O "Bring the Portofino," writes Michael Grazyna Plebanek Płaczek. Its a great review encouraged me to read this book.
Often disturbs me the pleasure of reading the annoying feeling zblazowania. How can I be moved by seeing the world through the prism of film so overexposed that neuter, what do I find out about yourself and the world, where the author offers me a set of truths about life that is life is guided by perhaps only by the characters "M is for love." Hence my aversion to a novel described as moral, is the use of the reading usually was that I learned that we are not getting younger, and the plot does not pay, I really love you once and only one person of the opposite sex, and so ad nauseam, in the conventions of folk wisdom.
Sometimes, life's throwing the next message in the corner of consolation imagined that somewhere out there sprouting, and maybe even longer waits for me, released and finished the story so real that amuse me and shrug, will be shown wisdom, not a cliche with second-head'u. And received.
"Girls of the Portofino" is this novel, I had been waiting. It was worth many times fail to finally discover novel woven with the "life and emotional concreteness," as determined by Agnieszka Graff. Grazyna Plebanek with considerable and quite surprising, because I understood completely custom, epic drew me look very familiar herstorie four girls from one yard. The narration guided by the beater to adulthood apparently located the conventions of popular women's literature. But this is only a convention - a novel Plebanek be very much to the literature of high, tackles the problems it was reserved for, while still rejecting teoretyczność for woolfiańsko-Brach-czainowskiego existential concreteness.
Tales initiation
Initiation is one of the most important problems of women's literature. Analyzing the loudest (in this and often the best) works of Polish literature about women's signature writing is easy to see that, de facto, most of them are stories of initiation into femininity, of knowledge and experience (related). "Absolute Amnesia," "Alma" or somewhat "Book 'Em" Izabela Filipiak stories are initializing. Similarly, early (and interesting at the same time) Manuela Gretkowska novels - "My zdies' emigranty", "Tarot of Paris", "Cabaret metaphysical" and "Guide to the people" - including record of women empowerment, transgression on the part of women spatriarchalizowanej, appropriated by the system to the other , mysterious, feminine side boginiczną wisdom, strength and knowledge. The transformation of patriarchal women in post-matriarchal, enlightenment arising from women's awareness of the limits of existence and strength of women's relationships - the images disturbing, I found far beyond fallotekstem culture.
girls pass the title classic, patriarchal social training, which resulted is not, as in "Amatorkach" Jelinek loss - conformity or social degradation, but the sense of power. This is a precedent in Polish literature, however, still the modus operandi of members of groups dziewczyńskich was an illustration of folk truth "woman wolf woman." World Mani, Hanka, and Beata Agnieszka not turn around the boys, their dilemmas far beyond the classic question, "Did he call?". Boys, boys, men - they all appear to be often disappointing, it does not come from them strength. This world is upside down, a world in which men are unknown and strange, sometimes even grotesque with its system of values \u200b\u200band obsessions and obsesyjkami. However, I would be well understood: it is not in any way antymęski pamphlet. Men just can exist here or not, it's not about them was at stake. It's about women, their lives, emotions and body.
And the body appears in many places, companions, and also initiates. In particular, two images have a special place, a privileged: first menstruation and abortion. Both of these experiences, described the woman's perspective are oddemonizowane asset and acquire wisdom. Particularly record (s) raised interest in an abortion because they are written as if it never existed prolajfu language, straight from the trauma of abortion "Silent scream".
Agnes took off her skirt, stockings, panties. Entered into an armchair, put his feet with metal handles. Just watch, not to oppress. (...) She did not notice when he fell asleep, and then someone saying on it: "Agnieszka, wake up, Agnieszka ..." She opened her eyes. A bit of circling her in the head.
(...) - I think so or not I feel sorry for this child ...
- Child? The child is just as it begins to make love. And before that is just silly talk of those who do not know. Agnes
closed her eyes. Voices blended soothing, filled with peace, usypiały. She lay there, getting heavier, more and more useless. Anaesthesia still worked, dizziness subsided. So, after all. That's what this woman said - that a child must love - was true. If it were otherwise It would not here, this immense feeling of relief.
is also the case with the image of childbirth (birth Mani is a natural wonder by Agnieszka uchroniony the medicalization and appropriated by men władzowiedzy, doctors), motherhood is a conscious choice, and the image of nursing her newborn Mani's daughter recalls the images of the existing matriarchal Goddess for myself, filling up their own primary, life-giving and untamed strength.
