetera, chimney, cork, scratch, drainpipe, hand, pellets, etc. etc., clods of dirt, wire mesh, wire, bed, pebbles, toothpick, chicken, warts, bays, islands” - can become signs and sources of sexual stimulation, that is, fetishes. A fetish is a sign of only itself; it is the feeling it creates. A fetish is therefore a linguistic dead end; it is the antithesis of an ikon, which makes connections elsewhere.

Fetishism is a slippery slope. As the patient responded to his psychiatrist’s Rorschach inkblots: “You’re the one with all the dirty pictures.” If religion sees everything as having its source in the divine, there should be little mystery in how some see the world as entirely sexualised. Intention projected is intention perceived. Hence paranoia maintains itself with all the evidence it needs. “How sticky is this cobweb of connections!”

Gombrowicz’s protagonist says, “What attracted me to the “behind,” the “beyond,” was the way that one object was “behind” the other.” Of course what’s ‘behind’ a fetish is not ‘out there’ but ‘in here.’ But in here is the last place anyone wants to look. Fetishes are dirty, shadow-side things. In terms of projected meaning, the closest thing to religion and sex is death, the ultimate shadow. And no one relishes the idea of introspection about death and its fetishes.

A problem arises however when the desire to keep the projected meaning of death external leads to a self-protecting action - murder - thus confirming the objective otherness of death. Even if the victim is only a cat, the point is made: death is there not here, the ultimate projection. And a satisfying outcome for the fetishist. But nonetheless even this is uncertain:“Such a trifle on the very boundary of chance and non-chance, what can one know?”

Cosmos goes considerably beyond Gombrowicz’s fellow-Pole Stanislaw Lem in his exploration of epistemology. Lem’s His Master’s Voice, for example, (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) considers the difficulty in distinguishing signal and noise from outer space. For him, meaning must be presumed in order to find meaning but not a particular meaning. Gombrowicz presents a rather more complex situation, the human compulsion to assign specific, definite meaning from a sort of inner space. The result of this compulsion is much more difficult to decipher than alien transmissions. About intentions: “What can one know, one can’t know anything, nothing is known.”

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘How many sentences can one create out of the twenty-four letters of the alphabet? How many meanings can one gleam from hundreds of weeds, colds of dirt, and other trifles?’

Polish author Wiltold Gombrowicz explores the notions of order in a seemingly random, chaotic world in his 1967 novel Cosmos. Winner of the ‘International Prize for Literature’, which, as translator Danuta Borchardt asserts in her introduction, was ‘second in importance only to the Nobel Prize’, this psychological novel bombards, and occasionally exhausts the reader with Gombrowicz’s characteristic subtly and mastery of paranoid over-analysis. While this novel functions on it’s own apart from the rest of his work, Cosmos is best understood as a commentary and culmination of the themes teased and expressed in his earlier novels Pornografia: A Novel, and his masterpiece Ferdydurke. Gombrowicz exposes the human desire to create order from the randomness that beleaguers their existence in order to view the world as a safe, functionary society in which they are mature and essential cogs instead of a chaotic void in which we are merely immature and irrelevant.

The plot of this novel is highly secondary, and consists of the narrator, a college youth on holiday named Witold, accompanying a classmate to an out of the way pension in order to study in peace. In the darkness of the forest, they discover a hung sparrow, which sets off a seemingly connected (or are they?) chain of events. Vague connections are drawn and Gombrowicz directs his psychological investigations in a stylized detective fashion, having the boys find ‘clues’ that are so small and inconsequential, such as what may or may not be an arrow that may or may not have been recently scratched amongst the cracks in the ceiling (‘If it’s an arrow, it must be pointing to something…and if it’s not an arrow, it’s not pointing.’). Through this sleuthing, the reader is invited into the feverish mind of Wiltold the narrator to question the nature of signs and deciphering symbols from randomness. Do they really stumble onto covert codes, or is it the human desire to construct meaning? ‘No sooner do we look than order…and form…are born under our very eyes.’

The style of this novel is initially bewildering. The sentences are long and rambling, meandering through a convoluted psyche that is troubled by a growing paranoia. It takes a good portion of this short novel for the reader to get a firm footing, and unlike the powerful imagery and poetry of Pornografia, or the absurd Monty Python-esk comedy and literary investigations of Ferdydurke, Cosmos is intentionally bland. This blandness, this insistence on illustrating an ordinary, lethargic existence, further highlights the slight aberrations encountered, placing simple morbid pleasures such as Katasia’s gash that extends one side of her mouth into a slightly ‘lizard-like’ smile into the forefront of the narrators mind. These tidbits of the bizarre are constantly reexamined in his mind, ordered and picked up one by one to turn over, caress, and put back as if they were treasured items in a collection, done so an overwhelming multitude of times that the repetition is very likely to chafe on the reader. For being short in length, the novel slogs forward through the muck of mangled reality and by the time the reader reaches the incredible and exciting conclusion, the book may have worn thin on their patience. It is important to remember that this book is more an exploration of philosophy and psychological insight than a ‘story’.

Despite the few cumbersome aspects of this novel, Gombrowicz shines with his acute sense of subtly and paranoia. The narrator is constantly on the lookout for associations, often staggering when another character mentions something offhanded that can vaguely associate with the thoughts in his head. ‘Wasn’t it like putting my own anxieties into words,’ he often thinks as he dives headlong into conspiracy theories of order. Gombrowicz demonstrates how everything we encounter is ‘connected’ through ‘associations with’ each other event or object, and how the human mind draws these conclusions as if instinctually. The characters in the novel crave order, desire some map composed of meaning and method to abate our fear of randomness and chaos. They make order in their lives with marriage, religions, and divine a clear explanation for any of their actions. Even the strangulation of the cat, is questioned for the motive as it cannot be accepted as having been on a whim, ‘born out of chaos’ and a reaction to his world view of order being shattered by a seemingly pointless object entering into his scheme of meaning. When the party is faced with the powerful panoramic view of the mountains, a dance of chaos with nature thrusting into the sky at beautiful random angles, the married couple that clings to each other in overly obnoxious ‘cutesy’ ways is immediately terrified, crying out in fear and holding one another. The chaos of nature threatens their worldview. Here is where we also find the priest, lost in the wilderness as Gombrowicz takes his standard jabs at religions method of proclaiming meaning in a meaningless world. Here is where the true nature of the title, Cosmos, a word never used in the novel is exposed. To Gombrowicz, the cosmos, the universe, is a chaotic void deplete of meaning. This notion, expressed best in Pornografia: A Novel when narrator Witold observes an atheist praying in church and drops into a vision of the church floating aimlessly in a void, seems to have finally grown into a full-fledged theme in Cosmos, pointed and poked at but never overtly mentioned. The major theme from Ferdydurke, that of immaturity, has also blossomed in this novel. The adults, those who are looked at as pillars of society and the family, most notably the bank manager, is a mere buffoon who uses childish wordplay and singsongy phrases.

If we are faced with a world of chaos, a world without order, than, as in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, we must create out own order and meaning for ourselves. Gombrowicz examines this through a rather humorous onanistic metaphor, ‘go to your own for whatever turns you on’, and self-gratification and actions preformed ‘for oneself for the pleasure of oneself alone’ are shown as the opposing method to combat the chaotic darkness of reality than the obnoxious mapping of order and meaning.

