Stanislaw Baranczak
THE POLISH COMPLEX
1.
I am standing in line in front of a state-owned "delikatesy"
shop. I am 147th in line. The huge queue, extending towards the
Freedom Square, suddenly turns down a side street to avoid the road
and crosses in the distance with Red Army Street. Rumor has it that
a delivery will arrive in a quarter of an hour. Carp or coffee - no one
knows for certain.
In
any case, the lady who is 146th in line con–
vinces me it's worth joining.
A bleak, rainy day, Christmas Eve, 1977. Half an hour ago I
finished my third reading of Konwicki's novel,
The Polish Complex,
and went out for a walk to meditate a bit on the book. How did it
happen that instead of a peripatetic method I chose to stand in a
line? I am not sure myself. Maybe simple symmetry : as in the novel
it is Christmas Eve, as in the novel this is Poland, and therefore, as
in the novel, one must queue. vVhether for ten decagrams of sour
coffee, "Extra-Select," for sixty zlotys or for a troublesome fish in
your bathtub is the least important issue . A queue is simply ideal for
reflecting upon Konwicki's latest novel.
2.
Why does the action of his book - at least the narrative set in
the present - mostly take place in a queue? The first answer is em–
barrassingly simple: because all of Poland today is queuing up. The
line, as the central idea of Konwicki's book, is one of those literary
strokes of genius which combines everyday ordinariness with sym–
bolic meaning, where a specific situation reflects the general state of
society. Such symbolic condensation can be found in many well–
known episodes of Polish literature: the banquet in a Warsaw salon ,
the wedding in a peasant cottage in Bronowice, Professor Pimko's
school, and the great ball in the Opera House.
A simple queue-just as the one I am standing in-would not
Editor's Note: Translated from the Polish by Jaroslaw Anders and Lynne Shapiro.
