Myriads Of Me: Tellur's Journal

Wanderlust%20ProjectQuantcast

Wanderlust Project to moje muzyczne alter ego – projekt, nad którym pracuję od końca 2008 roku. Zapraszam Was do przesłuchania mojej twórczości!

19.6.09

Kataryniarz... (Część IV)

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. B. FFOG in the Context of Polish Political Fiction

Though highly critical of Polish, right–wing conservative political/social (science) fiction, the literary journalist Wojciech Orliński nevertheless acknowledges that

Poland was perhaps the only country in the world where political fiction became the main genre of science fiction. It was not as fascinating to read in the West and not as safe to write in the East. (12)

The tendency to explore conspiracy theories of left–wing world domination in Polish political fiction Orliński dismisses as obsessive–compulsive patriotism. Yet there is much more to Polish political fiction and its subsequent cyberpunk retelling ― the politpunk of Ziemkiewicz's The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder ― than Orliński would like to admit.

FFOG is one of the last novels written within this political (science) fiction genre. M. Parowski has labeled the generation of Polish science fiction writers from the late '70s and '80s the Hamlet generation ― for their inability to express their political dissatisfaction with the Polish communist regime directly and doing so indirectly by means of ― then misjudged by the censors as apolitical ― science fiction narratives (13). The first generation of political fiction authors (M. Oramus, M. Parowski, A. Wiśniewski–Snerg, M. Wolski, E. Wnuk–Lipiński, W. Żwikiewicz, J. Zajdel) wrote in direct opposition to the communist regime, although their narratives strove to be more than makeshift political pamphlets. The novels (Zajdel's Paradyzja and Limes inferior, Parowski's Twarzą ku Ziemi...) were an attempt to construct a full catalogue of the general mechanisms of totalitarian oppression (14). Although Polish political fiction was written in a specific historical context, the universal character of its sociological diagnoses provides for their adequate modern re–readings. Zajdel's Paradyzja, though aimed at communist Poland, describes mechanisms of dehumanization and oppression universal enough that it could as well describe the modern North Korea or China.

Polish political fiction of the Hamlet generation had certain qualities which enabled its spiritual successor, The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder, to fully embrace the cyberpunk aesthetics. In most novels of the genre, the protagonist was a proto–hacker ― one which did not hack the then–nonexistent cyberspace, but "hacked" society. The full knowledge of the mechanisms of social oppression/repression and totalitarian regimes enabled the protagonist/antagonist to "hack" the "system". Zajdel's protagonist Sneer from Limes inferior is more akin to the American shepherd figure than to the cowboy. Being forced to live on the borderline of the oppressive system and his own convictions, he is forced to negotiate between the totalitarian system and his own creed of freedom as if an American shepherd figure would negotiate between nature/civilization ― or a Polish citizen would between communism/freedom/capitalism. Not only does this imply no cowboy figures in Polish cyberpunk, there also is no frontier in Polish political fiction which would provide a topography of potential freedom. Instead, there is the image of the last bastion ― the last possible negotiable quantity of freedom in an oppressive regime, usually attainable by the meritocracy by means of "hacking" the system. In addition, dehumanization in Polish discourse did not begin with the image of the cyborg. The literary creation of oppressive regimes (dehumanization of individuals/collective) was sufficient context for such discourse to appear in and therefore the cyborg, as a redundant figure, did not appear in Ziemkiewicz's FFOG, nor, for that matter, Dukaj's short stories.

After the political transformation of Poland, political fiction writers were no longer forced to allegorize under the guise of science fiction and indeed, most of them (M. Oramus, B. Wildstein, M. Wolski) went on to write mainstream historical and sensational novels with scarce SF elements. Ziemkiewicz's FFOG was the last political SF novel and afterward he also started writing mainstream literature.

(12) Translated from: Orliński W., Polskość jako nerwica natręctw:
Byliśmy jedynym chyba krajem na świecie, w którym political fiction stało się głównym nurtem literatury fantastycznej. Na Zachodzie nie był to temat aż tak fascynujący jak u nas, na Wschodzie zaś nie był to temat aż tak bezpieczny jak u nas.
(13) Parowski M., "Kilkunastu Hamletów", Czas Fantastyki, Szczecin 1990.
(14) See: Ziemkiewicz R. A., "Inżynierski epos", "Ucieczka przed eskapizmem", "To oni mieli kłopoty ze mną, nie ja z nimi", Frajerzy, Lublin 2003; Dębska A., "Ten pesymista Zajdel, czyli co nam zostało z Paradyzji", Czas Fantastyki nr 3 (4) 2005, p. 8–11; Dużyk A./Żwikiewicz W., "Wołanie ze smutnej galaktyki", Czas Fantastyki nr 2 (11) 2007, p. 3–16; Klementowski R., "Literatura w czasach przełomu, czyli ― A nie mówiłem!", Czas Fantastyki nr 3 (12) 2007, p. 27–31.

Ciąg dalszy nastąpi...

Posted by Tellur at 16:25 Labels:

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)