All these onanstic and detective themes of the novel come together for a startling conclusion that really makes all the pieces fit together and hum. Or do they only fit together because the narrator looks for the connections and have we ‘exaggerated it’s importance because it turned up at the end point of our search’? These questions and more come crashing down to a surprising ‘non-ending’ that is both frustrating and brilliant considering the essence of this novel. Cosmos is a wonderful read, difficult and annoying at times, but full of thoughts to ponder and reflect over. It would be very much advisable to have read his earlier novels first to fully appreciate the ideas at play here and to draw many of the connections left open for the reader, plus I cannot recommend many novels more highly than I do Ferdydurke. The examination of such small 'trifles', as they are often called, to complete a larger picture reminded me much of Susan Glaspell and her one act play Trifles, which also consists of characters playing detective and illuminating a larger truth from a dead sparrow and other trifles, however, I cannot ascertain any actual connection between the two beyond simple coincidence (which, considering this novel, is rather ironic to me at present). Also, It should be noted as well that despite the strangeness of the text, this is the only translation direct from the original Polish instead of having passed through several languages before reaching an English reader, and is as faithful to Gombrowicz’s stylistic intentions as you can find in print. Explore the madness and chaos of reality with Gombrowicz, just don’t expect to find your way back from this dark forest of atheistic pleasures.

3.5/5

I could never know to what degree I was the perpetrator, configuring the configurations around me!

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witold & I: A Cosmos


Prelude

(Why? How? What an absurdity!)

Anyhow, here goes, Witold and I, and our silent adventure:


Part I: The Enticement

Witold approached me in the park today. He asked me to read his latest book. Just needed an opinion, he said.

I knew he was getting to be a big shot in Poland these days. I also knew he had been dabbling quite a bit in Philosophy at the University. So when he gave me his book, I was sure I would end up looking for philosophy in it even though he assured me it was just a bit of tom-foolery. No deep meaning, I assure you - He was very categorical about that.

I flipped the pages. Mildly interesting, I told an eager Witold.

I read on, about a hanged sparrow, about minute hands, about deformed lips and about chance concatenation of events… accompanied by increasing distraction.

I told Witold as much. You need to correct the flow of events, I told him. Not surprising at all, Witold winked at me, because too much attention to one object leads to distraction, this one object conceals everything else, and when we focus on one point on the map we know that all other points are eluding us.

That sounds deep, I said, and made to put down the book. Oh no, no, Witold cried. Just a mistake, please be reading on! I was only talking in general, not at all in particular. Of this book, there is nothing particular to talk about at all.

No philosophy at all then? I asked, just to confirm. None at all, Witold reassured. No justification for it. You know me, I am all against philosophy, he sat down on the next bench, as if to add to the reassurance.

I read on. But the same events again started rushing in on me, suffocatingly.

No justification, I grumbled to myself. The less justification it had the more strongly philosophy inflicted itself upon me and became more intrusive and more difficult for me to shake off—if it had no justification, then the fact that it was pestering me was all the more significant!


Part II: The Holy Grail

There had to be meaning. Witold cannot make a fool of me. What I need is resolve.

I resolved. (Who am I fooling? I needed no resolve.)

But, what was I supposed to read into it? Of chance? Of our quest for meaning? Of the impossibility of meaning due to the abundance of them?

Distraction by the possibility of meaning? Is that the web Witold has weaved for me?

Is what I am reading a metaphor for the very act of my reading? In the reader's hunt for meaning in an author’s nonsense? Should I accept this joke or accept the alternative - of chance concatenation? Is Witold testing my capability to raise myself above my tendencies or my ability to fulfill them?

I kept asking Witold. But, he was having too much fun drawing fake arrows for me to pursue - knowing that I would eventually come to something that made relative sense to something of what he had written before he told me of the arrow.

I tried to focus only on what was happening in the story itself (trying to ignore the knowing way Witold was leaning on his chair next to me) - but NOTHING was happening. And if nothing was happening, then a lot must surely be going on behind the scenes? Surely, Witold?


No answer now. Not even the reassurances on the absence of philosophy.

He knew I was too far gone.

Should I keep to it? Trying to see if something new would happen, if meaning would crystalize? But distaste for this affair, grotesque like an aborted fetus, held me back.

Then led me on.


I hated Witold now. He was irritating me, even though he made no attempt to speak to me. Both in person and as the author. He had exhausted the topic. Surely. We both knew that.

What rubbish.


Part III: The Riddler in The Mirror

I came back to what could make sense. To the story as a metaphor for reading:

The reader and the author? Reading a metaphor for the very act of my reading?

But it is an old trope to read that metaphor into everything!

I cannot accept that. I will not.

I knew Witold. He would never be that transparent. It would be too passé for Witold.


Maybe it is about religion, then? About the priest and the man? (Why else would that atrocious priest figure in it?) God himself and Man?

Or politics?

Maybe, of anywhere and any circumstance where meaning is explained by one to the other, thus opening up the possibility of a giant set-up?


A mockery of the very existence of meaning?

But that would bring me (the reader) into the story and we would be back at the metaphor of reading!

Yet, one also has to take into account the fact that I was struck by the story because it connected with my own preconceptions. I thirst for meaning and therefore I singled out that thirst in this story too, from many other things which are also probably talked about.

And so this confusion was partially of my own doing.

But, I could never know to what degree I was the perpetrator, configuring the configurations around me, oh, the criminal keeps returning to the scene of the crime! The reader is lost.

Witold, I want to strangle you and hang you up on the nearest tree, I screamed silently.


I’m noting only facts now as I read. The facts and no others. But why those? They are like dots. Something is emerging, like a figure. No, the figure disappears, it’s disappeared, there is chaos and dirty excess. Entanglement.

When one considers what a great number of sounds, forms reach us at every moment of our existence . . . the swarm, the roar, the river . . . nothing is easier than to configure! Configure!

Yet nothing is more difficult! Meaning is the most easy thing to conjure. But to chose which meaning is impossible.

WHAT IS IMPORTANT?? I wanted to scream!


Was something hiding behind this? Did it all mean anything?

It is after all only about the search for meaning?

Or do we search for meaning to escape the drudgery of our daily life? Like 'he' says in the book, “Drozdowski, anything to forget Drozdowski, it was clear that he had latched onto this and would push it no matter what.” (Drozdowski being some distant Boss figure)

Anything to escape the next Monday? I can relate to that! Yes, let that be the answer please.


Is that the meaning of this book then - that anyone searching for meaning has a dung-heap of a life?

No?


But the ending, tying everything back to reality. I hated that the most.

Everything had been cleared up, the journey’s riddles settled on the dry sands of explanation - it didn’t surprise me, I was ready for it, and yet it was tragic, the puzzles I had worried about escaped from my fingers like debris.

I had finished the book.

Witold looked eagerly at me. I did not let on that I had finished.


Part IV: The Purgatory

For I had I started noticing Witold’s gaze on me as I read… as if he was as paranoid as me - worried that I was reading meanings into the text that he did not put in.

Ha!

I had started smiling now and then, quite meaningfully and made sure he saw where I was (in the book, of course) sometimes and sometimes not.

This was more fun:

Just as all characters in the book become conspirators, co-conspirators and suspects in each others eyes, I was loving how I was reenacting the drama in a smaller cosmos - of only the two of us! Just the two of us.

That is how a Cosmos should be -  only the Subject and the Object. Nothing else. That would appeal to Witold’s beloved Great Thinkers, I thought to myself. I have something here. But I am letting that strand slip. Willingly!


I thought to myself, looking at Witold who was sitting a way away, stealing glances at me. If he really wrote this nonsense with any philosophy in mind, it must have taken quite an effort to not let slip - or maybe it takes quite an effort from me to avoid it?

Finally, bored of the pretense, I closed the book and gave it back to Witold and knowingly told him that it was great fun and complete nonsense, just as he had told.

I almost winked at him, but that would have taken away from our now private joke.


Part V: The After-Life

We contemplate the vastness of the Cosmos: ...

… and this something is coming toward me like a forest, yes, a forest, we say a “forest,” but what does that mean, how many tiny details, trifles, particles make up a small leaf of a single tree, we say “forest” but this word is made of the un- known, the unfamiliar, the unencompassed. The earth. Clods of dirt. Pebbles. On a clear day you rest among ordinary, everyday things that have been familiar to you since childhood, grass, bushes, a dog (or a cat), a chair, but that changes when you realize every object is an enormous army, an inexhaustible swarm.

We smiled together in the moonlight.

