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18.6.09

Kataryniarz... (Część III)

POKAŻ/UKRYJ SPIS TREŚCI | POKAŻ/UKRYJ TREŚĆ NOTKI

Polish Neo–partitional Politpunk ― a Case Study of The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder (pl. Pieprzony los Kataryniarza) by Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz as an Exemplar of Domestic Cyberpunk

III. LITERARY/EXTRA–LITERARY CONTEXTS

Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz's The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder (FFOG) (1995) is a syncretic mixture of elements belonging to two distinct aesthetics and discourses ― those of the cyberpunk novel and the Polish political/social fiction novel, which together constitute a uniquely Polish variation of the political cyberpunk novel ― the politpunk novel.

The novel's protagonist, Robert, is an Organ–grinder ― a sophisticated information broker who scans cyberspace in search of information for companies, politicians and governments. During a routine assignment for a contractor, which consists of gathering data on the state of the Polish infrastructure, Robert discovers that Poland's infrastructure has become evenly partitioned among the areas of influence of Russia and Germany. The same is true for all the countries of Eastern Europe in the buffer zone between Western Europe and Russia. Having realized that the partitions he discovered are a prelude to invasion and occupation, Robert is contacted and intimidated by a certain influential third party, which does not wish for such knowledge to see the light of day. Robert struggles with his persecutors in an attempt to stay independent.

The last of its kind, FFOG is a '90s retelling of a typical '70s and '80s Polish political fiction (dystopian) narrative within modern cyberpunk aesthetics. It should not be understood to represent Polish cyberpunk in general, as there is no distinct Polish cyberpunk sub–genre or subculture to speak of. Instead, it should be interpreted as a unique cyberpunk reinvention of Polish social/dystopian writing.

III. A. FFOG in the Context of Polish Cyberpunk

Polish cyberpunk has never become a distinct sub–genre within Polish science fiction, despite early expectations to the contrary. Until the '90s, knowledge of Anglo–Saxon science fiction in general and Anglo–Saxon cyberpunk in particular in the readers' consciousness in Poland was trifle due to the limited number of translated foreign works. After the political transformation of Poland, access to foreign popular literature improved considerably, though more in quantity than in quality. A. Mazurkiewicz provides the ratio of Polish science fiction novels to translations of their (usually) Anglo–Saxon counterparts (9):

Year1990199119921993199419951996199719981999
Polish29351513152226271528
Foreign105140132195271209214223241239

The over–saturation of the Polish market with foreign translations and the scarce Polish offer resulted in a popular demand for narratives of an "American" nature (10). Before the popular success of the Polish fantasy writer A. Sapkowski with his Witcher novels, Polish writers went as far as to author their novels under American–sounding pseudonyms in order to become published. Such a popular demand for "American" narratives would imply that Polish derivatives of the then–popular cyberpunk sub–genre would enjoy success equal to their Anglo–Saxon counterparts. Indeed, Polish authors (T. Kołodziejczak, R. Ziemkiewicz) attempted to write within the sub–genre, though to little success. A. Mazurkiewicz claims that the novels did not enjoy popularity due to the fact that

Original [American] cyberpunk literature [...] which has been made available in translations, was written better and had more artistic merit and the novels of Polish authors, who followed in the footsteps of Gibson, were considered to be poor in comparison. [...] This resulted in the disappearance of the [Polish] cyberpunk sub–genre within [Polish] science fiction due to diminished potential reader interest. (11)

In fact, Polish cyberpunk derivatives were presented to Polish readers at the same time as the original novels they have been, to a considerable extent, based on. W. Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) was first published in Poland in 1992, at a time when the sociopolitical discourse of American cyberpunk was already being dethroned by the more capitalist and conservative post–cyberpunk. Cyberpunk was introduced into Polish popular consciousness late in the game; its discourse, critical of the threats of technological progress, already outdated. After decades under a communist regime, Poland was eager to embrace such technological progress despite critical discourse.

The aesthetics of American cyberpunk in relation to American life were more of an extrapolation in quantity than in quality. The large megalopolises of cyberpunk narratives were quantitative extrapolations of existing, American cities. Cyberspace itself was nothing more than a quantitative extrapolation of the Internet in its infancy. In contrast, the relationship of cyberpunk to Polish life was not only that of quantity, but also quality. What America extrapolated from reality into its narratives, Poland perhaps did not even possess. The logical assumption would be that the future shock associated with such radical changes after the Polish political transformation would make Polish readers even more eager to embrace cyberpunk as a reaction to the qualitative technological changes around them, but for the most part technological changes have been introduced without the accompanying, critical discourse which cyberpunk embraced. Cyberpunk, therefore, was not expected in Poland to perform as a vehicle for critical discourse: anti–capitalist, anti–scientic, anti–monopolistic or otherwise. R. Ziemkiewicz has therefore stripped his cyberpunk of any distinctively American discourse and instead applied its attributes to serve the Polish discourse of political fiction.

(9) Mazurkiewicz... p. 8.
(10) Mazurkiewicz... p. 8.
(11) Translated from Mazurkiewicz... p. 8.:
Sprawniej napisane i artystycznie wartościowsze wzorce [...], dostępne dla polskich czytelników dzięki tłumaczeniom, przyczyniły się do niższej oceny rodzimej literatury wzorujących się na powieściach Gibsona twórców. [...] Fakt ten zadecydował o wygaśnięciu w obrębie fantastyki naukowej nurtu cyberpunkowego, jako nie spełniającego oczekiwań potencjalnych czytelników.

Ciąg dalszy nastąpi...

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