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This study of lovers failing to have sex in cold war Warsaw fired in me a perverse optimism This study of lovers failing to have sex in cold war Warsaw fired in me a perverse optimism
(25 days later)
Marek Hlasko published his first collection of short stories in Poland in 1954, at the age of 20. He was feted as the Polish (literary) James Dean for a while, but within two years had fallen foul of the communist regime, accused of being – I don't know how exact this translation is – a "decadent dabbler in literary carrion".Marek Hlasko published his first collection of short stories in Poland in 1954, at the age of 20. He was feted as the Polish (literary) James Dean for a while, but within two years had fallen foul of the communist regime, accused of being – I don't know how exact this translation is – a "decadent dabbler in literary carrion".
The Eighth Day of the Week was banned by the Polish authorities, but the book garnered a lot of cachet in the 60s in London, the admiration stemming from a mixture of leftist fellow-travelling, a sense that life in the eastern bloc was more intellectually honest (and also artier), and western cultural penance – that the more you understood of the reality of life under a communist regime, the more political you were allowed to be.The Eighth Day of the Week was banned by the Polish authorities, but the book garnered a lot of cachet in the 60s in London, the admiration stemming from a mixture of leftist fellow-travelling, a sense that life in the eastern bloc was more intellectually honest (and also artier), and western cultural penance – that the more you understood of the reality of life under a communist regime, the more political you were allowed to be.
Actually, I'm being really unfair. I read The Eighth Day of the Week years later on very trenchant family recommendations, when I was a teenager, and I'm trying to figure out retrospectively why my dad and my uncles were all so keen on it. It's a very beautiful book, but the world is full of those.Actually, I'm being really unfair. I read The Eighth Day of the Week years later on very trenchant family recommendations, when I was a teenager, and I'm trying to figure out retrospectively why my dad and my uncles were all so keen on it. It's a very beautiful book, but the world is full of those.
Hlasko's work opens with a couple – Agnieska and Pietrek – wandering round Warsaw and trying to find somewhere to have sex. Agnieska vetoes the park, not because she doesn't want to be surprised by a dogwalker, but because of that distinction between public space and private space, how sad it is to have to do something in public that belongs in private.Hlasko's work opens with a couple – Agnieska and Pietrek – wandering round Warsaw and trying to find somewhere to have sex. Agnieska vetoes the park, not because she doesn't want to be surprised by a dogwalker, but because of that distinction between public space and private space, how sad it is to have to do something in public that belongs in private.
"I don't want others walking over something that's important to me," she says. "You've got to understand. If there's anything we have to protect, surely it's this.""I don't want others walking over something that's important to me," she says. "You've got to understand. If there's anything we have to protect, surely it's this."
They try Agnieska's flat, but it is always full of her hysterical mother or alcoholic brother, or sometimes her beaten down, overworked, unrewarded father is there having a lukewarm bath. Pietrek has a friend with a flat, but whenever they try that, there are always other people having sex in it.They try Agnieska's flat, but it is always full of her hysterical mother or alcoholic brother, or sometimes her beaten down, overworked, unrewarded father is there having a lukewarm bath. Pietrek has a friend with a flat, but whenever they try that, there are always other people having sex in it.
Structurally, the book is a bit messed up – the emotional nadir arrives so suddenly and ends so fast that it's a bit like being mugged by a literary device. And there's a certain amount of youthful melodrama, where conversations are ended with lines like: "You have a gun. Kill me, kill Mother, kill anyone you want." But as a study of a peculiar limbo, the endless wandering, the alienation, it's exquisitely drawn, and intensely young; it's about as good a description of being 18 as I've ever read, whether you're living under the yoke of communism or not. You could read it as a love story, and know there was more, and still remember it as a (thwarted) love story.Structurally, the book is a bit messed up – the emotional nadir arrives so suddenly and ends so fast that it's a bit like being mugged by a literary device. And there's a certain amount of youthful melodrama, where conversations are ended with lines like: "You have a gun. Kill me, kill Mother, kill anyone you want." But as a study of a peculiar limbo, the endless wandering, the alienation, it's exquisitely drawn, and intensely young; it's about as good a description of being 18 as I've ever read, whether you're living under the yoke of communism or not. You could read it as a love story, and know there was more, and still remember it as a (thwarted) love story.