At the docile thought of the mind’s helplessness in the face of overwhelming, confounding, entangling reality... No combination is impossible... Any combination is possible...


I had thought most deeply, most intensely, but without the slightest thought.


In the end I told Witold - I had to crush him too, in case he did not mean it -

It is a refutation of philosophy. A “Why think so much?” ... Quite banal, in the end.

A screamed question. Not a gentle one.


He replied, “Gratify yourself with yourself. ”

I nodded.

Banish the word “Why”. We need a song about that.

[[P] · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some time ago I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about women, specifically the art of figuring out which ones are interested in you, and he was saying that he never felt confident that he was reading the signs right; and that this lack of confidence, in a sense, paralysed him, so that he rarely approached them. He wanted to know how I managed it. How was it that I was always so sure? Well, I let him in on a little secret: stop worrying about signs, as you’ll only confuse yourself. A glance, a nod, a smile…did she wink?…something in her eye….scratch her nose…which means…did she sigh?…a touch…on the arm…it’s a kind of madness, all this. You can never be certain. Getting a telephone number, like a belief in God, requires a leap of faith. Oh, of course, she can say no…maybe she will say no, it’s entirely possible, but no is an answer, it is concrete, it is not a nod, a glance, a little something in the eye, perhaps. And, please, take the no as a no, don’t try and read the no, for God’s sake.

There is, with us, by which I mean human beings, an obsession, a mania, for signs, for interpretation, for creating narratives out of next to nothing. A girlfriend of mine once said to me, after the break-up, that I had, at a certain point in the relationship, given her a look of disgust, and that in that moment she had known that we were doomed. Doomed! Disgust! My face nearly always looks like that. What can you do? The truth is that I had never felt disgusted by her, of course not, but, ah, the look! And what about science? Holy science! Religion too! It’s all part of the same thing, the same madness: this need to explain, to decipher, to crack codes, to solve, to impose order and form on the world…like reading tealeaves or looking for Jesus on a taco.

“The world was indeed a kind of screen and did not manifest itself other than by passing me on and on—I was just the bouncing ball that objects played with!”

I’ve been a fan of the work of acclaimed Polish author Witold Gombrowicz for some time, having read and enjoyed his amusing philosophical novels Pornografia and Ferdydurke more than once. I had, however, never got around to having a go at Cosmos. It’s too impenetrable, too zany, too dated, was the impression I had been given from the small number of reviews I had encountered. Zany and impenetrable had been my thing at one stage, but I had drifted away from that in recent years, as I rested my feet in the clear and warm waters of nineteenth century literature. And maybe that break has done me good, because I came to Cosmos reenergised, fired up for exactly this kind of book. Zany! Impenetrable!

Cosmos is, on the surface, a detective story. Two students, one of whom is the narrator, are looking for a place to stay when they happen upon a bird that has been hung from a piece of wire. Out of this macabre and surreal discovery a mystery develops. First of all, the men ask themselves, ‘who hung the bird and why?’ It’s not the sort of thing you come across every day, of course. After taking lodgings with the Wojtyses family the men start to notice other unusual things [or potential clues!] – an arrow on the ceiling, a stick, a tree that appears to have been moved – which they believe to be linked, to each other and to the bird. As the narrative progresses they become more and more convinced that there is a meaning or rationale behind it all, a puzzle to be put together and solved, a bigger picture. Is someone playing a game with them? Or trying to tell them something? Or…


[Hung Bird by Leonard Baskin]

Ah, and so we come full circle, the snake swallows its tail! All because of the ‘or.’ We must deal with that ‘or.’ Of course, someone could be messing around, or sending a message, with the bird, the stick, the tree, but what is far more likely is that Witold and Fuks [the two detectives] are simply seeing something in these random objects that isn’t actually there, or is there only because they have, in a sense, put it there themselves [‘the arrow’, the author suggests, could be merely a scratch that resembles an arrow]. They are imbuing these things with meaning, pumping significance into them; they are imposing order and form upon the world, which is, as noted, something that we, by which I mean human beings, do all the time and can, moreover, be done in relation to absolutely anything; this is, for example, how superstitions are created. As I was reading the book I was also put in mind of modern art, something like Kippenberger’s Wittgenstein, say, which is a shelving unit painted grey. An ordinary shelving unit! And yet people, including the artist himself of course, see something in that shelving unit, some kind of message or comment, some significance; they, yes, pump that grey shelving unit full of significance.

Now that we have come this far, the next question is ‘why?’ Why do we do this? You might argue that we impose meaning on the world because otherwise it would be too overwhelming, too chaotic, too frightening. The world is bigger than us, more powerful; and therefore we need to try and bring it to heel. What is interesting about Cosmos, however, is that Gombrowicz takes the opposing position, which is that an ordered world is overwhelming, that what is terrifying is relentless meaning. He likens this to a swarm. In all of his work he [or his narrator] is fixated on individual body parts – the mugs and pupas in Ferdydurke, for example – and I couldn’t ever quite grasp what he was getting at until I read this novel. It now strikes me that what Gombrowicz was doing was destroying form, destroying human order by breaking people down, pulling them apart. In Cosmos, Witold obsessively focusses on Lena’s hands and lips, and one can’t help but imagine these parts floating, disembodied, in space.

“Not surprisingly, because too much attention to one object leads to distraction, this one object conceals everything else, and when we focus on one point on the map we know that all other points are eluding us.”

I have only read Cosmos once, and so I would not suggest that I understand it completely or that this review has nailed all its themes and ideas. Indeed, I could have burdened you with many more paragraphs, as there are a number of other subjects I would like to explore – coincidence, threads and logical connections, madness and obsession, and so on – but this review is long enough already, and there are still a couple of points I must briefly touch upon before I finish. First of all, Cosmos has been likened to the work of Samuel Beckett, and I can see that, but it is, for me, more like Beckett’s novels drunkenly carousing with Thomas Bernhard’s. I think Gombrowicz was a masterful writer, and stylist, but I will say that he is perhaps an acquired taste [and even I wasn’t keen on some of the Leon babble and nonsense]. Secondly, and most importantly of all, this is a serious contender for the funniest book I have ever read. The Lime Works, by the aforementioned Bernhard, would run it close, and I was greatly amused by both Platonov’s The Foundation Pit and Walser’s The Robber, but Cosmos had me cackling so loud and so frequently my cat is now suffering from PTSD. In fact, the Berg-Bemberg conversation between Witold and Leon [you have to read it, I can’t possibly do it justice here] brought me almost to the point of hysteria. Which, I feel, is something that the author would have approved of.

[Jim Elkins]

How to Be Genuinly Obsessive-Compulsive, Not Artificially So

"Cosmos" is finicky, fidgety, microscopic, autoerotic, pointless but scratchy as an old saw.
Like a perverted Conan Doyle, who only solves crimes of lint and scuff marks.
Like a psychotic entomologist I once knew, who was nearly blind and wore absurd thick glasses and could be seen wandering around the college campus trying to peer at bees from one inch away. He thought that car crashes happened somehow on account of him.
Like Freud's idea of Dali (as fanatic, as embarrassment to the institution).
Could not be better.

[Olga · Rating 5 out of 5]

'I gladly call this work 'a novel about a reality that is creating itself.'
(W. Gombrowicz on 'Cosmos')

The protagonist and the narrator of 'Cosmos' Witold, a troubled 'sick' young man trying to find peace and quiet in a small Polish mountain resort town, finds a new kind of reality, the one that he creates himself from the surrounding chaos. He sees and follows the signs that do not exist, makes his conclusions about the things that only he and his pathetic partner think are real. His paranoiac mind plays with the parts of reality and associations and puts together the chunks that are incompatible. Everything that he sees are his guesses, interpretations, theories and associations. Is his strange love to blame?
He goes on and on and on and it is getting more and more crazy. It is a brilliant and disturbing text about the degree of reality of the world around us. It is also extremely funny!