Women's Talk and moments of existence
Ple ple, or the beach the beach, gossip, sex (no rhyme or reason) - all traditionally associated with women's ways of verbal expression. - Kazia Szczuka writes in an essay dedicated to women's work and a focused around her metaphors. Special and important place here is entitled fantazmatowi weaving, braiding, from which already pretty close to just weaving. Szczuka figure mentioned by the "Spinners banal reality 'is essentially the figure of a woman writer's archetypalna, weaving their story. Such writing, to create a variety of recording the existence of particles, despised acts, and the use of "gossip narratives" marks the text of the signature women's writing. The body, speech and overall experience of the entity are in the prose of a woman in an integrated and structured text. That's what male critics (vide Swietochowski) saw in the nineteenth century as shameful for literature, reprehensible is the fact that raising to the rank text from the realm of nature despised and inferior. Meanwhile, according to the definition proposed by Maggie Humm gossiping is a method by which women get to know each other's lives, (...) Strengthen ties between themselves and contribute to the formation of a collective consciousness within the local community . Gossip is a way of women's communication, knowledge of movement closely linked to the realm of empiricism. So, if the sphere of "legal" domesticated woman and domestic activity is burdened worseness patriarchy - it is not surprising that the way to describe this area, belonging the verbal expression and accrued on the basis of women's bonds also are considered inferior and not serious.
moments of existence. Occur less frequently than the moments non-existence, as noted in the manual Izabela Filipiak, "Creative writing for young girls", they require patience, their meaning often manifests itself years later, only when we Gather quite a lot of moments of existence, so connections between them have become all too evident . term "moment of existence" comes from Virginia Woolf, in which each piece is actually woven (exactly - woven ) of single, scattered impressions. Memories, and sometimes only their shadows, catching the sunlight through the window and showing curtain wall design, irrational sense of joy in the morning weather - who has read (a) even though "Mrs. Dalloway" know what I mean. Moments of being, moments of slipping and easy to forget, sometimes becoming before us nowhere. What is so easy to miss Jolanta Brach-Czaina teaches us to live consciously offering his philosophy outlined in the existence of "gaps ..." and "the membranes of mind."
narrative "Girls of the Portofino 'is a knot dziewczyńskich and women's stories passed from mouth to mouth, sometimes taking common form of giggling, sometimes intergenerational wisdom, as was the case in the quoted passage, where an elderly woman teaches younger survive abortion, unwittingly (?) reveals her sense of the experience of gaining control over herself, over his own body and destiny. Gossip, underground money into the underground world of diapers, cooking and cleaning, but also the vital forces that manifest sexual potency, menstruation, birthing, and controlling their own fertility, as in this scene:
- What is it? - Asked Jim.
- Condom.
- Do not you trust me?
Leaving the pack.
- I do not trust you - she whispered, thrusting his chest. - Too much turn me ...(...)
So there (as well as in the description of first sex Hanka) female figure originator irigariańskiej Aphrodite, the goddess of love, loving, harmoniously combining physical and spiritual guides will love this, which allows both sexes to find each other, create their own identity. All paths lead us toward wisdom and power.
Eleusis and matkofobia
Chain, or rather spider's web of female relationships have their beginnings in the center and one common to the point, what is the relationship with her mother. In the classic essay, "Born of a Woman" Adrienne Rich has devoted motherhood and córkostwu one of the most beautiful but also most difficult chapters, showing how far the complicated and intertwined relationships are.
In "Bring ..." we have a whole set of different configuration of Maternal - córczanych, of which I would like to draw attention to two that seem to me to be the most interesting. Agnieszka and Hank there by their mothers to the extent so far that they are permanently connected to the common nodes of symbolic orders.
