THE JUNGLE BOOK

Author: Rudyard Kipling
Year: 1961 (1894)
Publisher: Instytut Wyd. "Nasza Ksiegarnia"
Language: Polish (translator Józef Birkenmajer)

In the heart of savage wilderness, amidst the ever-shifting fabric of primal existence, dwells the chronicle of a being in search of his own essence. Within this narrative tapestry, the central figure, Mowgli, emerges as a voyager on the tempestuous sea of identity formation. An orphaned child, cast adrift upon the verdant tides of the jungle, Mowgli becomes an interface, a point of juncture, between the uncouth wilderness of beasts and the supposedly cultured dominion of man. His identity hangs suspended like a pendulum swaying between two irreconcilable worlds. “Ksiega Dzungli” (“The Jungle Book”) by Rudyard Kipling thus explores the microcosm of humanity's scattered attitude toward nature and its ceaseless quest for a home.

The jungle itself can be construed as an embodiment of the dialectic that man has struggled with since the beginning of abstract thought. Here, the Hegelian thesis of nature clashes with the antithesis of civilisation. Nature and culture are pitted against each other as mutually exclusive opposites. Mowgli, the feral child, incarnates this contradiction. He is caught in the in-between, as it were, balancing on the cusp of human society and untamed biology. His very existence mirrors the Hegelian struggle for self-realization, oscillating between individuality and universality.

Mowgli’s interactions with the jungle's inhabitants, be it the motherly panther Bagheera or the sage bear Baloo, evoke the timeless conundrum of self-discovery. In these relationships, the reader is witness to a vaudeville of influence, power, and vulnerability within a matrix of order, tradition, and honour. The matrix is put on trial by the disruptive force that is the vindictive and ruthless tiger Shere Khan. This is the disturbance that is required to ignite the dialectic. The boy in need of protection faces his fiend and by defeating him becomes a man; the synthesis. The self-realisation through conflict. The rise of a man among wolves.

Although the tale of Mowgli has established itself as the most famous of the stories in “Ksiega Dzungli”, significantly influenced, no doubt, by the Walt Disney-rendition, it is actually but one of several stories in the volume. Another noted entry is that of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Here, the titular mongoose stands as a metaphorical benchmark, emblematic of the primal tenacity inherent within the natural world. While Mowgli grapples with humanity as an intrinsic quality in himself, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi faces off with the perils of nature as a self-proclaimed guardian of a human family. Eager to be of service to his adopted tribe, he puts himself in harm’s way, not once but repeatedly, by challenging the fierce serpents Nag and Nagaina and protecting the humans from the legless lepidosaurs’ deadly bite. While Mowgli is torn between his biological and his circumstantial natures, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi does his best to make a place for himself in a foreign world. His struggle is with his milieu, not his own being. 

Much as I acknowledge that the book was written with young readers I mind, as always, I refuse to allow this to stand as an excuse for poor writing. On the contrary, given the restraints of the immature audience’s limited knowledge and intellectual abilities, the task of a writer for children is perhaps even more challenging than to one who is free to employ the full palette of linguistic nuance. Kipling was not a novice writer when he put together “Ksiega dzungli”. More than a decade earlier he had already established himself as a journalist and poet, and one would think that he would have a good command of the written word and the ability to identify and adapt to his recipients. As my copy is a translation, I will not comment on Kipling’s use of language but the dramaturgy and character development are in my view unsatisfactory. Both are sketchy and disjointed and they lack the immersive cadence that I have learned to expect from truly accomplished writers.

Despite all, the primary benefit of having read Kipling’s famous stories is to counterbalance Walt Disney’s distorted version of the jungle and to learn what Kipling had intended when he wrote his stories. There is a depth and a message in them that, if not done away with completely, are glossed over and trivialised in the animated film. This message, albeit clad in an outdated literary cloak, is still relevant to humanity today as our destructive effect on the climate serves as a shocking reminder of our inescapable dependence on our ecosystem.      