'It will be difficult to continue this story of mine. I don’t even know if it is a story. It is difficult to call this a story, this constant … clustering and falling apart … of elements.'
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'And maybe, by doing just about anything, one will force reality to emerge, just like throwing any old thing into the bushes when something indistinct is moving there) . . . yes, yes, was strangling the cat my infuriated response to the provocation of the nonsense of the kettle?'
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'Why does one have to suffer from the favor and disfavor of associations?'
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'configuring the configurations around me. […] When one considers what a great number of sounds, forms reach us at every moment of our existence … the swarm, the roar, the river … nothing is easier than to configure!'
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'Love, love—my foot, passion, yes, but what sort? It all began because I didn’t know, just didn’t know who she was, what she was like, she was complex, blurry, inscrutable (as I had thought while staring at the continents, archipelagos, and nebulae of the ceiling), she was intangible and tiresome, I could imagine her this way or that, in a hundred thousand situations, consider her from one side or another, lose her, then find her again, turn her every which way (I wove my trend of thought as I was looking over the terrain between the house and the kitchen, watching the little white trees tied to stakes with ropes), but there could be no doubt that her emptiness was sucking me in, soaking me up, it was she and she alone, yes, yes, but, I wondered, as my eyes became lost in the twists and turns of the bent, damaged drainpipe, what did I want with her? To caress? To torture? To humiliate? To adore?'
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'In any case, it was as if the surrounding reality was already contaminated by the possibility of meanings, and this pulled me away, constantly pulled me away, from everything else.'
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'For every sign deciphered by accident how many might go unnoticed, buried in the natural order of things.'
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'An overwhelming abundance of connections, associations . . .How many sentences can one create out of the twenty-four letters of the alphabet? How many meanings can one glean from hundreds of weeds, clods of dirt, and other trifles? Heaps and multitudes gushed also from the boards of the shed, from the wall. I got bored. I straightened up and looked at the house and the garden—these huge, synthesized shapes, these enormous mastodons of the world of reality, were restoring order—I rested. Let’s go back. I was about to say this to Fuks but his face, stuck to one spot, stopped me short.'

[Algirdas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kosmosas, tai tvarka. Bet kas gi daro tą tvarką? Žmogaus protas, pasitelkdamas logiką iš pabirusio aplinkui pasaulio (chaoso?) elementų lipdo daiktus ir riša juos tarpusavy. Taip atsiranda namas, sodelis aplinkui, kaitinanti saulė danguje ir pats dangus. Viskas stabilu, viskas savo vietoje. Bet kartais loginis aparatas įsisiautėja, tampa nevaldomu, įkyriu. Tada surišamas pakartas žvirblis su tarnaitės lūpomis ir t.t. Toks galvoje atsiradęs „kosmosas“ užvaldo romano herojų ir lyg demonas vedžioja jį už nosies. Neveltui kai kuriose tradicijose logika tapatinama su velniu.
Mokėjo rašyti Gombrowiczius, nieko nepasakysi.

[Jeść treść · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moje rytualne, jesienne czytanie zaczęłam od wybornego „Kosmosu” Gombrowicza. To był naprawdę dobry strzał, bo w tej powieści aż gęsto od tajemnic, pytań pozbawionych jednoznacznej odpowiedzi i skrupulatnie budowanego napięcia, a wszystko to na scenie czarnej jak atrament nocy.
Było dużo gombrowiczowania (oraz absurdalnie niestosownego bambergowania w berg) i niełatwych wniosków na temat losów biednego małego człowieka w wielkim, chaotycznym Kosmosie, a mnie to wszystko razem zachwyciło i przeraziło jednocześnie.

„Byłem nieobecny. Zresztą (myślałem) prawie zawsze jest się nieobecnym, lub raczej nie w pełni obecnym, a to wskutek naszego ułamkowego, chaotycznego i prześlizgującego się, niecnego i podłego obcowania z otoczeniem.”

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sparrow hanging in senseless success. A choked chicken adds to the symbol equation. Fish-face's boss hates him. In an accident they stay the night. Her mouth was a big bang. Everything means nothing, and behind that mouth this mouth. If you fuck someone you fuck everyone they have ever sheet between. Her mouth behind other her mouth, his hands on her hands your hands. Can't pick out ugly star from hot star from her sun star on his glow-worm. White ceiling skies betray signs. Dyslexic mystery. The cat crucifixation is not a mystery. He did it. Stay the night by put to sleep. Put them all out of your mind on nails. Say it makes sense.

[Brent Legault · Rating 5 out of 5]

The copy of Cosmos that I own had been read previously by a college student who clearly wouldn't have read it otherwise. At first, his marginalia are serious and boring, like his essays no doubt. It's clear he had read a textbook, remembered a term or two from it, watched how his professer used it, waited for his chance to parrot him. It's also clear that he was also not thinking for himself.

Then, beginning on page 70(wherein a violent killing is described), he gets fed up. He stops thinking through the textbook or through the mouth of his professer and he begins to, well, not think but at least speak for himself. He also makes the amateur's mistake of "relating to" the characters and not their master.

Here are a few of his comments:

p. 74 "asshole!"

p. 86 "OMG - he is such a narcissist"

p. 92 "why this book is a bore" (In regards to the narrator's inability to concentrate.)

p. 109 "enough w/the fucking sparrow"

p. 145 "ditto for main character" (In regards to someone having "a screw loose.")

p. 160 "Book in a nutshell" (next to this passage: "The eyes of boredom, old buddy, are bigger than those of fear!"

p. 167 "removed from this world"

p. 172 "oh jesus"

p. 173 "you + me both, dude" (next to this passage: "I don't even know if it is a story.")

p. 175 "too self absorbed to see the signs?" (In regards to someone's suicide.)

p. 181 "OCD weirdo"


I confess, I loved his commentary. I didn't ever agree with it but I yearned to hear more. I would have liked to have been reading this book aloud to him, preferably at his bedside while he lay in a full body cast.

Cosmos is obsessive, repetative in story and style, mind-rumbling and hilarious. It is weird and the narrator is a weirdo (So I do, sometimes, agree with the college student. Yes, I think we'd get along well together, as long as I could resist the urge to "spill" hot tomato soup down the throat of his cast.) who, I have to admit, would these days probably be diagnosed with OCD and other things. Fortunately, he "lived" in a time when crazy could take over the page and make lovely, horrible fictions, never to be bogged down by the clinical, the catagorized, the dull. What a wonderful weirdo is he!

[Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leer una novela de Gombrowicz implica aceptar sus reglas, ya que de manera similar a Ernesto Sabato, en ellas vuelca sus emociones e inquietudes más profundas.

De hecho, en sus años de exilio obligado en Argentina, Sábato fue el autor con quien más cercanía tuvo. (En la novela La más recóndita memoria de los hombres Sarr va más allá, y los muestra como un dudoso dúo, siempre juntos, en su relación con el mítico T. C. Elimane).

En Cosmos explora los límites de lo que es posible. Y en particular, la posibilidad de que las coincidencias sean reveladoras de un sentido. Y, profundizando, también definir qué elementos se debieran combinar para encontrar ese sentido, así como el significado de esas coincidencias.

Leerla requiere sumergirse en una incertidumbre de alternativas: que el narrador esté loco, desesperado, o que sea un intuitivo sensible que percibe que detrás de los elementos hay un sentido, aunque su inteligencia no llega a inteligirlo; e independientemente de sus percepciones, la perplejidad ante esos misteriosos seres con quienes convive, y qué es lo que motiva sus comportamientos.

Una novela compleja, que requiere ser leída con mucha atención, y al mismo tiempo con una cuota de abandono, de dejarse llevar por la narración, y poder sumergirse en las atmósferas construidas por Gombrowicz.

[Bogdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

…ничто и никогда не может быть адекватно выражено, воспроизведено в своем анонимном бытии, никто и никогда не сумеет передать лепет рождающегося мгновения, то есть мы, родившиеся из хаоса, никогда не сможем с ним соприкоснуться, стоит нам взглянуть, и под нашим взглядом рождается порядок и форма…

Почти всё повествование построено на грани таких моментов. Быстрые, колеблющиеся, неотчетливые впечатления молодого героя едва успевают обрести формулировку, как тут же возникают новые и новые ощущения. Но они столь же многозначны, сколь и точно разложены — это вовсе не поток сознания а-ля Джойс. Повествование просто течёт — порой даже очень медленно. Иногда повесть напоминает чуть ли не болото сознания: сам герой неопределённый, между возрастами, уже не подросток, но ещё не мужчина. Его смутная история начинается в тот момент, когда он только что сбежал из родительского дома и ищет своё место (в самом широком смысле этого слова). Дни знойные: «Жара звенит и колышется, и черным-черно от солнца.» От зноя, само время как будто замедляется. Герой находит спутника — флегматичного парня, который напоминает ему рыбу из-за своей вялости и выпуклых глаз. Вместе они снимают дешёвую комнату в доме на окраине города и переживают там какой-то нелепый летний отпуск, потому что, по сути, не делают ровным счётом ничего. У них случаются микро-приключения, вроде тех, где им кажется (или не кажется), что они видят тайные знаки на стенах дома и следуют им — не совсем понятно зачем и куда...

Одна женщина очарует главного героя… своим уродством:

Мы стояли на крыльце, и голова моя трещала от лязга поезда, пеших странствий, событий вчерашнего дня, хаоса, шума и тумана. Водопад, оглушительный шум. Что меня поразило в той женщине, так это странный дефект рта на ее лице почтенной служанки с ясными глазками – ее рот с одной стороны был как бы надрезан, и его удлинение, на самую малость, на миллиметр, вызывало выгиб, точнее выверт, верхней губы, выскакивающей, точнее выскальзывающей, почти как змея, и эта ослизлость, скошенная и верткая, отталкивала каким-то змеиным, жабьим холодом, однако именно это меня сразу обожгло и распалило, как темный коридор, соединяющий меня с ней в плотском грехе, скользком и ослизлом. Еще меня удивил ее голос – не знаю уж, какого голоса я ожидал из такого рта, но она заговорила, как обычная служанка, пожилая, дородная.

Из-за всего этого читателю трудно сказать, переживает ли герой действительно глубокие мысли или просто бредит; созерцает ли он в своём экзистенциальном отпуске тайну бытия или чепуху. Мне лично кажется, что нельзя одно без другого (как душа без плоти) — и автору чудесным образом удалось показать этот тонкий баланс противоположностей без диссонансов. Повествование связывается из несочетаемых элементов так, что они не образуют какофонии.

Вообще, проза если и не конвенциональная, то и не супер-экспериментальная — кстати виртуозная игра слов до удивления естественно передана этим блестящим переводом. Но это не фрагментарное повествование, в нём нет иррациональных разломов, как в замысловатых, лабиринтных текстах модернистов. В этой книге восприятие не раздроблено затейливым образом — у него лёгкие и чарующие изгибы. Почти гипнотизирующая проза — с лейтмотивами и плавными поворотами вокруг них. Некоторые персонажи показались мне слишком схематично охарактеризованными, а их отношения и конфликты — немного поверхностными или неестественными (даже с учётом того, что это, конечно, не реализм). Поэтому не поставил максимальную оценку.

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indizioni, indiziucci, indiziaccionastri, ti-ri-ti, ti-ri-ti…

Si esce alquanto storditi (…e forse, a giudicare dal titolo che ho messo, un po’ rincretiniti!) dalla lettura di questo libro sconcertante che l’autore stesso definì: “un romanzo che si crea da sé, mentre lo si scrive”, dando l’idea di una deriva che trascina i personaggi, la trama, il mondo (e la fantasia del lettore…) in direzioni imprevedibili e vertiginose.

Il tutto si svolge dietro l’apparenza di un filo conduttore rappresentato dapprima da un’assurda pseudo-indagine e poi, improvvisamente verso metà libro, da una scampagnata che sembra quasi una fuga, raccattando per strada nuovi personaggi sempre più grotteschi e imbastendo nuovi incroci casuali e caotici.

La prima parte, dove ancora sembra balenare una parvenza di logica, seppure ripetutamente contraddetta, vede due annoiati personaggi (il narratore Witold e il suo degno compare) impegnati a dare forma al caos, a combinare presunti indizi, associazioni, suggestioni in un’investigazione insensata e potenzialmente infinita ( “Cosmo” è stato etichettato dalla critica come “giallo filosofico”).

Fra gli stravaganti “indiziati” (di cosa poi non si sa…!) spicca la personalità di Leo, capofamiglia dedito ad estenuanti scioglilingua che contribuiscono ad accrescere l’atmosfera di straniamento che pervade la scena e che si rivela personaggio capitale nell’economia del romanzo, esprimendo la parolina “Berg!”, culmine del non-sense (mi si perdoni il paragone irriverente, è un po’ come il fatidico “42” della Guida Galattica!!).

Poi c’è la gita in montagna e lì il delirio della narrazione prende il sopravvento fino al catartico acquazzone conclusivo, anche se l’effettivo finale è un beffardo “…e anche oggi a pranzo c’è stata la fricassea di pollo.!!!

Romanzo totale che cattura o respinge dopo poche pagine, Cosmo è una di quelle opere che, come si suol dire con un luogo comune, più che una lettura rappresenta un’esperienza, un viaggio ipnotico nelle pieghe della realtà e del caos.

[Daniele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cosa ho letto??? Un giallo? Un thriller? Un romanzo psicologico? Un'accozzaglia di idee che perdono il filo non appena ci si addentra nella storia? Un romanzo onanistico come il buon Leon (Berg!!!!!)? 
Un'opera abbastanza folle, un romanzo sulla realtà che crea se stessa per uscire dal caos. 
Non so se l'ho capito, non so se davvero l'ho apprezzato, di certo mi ha colpito!
E comunque oggi a pranzo, pollo lesso....

A tutto ciò si aggiungeva una crescente distrazione. Niente di strano: l'eccessiva concentrazione su un unico oggetto rende distratti, quell'unico oggetto oscura tutto il resto, anche se sappiamo che a furia di concentrarsi su un solo punto della mappa tutti gli altri ci sfuggono.  

Come mai noi, nati dal caos, non possiamo entrarci in contatto e non facciamo in tempo a vederlo che subito sotto gli occhi ci spuntano ordine... e forma... Pazienza.

Ero assente. Del resto (pensavo) si è quasi sempre assenti o, meglio, non del tutto presenti, e questo per via del nostro frammentario, caotico, trascurato, abietto e vile rapporto con ciò che ci circonda; perfino tra quanti partecipano a uno svago mondano, per esempio a una gita (rimuginavo), ce n'è sempre un dieci per cento che resta assente.

Gli anni si spappolano in mesi, i mesi in giorni, i giorni in ore, i minuti in secondi, e i secondi volano via. Non li afferri. Svanisce. Fugge. Che cosa sono, io? Una certa quantità di secondi - spariti. Risultato: niente. Niente.

Chi non ha quel che ama ami pure quel che ha!

[Aslı Can]

Gombrowicz'le bir şekilde bağımız olduğunu, yazarken hep aklının bir köşesinde benim okuyacağımı bilerek yazdığını; bana yazdığını biliyordum. Kendi ağzı ve elleri ve benim ağzım ve benim ellerim arasında bir bağ olduğunu biliyordum.
Tüm bunlar söylenmedi, bunlar yazıldı. Söylenmeyenler aracılığıyla benim ağzımla onun ağzı birleştiler önce. Yazılanlarla ellerim ve elleri, gözlerim ve gözleri.

Onun her bergine karşılık benden bir portakal. Berg ve portakal. Bergus portakalus. Portakalyum bergyum. Bergberg de portakalcık.

