Gombrowicz’s Polish Complex

Abstract

In some of the discursive passages which interrupt the narrative line of his Kompleks polski, Tadeusz Konwicki raises an issue in relation to his own work,¹ which strikes me as equally applicable to the work of Gombrowicz: namely the frustrating, indeed depressing, position of a writer trying to be cosmopolitan but forever being defined and limited by his cultural origins. This is because he comes from a part of the world, where the injustices and catastrophies of past conflicts have so coloured his experience and mentality, that he is only partially comprehensible to outsiders whilst offensive to his own kind because of his cosmopolitan ambitions.