No mean bookkeeping

Eurozine talk to Jerzy Jarzebski, editor of Witold Gombrowicz’ Kronos.

The publication of Kronos will probably not change anything in our reception of Gombrowicz’s work because this work is done, closed – it is as it is, and all of Gombrowicz’s own comments on his works have already been published too. Kronos as a record of life has a contextual significance. Of course, if we think of Gombrowicz as an important writer for Poles, a writer that at some point helped Poles change the way they think about themselves, then to know about all the events and experiences recorded in Kronos, in such a dry manner, is very important for us, because it complements our thinking in a significant way. There can be no doubt that Kronos is an original document, especially because Gombrowicz had an original, remarkable life. He lived very intensely, he changed his place of residence time and time again; he lived in four countries on two continents and led an extremely active social and intellectual life. Once Janusz Marganski wrote aptly about Gombrowicz that he was always a beginner – he endlessly started from the beginning. Reading Kronos, we find out what it means to start from scratch in the middle of one’s life. So – as some critics say – it is a form of bookkeeping, but not just bookkeeping in the received, narrow sense of the word. Kronos relates to the enterprise of life, and this is extremely important. In short, it is unique.

[Via 3QD]