My travels in time - from horse and carriage to jetset

My travels started early. I was less than two years old when my parents started to look for a better place to live their life than a small village somewhere in the eastern part of Poland, close to the new border with Russia. It was just after the Second World War and Poland was a troubled country with post-war borders just being enforced. We had a long trip ahead of us. Not so much in kilometers but in duration. It took few days to reach the destination but my mother and me, still a baby, traveled in the comfort of something like a gypsy wagon. My father was a very enterprising man, and he always knew how to take care of his family and how to create a good life for us. We traveled to this Promised Land, and for us, it was a small industrial town in the central part of Poland. The name of the town is unpronounceable, sorry.

I did not like the place because my mother did not like it and she was my role model. It was a small town, but perhaps not so by Australian standards. Even if around 70,000 people lived there, it had a feel of a small gossipy place, and it was full of fumes of the factories around. I was happy and excited to move to Warsaw when I finished my HSC. It was a move a little more to the west again. This time I traveled by train, and it was a great upgrade on a horse and cart of my first life trip.

Then I started my shuttle traveling between the town of my early youth and Warsaw where I studied. Warsaw was a big city, and I had to do many adjustments to fit in. Some were good some not so good. I learned to smoke cigarettes to be more like other students. This part I regret now. But generally I had a really good time in the big city, and after a while, I felt like I belong there. I became a Warsaw girl.

Then I fell in love with a man I met at work. He was Swedish and after few years of being married and living in two different countries, I lived in Warsaw, he in Vienna; we decided to move together and the place to live together was Paris. Not so bad, really, especially that being a true Pole I loved anything French. This is difficult to comprehend as French never treated Poland all that well, but we loved them with love without reciprocity. This time I traveled by car and I recall with fondness our Alfa Romeo sports. I thought it was an upgrade on the train that brought me from this smaller town to Warsaw.

We were very proud of our Grand Turismo Veloce

It was an interesting time, but after the three years of my husband's Paris assignment  and me being a housewife, it was a time to move again. We were looking for an English speaking country and even if Australia was not on our list at first, we were lucky to be directed by fate to come to Sydney. It was 1979, and the new life started then. With some stretch, I could say that I traveled west again and this time by a jet set. Another upgrade on means of transport. 

After being naturalized a few years later, I legitimately call Australia home. Yes, I have my “charming” accent which is rather strong and people sometimes ask me about my nationality, but I feel Australian even if I sound a bit funny for an Aussie.  

A Fraction of the Whole

I have always liked things normal, realistic and had problems with enjoying aspects of surrealism. This applies to art, its particular part – literature, conversations… Generally anything. I like things to be down to earth and practical.  Maybe love has been an exception. I was rarely realistic in this field. I experienced many uplifting moments, though. I am writing it just to be truthful, but this is actually irrelevant to the subject which I want to write about.

I want to write about the book I just finished.  Fraction of the Whole has been written by Steve Toltz. As I am still under a very fresh impression of the last pages, the feeling of dizziness is overwhelming. To me this is a surrealistic book. All 700 pages of it and I have read it! I must confess that I was skimming the last 200 pages as by that time I have decided that it is not my type of book and that the need for pleasure of reading light fun prose has been already fully satisfied. I also lost hope that the book may teach me something of value or answer any of my existential questions. For some time I was being led to believe that this particular book might do that.

As I have read most of the book with some interest and the fact that many people found it if value shortlisting it for the Man Bookers prize the conclusion must be that this is an interesting book. In many ways “interesting” seemed to just weird and my pragmatic side had problems with digesting it. For some reason I did continue reading. One of the reasons might have been the fact that I was lent the book by my neighbour whom I like, respect her judgment and share taste in films. But there was definitely more than that. The book held some sort of fascination for me. I liked the language and its typical Australian style, expressions and language. I was not aware, before I read the book, how characteristic Australian use of English language really is. This stems from a specifically Australian approach to life. I do not feel I can substantiate this bold statement, but I am convinced that there is a lot of truth in it. It was really fun to read this humorous, ironic prose. The language held my attention for a while and than there was a promise of philosophical epiphanies. So I kept reading. The promise, however, was not fulfilled. At least, I did not get it. Then the story kept my attention, but it started to take ridiculous turns and became completely unbelievable. At least to my practical mind. I could not make much out of potential symbolism of the story either, if it was supposed to be there. The book was puzzling for me. Maybe I did not get a joke? I must say that this is not always I get the Australian sense of humour. Maybe I am not that much of an Australian as I fancy myself to be? Hmm…

Steve Toltz, even if an Australian, lived and worked in few countries and if his book has some autobiographical elements his roots may lead to Poland. Has he visited the country? Does he know anything about it? This I do not know, but he writes about Warsaw in 1956 and, in my opinion, makes rather unpleasant historical mistakes. If this part was a joke, then I definitely do not get it. It would be terribly bad taste too. This part was just a couple of pages at beginning of the book and it not put me off to the extent to stop reading. Still a serious put-off.