BUMNECDOTES, LIMERICKS, AND EPITAPHS ARE SPONSORED BY THE RUSSIAN MOB

Author: Krzysztof Daukszewicz
Year: 2008 (2004)
Publisher: Ksiegarnia Bellonia
Language: Polish

Every nation has the government it deserves, if we are to believe the Sardinian philosopher and diplomat Joseph de Maistre. Equally true perhaps, and tightly linked to Maistre’s reflection, is that every nation has the comedians it needs. For Poland, such a comedian, satirist, singer, and poet is Krzysztof Daukszewicz.

He made a name for himself already during the Polish communist era, for example as a member of the legendary satiric theatre group Kabaret Pod Egida, and has continued to be a successful commentator on current affairs in various artforms on television, on stage, and in written form as a columnist and writer.

Against this backdrop, I was understandably excited about his little collection of observations and anecdotes titled “Meneliki, limeryki, epitafia, sponsoruje ruska mafia” (not available in English but a lacklustre attempt at a translation could sound like “Bumnecdotes, Limericks, and Epitaphs Are Aponsored By the Russian Mob”). The Polish word “menel” translates to bum or hobo in English, implying both homelessness and an intimate relationship to alcohol, and denotes a most commonplace phenomenon in the Polish cultural landscape. I expected a collection of both highs and lows, a goody bag of thought-provoking musings and downright daft cock-and-bull-stories from the writer’s encounters with bums around Poland intermingled with each other, and in the end something profound to tie it all together into a coherent critique of a society that aspires to be a Christian superpower but remains incapable of sparing five measly loaves of bread and two fish to feed its weakest members. All of the above would have been compatible with Daukszewicz’s work in the past.  

Regrettably, despite the inspired title, I found that my expectations were not met. True, some of the anecdotes are witty and the outsiders that Daukszewicz has met in all corners of Poland over the years are sometimes both original and eloquent, but on a whole the ambition of the book does not seem to aim beyond the occasional laugh at the expense of people who are already struggling at the bottom of society and who serve mostly as facetious conversation starters and empty validations of our own normality, much like the village idiots of yore. The limericks, of which there are significantly fewer than the bumnecdotes, rarely follow the form of traditional limericks and equally rarely end in a funny or piquant punchline. The epitaphs are sometimes unintelligible, sometimes flat, and sometimes just in poor taste.

The highlight is the ultimate section where Daukszewicz takes on the Polish governments (both the present at the time the book was published and earlier ones). In this section, some of his keen eye for the absurd and well documented knack for undressing power come to the fore. The final entry, “Abridged minutes of the investigative committee” is actually brilliant in both form and execution.

All in all, “Meneliki, limeryki, epitafia, sponsoruje ruska mafia” is a quick and light read which unfortunately misses the mark. It does not reflect the inimitable sense of humour and sharp satirical pen of Krzysztof Daukszewicz’s who has produced significantly more powerful work both before and after this collection.

DOCTOR GLAS

Author: Hjalmar Söderberg
Year: 2010 (1905)
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag
Language: Swedish

“Doktor Glas” (“Doctor Glas”) by Hjalmar Söderberg is one of the most influential modernist novels in Swedish literature and stands as a poignant and thought-provoking exploration of morality, inner conflict, and the intricacies of the human mind. Set against the backdrop of early 20^th century Stockholm, Söderberg masterfully delves into the mind of his protagonist, Doctor Tyko Glas, unravelling a gripping narrative that traverses the boundaries of ethical dilemmas and personal desires.

One of the most notable achievements of "Doktor Glas" is Söderberg's nuanced portrayal of the main character’s moral quandaries, which take centre stage throughout the novel. At its heart, “Doktor Glas” constitutes a response to e.g. Dostoyevsky’s monumental work Crime and Punishment, in which similar themes are explored from a Russian perspective half a century earlier, as well as to much of Friedrich Nietzsche’s writing on good and evil. The doctor's moral compass is challenged when he becomes entangled in the life of a young woman, Helga Gregorius, who seeks his assistance in escaping her oppressive marriage to the odious Pastor Gregorius. This catalyst for moral conflict sets in motion a series of events that propel the narrative forward while simultaneously plunging Glas into a profound examination of his own values and beliefs.