[Dimitri · Rating 2 out of 5]

In realtà non so neanche se si tratti di una storia. Come chiamare storia questo continuo … addensarsi e disfarsi … di elementi …

Un passero impiccato, una freccia sul muro, un labbro femminile deformato, un gatto strangolato, le mani di una timida ragazza, un albero preso a martellate. Questi sono solo alcuni dei segni e degli eventi che il giovane Witold cerca ossessivamente di collegare e decifrare, in una cupa pensione immersa nella canicola estiva. Il libro riporta le riflessioni in prima persona di una mente al limite della follia.
Secondo Michele Mari “Cosmo” è uno dei cinque libri più belli del Novecento. Per me due stelle: una lettura positiva ma non entusiasmante. Lo stile è la cosa che ho più apprezzato di questo romanzo grottesco, urticante, a tratti divertente, ma troppo pesante in molte pagine, con l’onnipresente tesi dell’autore sull’impossibilità di mettere ordine nel caos che ci circonda. Persino una teiera può essere un divertente e sorprendente agente del caos.

A un tratto, al primo piano, vidi una finestra illuminata – la loro, quella di Lena e di Ludwik. Proprio di fronte, oltre la siepe c’era un abete dai folti rami divaricati … Se mi ci fossi arrampicato avrei potuto sbirciare … Di ramo in ramo mi arrampicai cautamente sempre più su. Vederla, vederla – vederla con lui – che cosa avrei visto?
Infine vidi.
Restai di stucco.
Lui le mostrava una teiera.
Una teiera.
Lei stava seduta su una sedia davanti alla tavola e con un telo da bagno gettato a mo’ di scialle sulle spalle.
La teiera.
Ero preparato a tutto. Ma a una teiera no. Esiste quel che si dice la goccia che fa traboccare il vaso. Il troppo. Esiste una sorta di eccesso di realtà, una proliferazione che va oltre il sopportabile.

[Vasko Genev · Rating 5 out of 5]

******

"Космос" е психотропна книга!

Трудно ми е да пиша за нея, но това определено е една от най-смислените "безсмислени" книги.

... безсмислието е нож с две остриета, а ние с Фукс от второто острие на това безсмислие се движехме и действахме напълно смислено ...

Усмихнах се под луната на благата мисъл за безсилието на разума пред действителността надрастваща, погубваща, обвиваща... Няма невъзможни комбинации... Всяка комбинация е възможна...

Тук може да гъмжи от знаци...

Ще си позволя нагло клише: това е истинско произведение на изкуството! Книгата ще бъде изключително любопитна и полезна за всеки, който има интерес към философията, езикознанието, психологията.

Не бях чел точно такова нещо. Противно на желанието на Гомбрович да не бъде сравняван, (негова е репликата "Убийте Борхес!") ще се опитам да оприлича неговия Космос с нещо, може би с някаква метаморфоза на Даниил Хармс, Набоков, Борхес (разбира се), Йожен Йонеско, Кнут Хамсун и някои от текстовете на Храбал (къде без него :) ), достигайки до поетично-сюрреалистичното избухване на Бруно Шулц.

- Сигурно мислено ме обявявяте за някакъв лудум?

- Разбира се, обявявайте ме, това облекчава нещата. И аз самият се правя на луд, за да ги облекча. Защото ако не ги облекча, би станало твърде трудно.

Седеше на един дънер и пушеше цигара.
- Какво правите тук?
- Нищо, нищо, нищо, нищо, нищо, нищо - отвърна и се усмихна блажено.
- Какво ви радва толкова?
- Какво? Нищо! Именно това: нищо! Хе, каламбур, моля ви, хм ... Радва ме "нищото", разбирате ли, милостиви, достопочтени спътнико и сътрапезнико и файтон, защото "нищо" е тъкмо нещо, което се прави цял живот. Човек стои, седи, говори, пише ... и нищо. Човек купува, продава, жени се, не жени се - и нищо. Човек седум на дънерум - и нищо. Въздух под налягане.

- Годините се разпадат на месеци, месеците на дни, дните на часове, минутите на секунди, а секундите протичат. Не схващате. Протича. Изтича. Какво съм аз? Аз съм определено количество секунди, които са протекли. Резултатът: нищо. Нищо.

- Бемберговате ли? И аз бемберговам. Заедно ще си бемберговаме!

Докато четеш "Космос" постоянно текстът ти идва в повече, но продъжаваш да искаш още и още ��т тази откровена шашавина.

Попадаш в капан от самото начало.

Колкото по-незначително, нелепо, толкова по-натрапчиво, по-мощно! Ама че клопка, ама че пъклено злобно проспособление! Ама че капан!

ДЕЙСТВИЕТО

Тотална обсесия. Гротеска.

Ключова дума "отнася" - в смисъл на "отнася се", "съотнася се", "когато едно с друго се слепва", "свързва се" "препраща", "добира се", "докосва", "асоцира" и т.н. ... Всяко нещо се съотнася с друго, което от своя страна се отнася до следващото, а то до своето ново съотносимо ..., до безкрай!

Мнима криминална история, уникални взаимотношения между персонажите. Престъпление, свръхнатрупване на абсурдни обстоятелства: "разярен отговор на провокация, съдържаща се" в нещо, което в крайна сметка е "безсмислено." Опит на извършителя да разбере действията си, да обхване случилото се в контекста на случващото се. Главното действащо лице (в "Космос" е господин Витолд ... Кой Витолд е това, Гомбрович?! ), неговата свръх-игра, манипулация.

СТИЛЪТ

Повествованието твърде често се доближава до това на Бруно Шулц, но тук всичко е задържано във формата си, овладяно. Текстът се движи по ръба на синтаксиса.

Гротеска с крими елементи. Шашаво забавно.

Още малко цитати:

Жега, но с весел ветрец.

Седях на този дънер като на куфар, чаках влака.

... но шумът не заглушаваше тишината, пълна, отделна, безлюдна, затънтена. Пиех червено вино.

След малко, когато поставиха един на лавицата, другия на шкафа, се разгоряха по-добре и тогава косите отблясъци извикаха уголемяване на телесата ни около масата, офантастичняване, трептящи от огромни сенки облаци омитаха стената, отблясъкът рязко изваждаше на повърхността изрески от лица и торсове, останалото беше изгубено, блъсканицата се усили от това и теснотията, направо гъсталак, да, гъсто и още по-гъсто, разпростиране и засилване на ръце, ръкави, шии, посягаше се към месо, сипваше се водка и се очертаваше възможност за фантасмагории с хипопотами. С мастодонти. Лампите предизвикваха и сгъстяване на тъмнината навън, както и нейното подивяване.

Свещеник с расо, седящ на камък, в планината? Напомни ми за чайника, защото този свещеник беше като чайника, там. И това расо също беше свръх.

... какво търсех аз, какво търсех? Основен тон? Начална мелодия, някаква ос, около която действията си тук да мога да възстановя, да подредя? Но разсейването, не само моето, вътрешно, но и нахлуващото отвън, от разнообразие и излишък, от заплитане, не позволяваше съсредоточаване върху нищо, една дреболия се откъсваше от друга, всичко беше еднакво важно и неважно, пристъпвах и отстъпквах ...

Любов, каква ти любов, страст, да, но каква? От това се започна, че не знаех и не знаех коя е тя, каква е, беше заплетена, зацапана, нечетима (мислех, вгледан в сушата, архипелазите, мъглявините на тавана), беше неуловима и измъчваща, можех да си я представям и така, и онака, в сто хиляди ситуации ...