Would I recommend this book? No, not really. At least not the whole one. The style, the language is really great and amusing, but I did not find much beyond that. If any of my readers has read the book and has  a different opinion, I would be really interested and I am ready to face a challenge or revise my views.

This is another book about writing a book! Epidemics?? Karl Ove Knausgaard, Elena Ferrante and now Steve Toltz. The order in which I listed the authors is of my reading and liking rather than according to the chronology of writing the books.

My blog has been affected by referer spam; my statistics are great but totally wrong. It has been with me for quite some time and finally I got fed up and I am planning to migrate to Wordpress soon. This means that I will have to start anew but, new beginnings always made me feel good. I still have to learn and decide few things before it happens. This is only an early warning.

My new fascination – Karolina Czarnecka

I have not written for a long time about Poland. It is not that I have lost interest due to not visiting the country this year. It was because Poland is going through very difficult, complex times and I did not feel qualified to write on the subject. And I have been scared and concerned about the country future.

I follow the events closely, though, hoping for some positive change. Not the “good change” that is currently implanted in Poland on many fronts. I will keep my silence on the subject, at least for a while, except the recent events and the last black Monday protests against the total abortion ban. Polish abortion laws are already one of the most restrictive in the world, and now things were going to change to forbid abortion under any circumstances including rape, incest, and danger to the mother's life or irreparable damage to a fetus.  It was proposed that not following the rules would result in prison for mothers and anyone helping in removing the pregnancy. This also included incidental damage to a fetus. Like miscarriage or medical intervention to protect the mother’s life. 

                                        

                             

I just wanted to paint the picture of the context in which I was lead to find out about one of the young Polish actresses Karolina Czarnecka. She was very active in the Monday demonstrations so I looked her up. And I found her song. It is a song the young actress sang as an assignment at her acting school. Some of her friends placed it on YOUTUBE and the song immediately went viral, and it has over 23 million hits today. The song, to me, is a very convincing warning against mindlessly and joyfully getting on a death road through drugs.

I am aware of most likely losing the interest of my readers through translations that do not work well, but Karolina caught my attention to such an extent that I listened to this and others of her songs almost the whole day.  Here is the song. One needs to share, so I do. 

The song is about a shy, sweet boy, Jimmy who on his way to school met a dealer and bought from him three fixes. He even got one for free to close the deal in style.

The school principal was right to order Jimmy to share his good fortune equally with everyone. It was a wonderful and original gesture; any school should resist the evil of selfishness.

The chorus sings:

Heroine, coke, hash, LSD

This party is dreamt of at nights

LSD, heroin, coke and hash

Share with friends all that you've got

Now, Jimmy is in paradise with his friends and saints started to do drugs with the newcomers from the school.

Going back to the protest supported by the young actress, the Polish government after the eventful black Monday changed its mind and the current abortion laws will remain. At least for now…

Where are you from?

This is the question I often need to answer. There is nothing wrong with such a question in general terms, but for quite a while it irritated me and even upset me sometimes. I have not felt comfortable with my emotional reaction. I wondered if somewhere in my deep subconscious I felt inferior for being Polish. I did not like such an option, but maybe it was something in it after all. People in the old communistic block had a different lifestyle, substandard regarding affluence. The difference made us feel inferior to some extent, and the value of culture and richness of intellectual life was considered to be compensation. The system now belongs to the past and some changes in Polish societies are not necessarily positive.

I was born Polish, and now I live in Australia. Most of the time, I feel that I am an Australian. I retained my “charming” accent, but even being aware of that accent does not make me feel any worse or different. We have so many accents here, in Australia.

So, why the question irritates me still? I sometimes even answer – From Mosman – playing innocently unaware of the real intention of the question. Mosman is the suburb I live in. On the question of nationality, I answer – Australian. This is true; I have a dual nationality. I am not a person who invites controversy. At least, not often. So, why do I bite in this case? Suddenly, the reason and justification for my reaction came to me. I realized that such a question marks one as different, not belonging. This is an excluding question if asked early in a conversation and without any practical need to know the answer.

                                   

In times of the refugee’s issues bothering the world, it is particularly important to think twice before we mark someone as being on the outside and not allowing them in. I am not going to fight any battles in this post, I have not thought it through enough, but I know that classifying someone as an outsider, hurts. If we do so, let’s realize the hurt of the other as well as our own need for security which may be based on false grounds.