SPOILER ALERT

Whereas Dostoyevsky’s Rodion Raskolnikov commits his act early on in the story and spends the rest of the novel grappling with the consequences of his decision, Tyko Glas spends a considerable amount of time contemplating and legitimising his actions before he executes on them. Although he rationalises his actions as warranted and altruistic, two interesting observations about the underlying reason for his actions stand out to the reader:

1. It is clear from the beginning, long before Helga Gregorius visits his cabinet, that Glas despises and even hates Pastor Gregorius, Helga’s husband;

2. Helga does not outright ask Glas to neutralise her husband. All she asks is that he intervenes to give her some degree of independence from her nuptial duties.

Although, Glas tries to explain his actions as inevitable in order to rescue Helga from the pastor, and the first-person perspective allows the reader to follow the string of thoughts that Glas employs to talk himself into this conclusion, as an outsider, the reader would be forgiven for not totally accepting Glas’ narrative at face value. While Raskolnikov dug himself ever deeper into guilt, Glas swims on top of his faux justification of his deed. In Nietzschean terms one might say that Master morality is Raskolnikov’s starting point and Glas’ destination. As Nietzsche explicitly named Christian morality as slave morality, it is no coincidence that Doctor Glas’ antagonist is a pastor. What better way to challenge the slave morality imposed on us by the Church than to murder a man of the cloth? This aligns perfectly with Nietzsche's view of transcending societal constraints and moral dogmas in the pursuit of individual flourishing.  

Söderberg's prose, marked by its elegant and evocative style, serves as a vessel for the novel's exploration of complex themes. The author expertly balances moments of introspection and philosophical contemplation with vivid descriptions of the city and its inhabitants. Through rich and vivid language, Söderberg creates an atmospheric backdrop that complements the narrative's exploration of human desires, societal constraints, and the yearning for personal liberation. The author’s choice to tell the story in epistolary form through the processed first-person thoughts of the protagonist helps to make the events really come to life and become relevant to the reader.  All characters, including the doctor, are sketchy and we only get to know what we absolutely need to know in order to follow the story, but for a book this size, that is not a negative thing. The purpose that this short book was supposed to serve and the questions it was supposed to raise, come across with considerable vitality, which by any account is what Söderberg must have intended. “Doktor Glas” is a remarkable book despite its modest dimensions and I warmly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the discourse of morality, social restraints, women’s rights, and the human psyche.

THE ART OF WAR

Author: Sun Tzu
Year: 2019 (1910/~500 BC)
Publisher: Modernista
Language: Swedish (translator Bertil Häggman)

Some 500 years BC, or so the story goes, Sun Wu applied for a position as a military commander at the helm of King Helu’s army in what is today the Southern Jiangsu province of China. To test his leadership skills, the king asked him to train the royal concubines in performing military manoeuvres. Sun Wu accepted the challenge, divided the concubines into two groups, and appointed the king’s two favourite mistresses as officers in charge of each of them respectively. He proceeded to give the women basic military training but when it was time to present the king with the results, the women could not help but giggle and, understandably, make a joke out of the whole situation. Sun Wu declared that if the subordinates fail to obey orders, it is the leader’s responsibility to ensure that the orders have been clearly communicated and correctly understood. He therefore resumed training and applied strict pedagogical assiduity to secure complete understanding among the king’s concubines. Upon the next performance in front of the king, the women again found the situation bizarre and giggled through it. Sun Wu then declared that if the orders have been understood but still not followed, it is the fault of the officers, and had both the king’s favourite concubines severely punished, some versions of the story say executed. After this, Sun Wu no longer experienced any problems in exercising control over the women in his two units. And that is how he got the job.