"Matkofobia" is a term coined by Lynn Sukenick and described in some detail in the book mentioned already lots Rich. It is not enough, as Rich says, the fear of my own mother or motherhood, but before becoming own mother. This phenomenon is well described by Erica Jong, however, did not use the term matkofobii and only describe its mechanism, explaining the voluntary conservatism daughters of the tribe living the era of second wave feminism. Adrienne Rich writes that women with a mess in the house (niezaścielone beds, dirty dishes) are the most pedantek daughters. This is a good example, because the level of metaphor that explains the whole attitude. House as a place of feminine activity, if the condition is conformism (consent to oppressive normativity), immersed in a mess is a symbolic rejection of married and maternity enslavement to anarchy, understood by the environment as a breakdown of female identity.
Hanka's mother is no small group of women were beaten and humiliated by his husband and prejudicial to his fate. Denounced by her statement at the end of a book about being "decent woman" demonstrates najjaskrawiej is what it is that Hank ran away. Respectable woman is a "happy slave", the one who accepts his condition and creates a "military arm of patriarchy" (we know how many such women in novels and plays of Elfriede Jelinek, from "amateur" from!). Hank has repeatedly urged her mother to try to change his position, how many years you can hide the circles under a handkerchief? Gradually gained awareness of the impossibility Hanka changes must lead to the choice: either to become what it is her mother (and the state on the system) becoming a wife or any other country Józka fatyganta what it will feed and shelter can, and that sometimes has been instrumental in what he one? If only he was resourceful!, Or escape from this fate. Living with parents under one roof, Hank could not free himself, so abandon the aid of dental work and travels to Germany to the Berlin motel dabble in prostitution. But the narrator does not leave it in the motel room, hugged her cheek to the wall as well as they once did in the nursery, where his father maltretował mother. Despite all this tragedy should be noted that the gesture is more an act of Hanka desperation than autoimmunity and ultimately has the value of free choice. The thread of connection is broken farewell letter: Dear parents! I went to a brothel. Forever yours - Hank. I will never be recovered, which is the largest dimension of the wound on the female identity, the heroine - as Adrienne Rich says, the loss of her daughter by the mother and the mother of a daughter is the primary female tragedy.
This loss combined matkofobiczną tragedy with tragedy Sarah Hanka, which her mother never knew and believed that she died shortly after the birth of his only daughter. The truth is that Sarah's mother fled from her father, unable to endure the terror of being forced Hestia. To know the other girls, and it is through this knowledge to perceive (and we with them), his girlfriend. Agnes lives absence of his mother, after her grief, grief that must be completed - without that Agnes would never exceed themselves and fail to make the initiation. Symbolic connection with the mother is outside the world of the novel, the intertwined narratives Beaty, Sarah's voice played from the tape and the narrator additions outside the United States (fantazmatycznego place, a better "out there" in the U.S. or anywhere ). Eleusinian ritual is so beyond the sight of death, just as Homer wrote of it.
small backyard true
Social Transformation, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the victory of Solidarity, opposition stories in this novel are the background. United truth is relegated to second place by a small truth, private narratives. As if the world was built around a courtyard, beater, park. Prefigured images of transgression is a heap, which are having a secret a girl. This act is preceded by a fairly long period of fantasizing about this trip, filled with telling images and the fascination with the knowledge to confront the threat that pervert is a phantasm, a lonely man pokrzykującego toward girls. Joint expedition, a description will inevitably recalls the Sabbath, anarchic celebration of sisterhood, anticipates lonely (criminal) Hanka's escapade, escapade that would forever remain in my memory as a secret. Sharing the secret, hiding from the world of his work (digging in the sand slides) is archetypalną girl 'attitude described in many places (even the immortals "of the Children of Noisy Village").
little truth's own life, intimate truth given by word of mouth is the thread from which the narrator - Klote (strangely reminiscent ridiculed "her aunt klotkę") - draws on the work of our eyes with a unique value. Apparently nothing unusual - just ordinary laughter and the girls stories, old wives' gender. And yet much truer than suggested by some writers of great national narratives. If this is a novel about the yard, this yard is a resident of the Goddess.
0 comments:
Post a Comment