[Emre Ergin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diyalogları sevdim, tasvirlere bayıldım. Ayrıntıları birbirine çarpıştırarak buradan kurgu çıkarmaya çalışan zekâyı da sevdim. Eşek arısı! Eşek arısı girdi içeriye. O yüzden kıpırdandı bu yazdığım, sarsıldı, ama rayından da çıkmadı. Bütün bu çabanın gitgide daha çok sığlaşmasından rahatsız oldum, Freüdyen sembolizm, onun da zoraki bir versiyonundan başka hiçbir yere bağlanamayacak imgelerden rahatsız oldum, İsveç kralı geliyor aklıma, kitapta da geçiyordu, şimdi burada da geçiyor, karakterin aklındaki sıçramalar eğer izaha gelirse üsturuplu, saçma sapansa birdenbireydi, yavaşça delirmiyor, basamaklı olarak düzgün düşünüp her basamakta şiddeti artıyordu ama bu basamaklardaki kopukluk da hissediliyor, duvarda sarı ışık, Lena'nın sümsük ağzı, bütün bunların aklıma gelen yeni öykü konusundaki kediyle de alakası olabilir. Bir proje gibi ele alınıp içine imge doldurulmak yerine bence en başlarda vaat edildiği gibi, ve benim bu vaade kandığım gibi gelişigüzel yazılsa ve gelişigüzelliğin kaosunda arasaydık keşke kozmosu. Bu haliyle dermeçatma bir kozmos, hiç olmayanından daha kötü. Leon karakterinin bana attırdığı kahkahalar sebebiyle daha fazla puanını kıramazdım, hem ilk 70 sayfa filan, o kediye kadar bir şaheser, peki rahibin ağzı ne yapıyor öyle, ne yapıyor rahip ağzıyla, ha kusuyormuş.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kozmos okurun zihnini bulandıran, bunu yaparken bazen sıkan ama bu hali içeriğiyle kusursuz şekilde eşleştiren çok etkileyici olan bir roman. Her şey küçük bir olayla başlıyor: bir kuşun iple asılmış cesedi. Sonrasında her şey bazen anlamlı bazen absürt, bazen saçma bazen derin bir şekilde birbirine bağlıymış gibi ilerliyor. İnsanın bitmek tükenmek bilmeyen anlam/hakikat arayışının kendisini ti’ye alan, insan zihninin her yerde düzen bulma takıntısıyla oynayan hem rahatsız edici hem de inanılmaz zeki bir metne dönüşüyor bütününde. Üstelik bir yanı çok ciddi meselelere göz kırparken diğer yanı da son derece muzip. Bunun getirdiği yarı ciddi ton da metnin anlatmaya çalıştığına çok uygun. Çok beğendim.

[Goatboy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A modernist existential detective story, although the mystery is both no/where and everywhere. In items small and arrangements large. Are items and events part of a pattern, a larger meaning? Or is there no meaning but the one we ascribe to random events? And if the latter, how can we exist in a world of separate atomized instances that pile up only to confuse and confound?

"Should I talk to him? Say something? But what? I was still lost, not knowing which way to go, to the right, to the left, so many threads, connections, insinuations, if I wanted to enumerate all of them from the very beginning I would be lost, cork, saucer, the trembling of a hand, the chimney, a cloud of objects and matters undeciphered, first one detail then another would link up, dovetail, but then other connections would immediately evolve, other connections—this is what I lived by, as if I were not living, chaos, a pile of garbage, a slurry—I was putting my hand inside a sack of garbage, pulling out whatever turned up, looking to see if it would be suitable for the construction of . . . my little home . . . that was acquiring, poor thing, fantastic shapes . . . and so on without end . . . "

And as to the world around us, so can these questions be applied to ourselves.

"Years disintegrate into months, months into days, days into hours, minutes into seconds, seconds run past. You won't catch them. Everything runs past. Flies away. Who am I? I am a certain number of seconds—that have run past. The result: nothing. Nothing.”

Authors and books that came to mind while reading include Camus’s The Stranger, Kafka’s The Trial, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Suskind’s Perfume.Not to mention works like Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. An endless search for meaning with a slap in the face that it might not be there to find.

The surprise for me - and a pleasant one at that - was that halfway through the novel its foggy, run-on subjectivity and questioning (which I was already thoroughly enjoying) shifted ever so slightly into rather emotional and compelling storytelling. I found I was turning pages faster and faster to see where the story would lead. And yet through all this, even after a surprisingly convincing argument for the value of epicureanism in the face of the existential vacuity of our existence, we are still left utterly adrift...

"It will be difficult to continue this story of mine. I don't even know if it is a story. It is difficult to call this a story, this constant . . . clustering and falling apart . . . of elements . . .

The writing style simultaneously a expertly faceted diamond and a wildly tangled ball of wool - perfect little windows into existence surrounded by frayed edges and endless connections made by an infinite knotting inward and outward.

Not to mention how well it fits and colors the other similar works I’ve recently read.

[Archibald Tatum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Megismerhető-e a világegyetem?

Witold, az elbeszélő és Fuks valahol Dél-Lengyelországban, Zakopane közelében egy bozótosban felaksztott verebet talál. Ki akaszthatta fel? Megszállnak a bozótos melletti családi panzióban, részben mert amúgy is meg akartak szállni valahol, részben pedig mert ott sejtik a rejtély megoldását.
Witoldékat rengeteg jel veszi körül, a veréb csak a kezdet. Van például egy nyíl a plafonon, vagy nyílnak látszó repedés, vagy nincs is ott semmi, mégsem tehetik meg, hogy ne járjanak utána, hiszen a verébbel összefüggésben állhat vagy nem állhat összefüggésben. Vannak szájak, a szájak összefüggésben állhatnak egymással vagy nem állhatnak, és jelenthetnek valamit vagy nem jelenthetnek semmit. Vannak gesztusok, amik ugyanígy. De az is lehet, hogy minden véletlen, vagy minden a megfigyelőn múlik, vagy semmi nem múlik a megfigyelőn. A világegyetem bonyolult hely, hát még egy panzió. És a megfigyelő vagy megfigyelők maguk is hagynak jeleket megfigyelés és értelmezés közben, és ezek a jelek is jelentenek valamit vagy nem jelentenek semmit, vagy akár más is hagyhatta azokat, ha a megfigyelő így gondolja, miközben tudja, hogy ő maga hagyta a jelet.
Közben pedig az élet zajlik, van erotika és bergelésig terjedő perverzió, aminél nincsen nagyobb perverzió.

Bernhard és pár másik szerző mellett Gombrowicz az, akinél őszinte és mély sajnálatot érzek, hogy kiment vagy nem is jött soha divatba, és nem is fog, amíg a központi bizottság koncepciója értelmében a zalai háziasszonyokra szabandó az ún. szellemi életen belül az ún. irodalom. A nem zalai háziasszonyoknak azonban feltétlenül ajánlom.

[Tanuj Solanki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zuks! Confound me!

An absurd sight of a sparrow hung from a string begins this unique tale of great paranoia and even greater mental contrivance. The central idea is of how a chaotic world is routinely, perpetually, even grudgingly, willed by us human beings into some sort of an order, and how the effects of this willing add in turn to the chaos. Meaning thereby that man's position in the world, while necessarily that of an observer and a learner, is also, out of that same necessity, that of an actor too. The problem, therefore, is one of limits. And it is through ridiculing the limits that Gombrowicz creates his dark, nonsensical humor here.

The central mystery of the novel - who hung the sparrow? - swells to heady proportions, less through the circumstances but more through the neurotic zeal of the protagonist chasing the answers. The ogling detective has a strong agency of his own, and also a fantastic imagination, and through these he contaminates the scene - which, again, exists largely in his own head - beyond all recovery. In his un-moored consciousness, everything is at once the question as well as the answer. No end is plausible for this mystery, for the mind cultivates the mystery real-time.

Unless...unless of course there are cosmic interventions.

*

RECOMMENDED. Of the same league as Notes from the Underground, or Hunger.