Many years later, now known by his honorary name Sun Tzu, he would put his experiences, observations, and theories from and about the battle field into writing in what is today known as “Krigets konst” (“The Art of War”) in the Western world. Across 383 maxims grouped into 13 chapters dealing with such things as planning and evaluating, cunning, terrain, manoeuvring, attack by fire, and the usage of spies, Sun Tzu shares his philosophy on how to command an army and lead it to victory.

Unlike many other texts from antiquity, Sun Tzu’s writing was never lost and rediscovered but seems to have been part of Chinese philosophy, military training, and history since its inception until today. This notwithstanding, the origins of the book and even the purported originator himself remain disputed. The name of Sun Wu does not show up in the historical record until at last 300 years after his assumed death and is conspicuously missing from a contemporary source, Zuo Zhuan, that lists the most influential civil servants of the realm, including military commanders, and ought to have included a person as illustrious as he is claimed to have been. Furthermore, the name Sun Tzu simply means ‘Master Sun’ in Mandarin and it appears that there was another member of the Sun family a few generations later, Sun Bin whose historicity can be unambiguously confirmed, and he went by the honorary name Sun Tzu as well. It could well be that the two were conflated over time.

Whoever took the time to write down their thoughts about warfare in the 5^th century BC, the effort was not in vain. Military commanders, but also rulers, business leaders, teachers, philosophers, and artists over the centuries have drawn inspiration from the wisdom contained therein. However, as history has shown, the structure of the book, although simple and translucent, does provoke some misunderstanding. As is far too common in the world, many readers have difficulties grasping a bigger picture if faced with a smorgasbord of easily digestible information nuggets. Consequently, it is easy to understand why some reviews point to one part of the book as the key, omitting another that some other review might in turn consider essential. After all, this is how most Christian fundamentalists read the Bible. One may see declarations such as ‘The Art of War is about deception’ or ‘the best way to win a battle is to make your troops desperate.’   

I do not by any means claim to understand “Krigets konst” better than anyone else, but as a person who has spent most of his professional life in management positions in one way or another, my observation is that the leitmotif throughout Sun Tzu’s notes is knowledge, preparation, and patience.

The knowledge about the soldiers. Knowledge about the enemy. Knowledge about the terrain. Knowledge about technology and weapons. This also includes the obstruction of the enemy’s knowledge which is where deception and spreading of false information comes into the picture.

“All warfare is based on deception”

“Though the enemy be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from fighting. Scheme so as to discover his plans and the likelihood of their success. Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity.”

Preparation is about ensuring allegiance of the troops before marching out. Preparing exit routes and defence lines. Preparation of supply lines and marching paths. And preparation by acquiring knowledge.

“Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight.”

“Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.”

Patience, to tie it all together, can be applied to taking the time to prepare properly and making sense of collected intelligence. Patience is not allowing oneself to be provoked.

“The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy”

“He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them.”

Co-incidentally; knowledge, preparation, and patience also seem to align with the five traditional cardinal virtues in the Chinese culture which are benevolence, uprightness of mind, self-control, wisdom, and sincerity, which are values that Sun Tzu must have been intimately familiar with.

Lastly, a few notes on the translation. The first translation into French came as early as 1772 and is likely to have been read by Napoleon Bonaparte. However, not until the English translation by Lionel Giles in 1910 did the book gain global fame, which was further amplified by the success of Mao Zedong in defeating the nationalists and establishing the People’s Republic of China. Lionel Giles work has since become the benchmark for many other translations, including the one into Swedish that I have read. I find Bertil Häggman’s version from 1989 to be airy with a good flow, but I am particularly happy that the translation also includes Lionel Giles’ annotations which, although not always comprehensible, provide context and oftentimes detailed explanations of what it is we are reading. When it comes to reading antique Chinese texts on warfare, at least This Banker sometimes needs a helping hand to put the pieces together.

 

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Author: Ernest Hemingway
Year: 1975 (1952)
Publisher: Stiftelsen Litteraturfrämjandet
Language: Swedish (translator unknown)

”A man can be destroyed, but not defeated” is one of the most well-known quotes from what is arguably Ernest Hemingway’s most prominent novel, “Den gamle och havet” (“The Old Man and the Sea”) from 1952. In his inimitable minimalistic writing style, Hemingway manages to encapsulate the whole message of the novel in one potent sentence.