The "more" is the portrait of the individual under the state, ground down and trapped by it. In the canon, this story is told hypothetically, allegorically, with cute dystopian touches and all the necessary overstatement, but I hadn't often (well, had never, then) read it as docu-lit, as the hyper-real expression of a lived experience.The "more" is the portrait of the individual under the state, ground down and trapped by it. In the canon, this story is told hypothetically, allegorically, with cute dystopian touches and all the necessary overstatement, but I hadn't often (well, had never, then) read it as docu-lit, as the hyper-real expression of a lived experience.
The lack of privacy, under totalitarianism (which doesn't manifest in authority figures; here it's more of a deadening fog), is worse than the lack of freedom to dissent. Furthermore, there is another dimension to it, the lack of physical private space, quite discrete from the impossibility of an inner life. It's not about surveillance, but debasement: part of the creation of identity rests on one's ability to keep places and moments sacred; not everything can be made communal.The lack of privacy, under totalitarianism (which doesn't manifest in authority figures; here it's more of a deadening fog), is worse than the lack of freedom to dissent. Furthermore, there is another dimension to it, the lack of physical private space, quite discrete from the impossibility of an inner life. It's not about surveillance, but debasement: part of the creation of identity rests on one's ability to keep places and moments sacred; not everything can be made communal.
It is often said that during the cold war, communism and capitalism kept each other honest – while they were locked in reputational combat, it didn't just spur them to acts of glory (the space race), it also curbed their excesses. It was a useful corrective for the west, having to prove that the rising tide really did lift all the boats, that everyone shared in the plenty. What it did for the eastern bloc is less clear, partly because it found criticism so difficult to brook, and stifled debate. This is another interesting thing about The Eighth Day of the Week, the issue of what it meant that books like this were banned – how it changed the cultural landscape and the history it left behind. Because, while this novel was, naturally, profoundly, critical of life under communism, it also has poignant and loving things to say about life in Warsaw, the hopeless but not nihilistic poetry of its drunk young generation. All of that was lost when Hlasko was exiled, the beauty as well as the squalor.It is often said that during the cold war, communism and capitalism kept each other honest – while they were locked in reputational combat, it didn't just spur them to acts of glory (the space race), it also curbed their excesses. It was a useful corrective for the west, having to prove that the rising tide really did lift all the boats, that everyone shared in the plenty. What it did for the eastern bloc is less clear, partly because it found criticism so difficult to brook, and stifled debate. This is another interesting thing about The Eighth Day of the Week, the issue of what it meant that books like this were banned – how it changed the cultural landscape and the history it left behind. Because, while this novel was, naturally, profoundly, critical of life under communism, it also has poignant and loving things to say about life in Warsaw, the hopeless but not nihilistic poetry of its drunk young generation. All of that was lost when Hlasko was exiled, the beauty as well as the squalor.
But most of all, it left me with a possibly perverse optimism, in the way it underlined the universality of anomie. For my whole reading life, it's been fashionable to blame consumerism and/or western self-involvement for the questions that don't have answers: where does individualism become alienation? How much community does a person need? How much could a person take? What have we lost? Where would we look if we wanted to recover it? What's the point of it all?But most of all, it left me with a possibly perverse optimism, in the way it underlined the universality of anomie. For my whole reading life, it's been fashionable to blame consumerism and/or western self-involvement for the questions that don't have answers: where does individualism become alienation? How much community does a person need? How much could a person take? What have we lost? Where would we look if we wanted to recover it? What's the point of it all?
In fact, these are questions that everybody without faith asks themselves, all the time – and maybe consuming and competing are meaningless, but they are not the cause of this restlessness.In fact, these are questions that everybody without faith asks themselves, all the time – and maybe consuming and competing are meaningless, but they are not the cause of this restlessness.
Hlasko died in West Germany, at the age of 35. The critic Jerzy Kosinksi said he died "of an overdose of solitude and not enough love". In fact it was sleeping pills, but you get what he means.Hlasko died in West Germany, at the age of 35. The critic Jerzy Kosinksi said he died "of an overdose of solitude and not enough love". In fact it was sleeping pills, but you get what he means.
Twitter: @zoesqwilliamsTwitter: @zoesqwilliams
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