[Hakan · Rating 5 out of 5]

bir romancı bir son roman için daha iyi bir seçim yapamazdı herhalde. kozmos tam anlamıyla bir vasiyet romanı.

biz hiçbir şeyi anlayamayız, anlamlandıramayız, anlatamayız.

geçmişi olduğu gibi canlandıramayız, geleceği bilemeyiz, şimdiyi göremeyiz. tek bir anın karmaşasının içinden çıkmak bile imkansız bizim için. hal böyleyken kozmosta kaosa hükmetmek isteriz.

ilişki, ilişkiye zorlamamızda sadece. uyum sadece bakışımızda, algımızda, tesadüflerde, olasılıklarda, sayısız olasılıklarda. gerçek nedir? bilemeyiz. imkansız.

yine de anlamak, anlamlandırmak, anlatmak isteriz.

[Shawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am convinced that most people read novels such as this, can make neither hide nor hair of it, but are afraid that admitting as much is to admit that they are unable to grasp depth and meaning in the depthless and meaningless.
I give this two stars only because I have a rule about allowing one star for translation. Either the translating helped the novel and the translator deserves a star, or the translator hurt the book, in which case the author should be rewarded a conciliatory star.
I read one review that praised the author for his use of words and "parsing meaning" from them. He used the same words, lists, phrasings, pairings, over and over, and over again to the point where it all became pointless. I started out genuinely intrigued. It's not a story styling that I usually like, but something about it grabbed Me. Until about 30 pages in, when it became unsettlingly clear that there really was no story here. Nothing. It was a bunch of mumbling, repetitive nonsense. The author himself admitted as much in the beginning of the last chapter when he wrote, "I don't even know if it is a story. It is difficult to call this a story...". Let Me help you out with that, then... It isn't. It isn't a story. It went absolutely nowhere, slowly. I might forgive you if you go nowhere at a clipped pace, but going nowhere and dragging Me along, step by tedious step, is unforgivable.
It's easy to write a bunch of incomprehensible gibberish and claim it's a study on deteriorating mental health! Actually, I should add another star just for how cute it is to attempt that!
This might have played better as a short story, it certainly didn't merit the full-length of a novel. I also wonder if something was lost on Me because I couldn't relate to it for cultural reasons? Perhaps if I were Polish, I would have been doubled over with laughter and weeping at the sheer beauty and elegance of prose. As it stands, I was not and am not -- Polish, laughing, or weeping.

[Thurston Hunger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll lose cool points here, but that's okay. This book just did not work for me...and was basically a chore to read. Perhaps its thrust was lost in the translation (of the translation, as a fellow reviewer reports above). I'm all for an explication of an illness or mental disease, and I do think this book tweaks the underpinnings of something resembling OCD. But merely for irritainment rather than illumination.

Perhaps it could have been a beautiful poem, where its redundance would have felt more like an echo than a harangue. Although even set in meter, "This berging with my bemberg with all of the bembergality of this bemberg of mine" likely would not have rung too clear. As a poem, the items hanging might not have fouled the air quite as much?

At times the mouth fixation made me recollect Neutral Milk Hotel's "Two-Headed Boy." But I suspect there are better literary takes on the escalation of fetish. Pitching this as a quasi-detective novel, now that's basically a crime.

I'd gladly read another book that demonstrates the dichotymy between the inner crazy whirlings versus the more placid, heavy-lided external projection of a character. But this one just didn't work for me...

But then, perhaps that tour de tourettes de force, "Motherless Brooklyn," translated through French to Polish might not work for those in Warsaw?

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

In un inestricabile groviglio di fenomeni, oggetti e persone che è il mondo sensibile l’uomo veste i panni dell’investigatore alla ricerca delle tracce che portino all’eliminazione del caos dei simboli e dei segni, che costituiscono la frammentaria e caotica realtà circostante, tramite la creazione di una ragnatela fatta di sottilissimi fili di connessioni e collegamenti tra fatti ed eventi. Dal caos al cosmos. Ma il caos è invincibile, i fili si spezzano e quella realtà che Gombrowicz definisce “un mucchio di rifiuti, una poltiglia” ha la meglio sull’ attività conoscitiva dell’uomo. Ogni tentativo di fare ordine –che non è altro che espressione di ansia e nevrosi- fallisce: il mondo è un macrocosmo di particelle atomistiche, “un esercito gigantesco, uno sciame inesauribile”. L’irrazionale prevale sulla logica e la razionalità.
Questa visione del mondo viene trasfusa dallo scrittore in una forma narrativa che, per adeguarsi alla natura disordinata della realtà circostante assume toni e contenuti assurdi ed allucinati, con personaggi grotteschi al limite dello psicotico, in un “romanzo sulla formazione della realtà”: Witold –è lo stesso scrittore che parla in prima persona- con la collaborazione poco convinta dell’amico Fucsio inizia un allucinato percorso di creazione di associazioni e collegamenti tra loro di fatti strani e bizzarri: un passero impiccato, un bastoncino di legno appeso a un filo, un segno sul soffitto che sembra una freccia, un gatto ammazzato ed impiccato… Il percorso è allucinato perché si è in presenza di una specie di gioco folle a tessere una tela che dovrebbe portare alla creazione di una logica consequenzialità tra i fatti. Ma il finale conferma che il tentativo è vano: basta uno scroscio di pioggia per cancellare ogni traccia dei segni che fino a un attimo prima sembrava ci portassero in una direzione precisa.
E’ una lettura difficile, resa ancor più difficoltosa dalla tentazione di trovare una logica nell’assurdo della storia, dei personaggi e del linguaggio, pieno di neologismi onomatopeici. Ti sbalordisce, ti lascia disarmato e devi arrenderti al caos, comprendendo che proprio l’assurdo e il grottesco costituiscono –secondo il geniale scrittore polacco- il modo privilegiato di descrivere la realtà, altrimenti non raccontabile. Durante tutta la lettura ho pensato quanto sia geniale la lucida follia di Gombrowicz, la capacità dello scrittore di esprimere con linguaggio e testo allucinato la propria visione del mondo.
Se penso a quanto diceva Kafka sull’effetto che un libro dovrebbe produrre sul lettore, beh… questo libro non ti lascia come ti ha trovato.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Gomborwicz's Cosmos nothing is pure chance, coincidence; all the world is fated, awaiting their pregnant moments of significance, suspended, crowding the proscenium of our narrator's life. The narrator, also named Witold, is on a summer vacation with a school friend in a remote pension deep in the Polish wood. On their journey they discover a dead sparrow suspended from a tree by a piece of twine, and nearby they discover the pension which will be the setting for their break and the theatre for their metaphysically noirish investigations into seemingly meaningful (but almost certainly banal, random, typical) series of observances in the house and its residents.

While the plot loosely follows the satirical interrogations by the two schoolmates, the entire narrative is one of suspension. Not merely atmospheric suspense, but also manifestly in the literal suspension of objects, the constellation of which seem to indicate to the two boys the certainty of meaning, without any nod toward ascertaining what that meaning is. Like Europe during the dawn before World War II, the air is humid with something sinister, but what machinations lie beneath the surface are anything but obvious to the average citizen. Given a world without meaning, without order, a world of chaotic randomness - does one live a life where nothing has meaning, or wherein everything is heavy with mystery? By assigning meaning, by doggedly prodding reality, coaxing significance from its resistant pores, does one create meaning, give birth to events? Or are those events already fated along the course of our random walk? Is it better to be unmoored adrift a sea of chaos, or rather the galley slave of some anxious and hidden fate?

[pani Katarzyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there is anyone who knows what the things are behind, in spite of and within themselves, it was this guy (I would go for "is" though, as, I believe, now he still knows it, only somewhere else). "To stop connecting, to stop associating." Because it leads to madness. But then try not to.

In a way we are all mad, "connecting and associating". In a way it is this madness that makes us be what we are.

There is also an interesting passage on bringing yourself pleasure. Out of a mouth of a nearly-madman or not, it sounded convincing.

And the style, THE STYLE. It's genius.

[OversensitiveBallofAnxiousMess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down one of the most intellectually stimulating and outrageously absurd books I have ever read.
Thats it, thats the review.

P.S: No idea why Witold Gombrowicz isnt as revered as his counterparts. Cosmos genuinely is an absurdist work of highest order. Terribly underrated.