SPOILER ALERT

“Den gamle och havet” is a story about Santiago, an old fisherman well past his prime who has had a streak of really rotten luck not having caught a single fish for eighty-four days. His misfortunes have become the talk of the town, and the parents of his young helper and apprentice have even taken the boy away from him and allocated him to a boat that has proved to be more successful in recent times. The boy, deeply loyal to his mentor, keeps visiting Santiago and run errands for him but he cannot act against the will of his parents and therefore cannot sail with his aged friend.

Santiago knows that the gossip around town is that he has been cursed and even that he is finished as a fisherman, but he does not pay much attention to it. He is too old and experienced to believe in such nonsense. After all, he has been through this before. Rather than praying to God or performing magical rituals, he relies on his knowledge, experience, and patience.

On the eighty-fourth day of fishing without catch, like all days before it, Santiago sails out onto the Sargasso Sea in his small fishing-boat. Reading the signs of the sea and the animal life in and above it, he soon picks up the trail of what should be an attractive prize. When the fish bites his hook, the fight is on. Hour after hour, day after night after day, Santiago struggles with the largest fish that he has ever encountered and when it finally breaks the surface of the sea, Santiago’s assumption that it must be an enormous marlin is confirmed. This monstrosity is even bigger than Santiago’s boat. After finally having killed it, he ties it to the side of his vessel and turns the bow toward Havana, which during the prolonged tussle has disappeared below the horizon.

Alas, to kill the marlin, Santiago has to drive his harpoon through it, spilling its blood into the ocean. An ocean rife with all types of sharks. Soon enough, the first sharks begin to attack the carcass and Santiago attempts to fight them off. He uses his harpoon to kill the first ones. When one of them disappears with it lodged to its dead body, he ties his knife to one of the oars and continues the fight. When the knife breaks, he proceeds to hitting the feeding sharks over their heads with the rudder. Shark after shark annihilated or chased away, but not before taking a chunk of the marlin with it. When Santiago finally reaches the shores of his fishing village, all that remains of the once mighty fish is the head, the tail, and the spine to hold them together, meticulously cleaned of all meat.

It takes a great writer to make a story about a fishing trip, albeit one involving a remarkable catch, thrilling, touching, and thought-provoking at the same time, and Hemingway does just that. The protagonist’s fight against the forces of nature but also his musings about life, death, love, fate, and the meaning of identity and personal integrity are all interwoven into the fabric of the story in a way that it never loses pace. The reader never gets the feeling that the author pauses the chain of events for philosophy. It is all embedded in the progress of the plot. This short, simple, and linear novel without any elaborate subplots, interpersonal drama, despicable villains, betrayal, misunderstandings, money, sex, or violence is consequently laden with symbols. It is the universe captured in the meeting between a modest man in a tiny skiff and a fish.

No matter how important our personal challenges seem to us, on the vast ocean of life they are but insignificant trifles. The ocean is too great to be aware of every single fish in it, no matter how big, or every single man in a dinghy on it, no matter how determined.

“The ocean is very big and a skiff is small and hard to see.”

Santiago did not blame bad luck for his poor performance. Nor did he blame God, the weather, the fish, his boat, or his equipment. He certainly did not blame himself. He was old enough to know that any fisherman sometimes goes through a bad patch. He did not give up. He set out to sea like he had done every single one of the days prior to this one.

His epic battle with the fish goes on for two days. The old man’s endurance, experience, attention, and ingenuity are put to the test as never before. He is old and not as agile as he used to be. And he is alone. This is his fight. To each and every one of us, to Santiago as well as everyone else, that struggle is essential not for survival alone, but for the definition of who we are. We are, Hemingway seems to say, defined by our actions and choices more than by their outcomes. To choose to continue to live is to choose to continue to choose.

“- They beat me Manolin, he said. They truly beat me.
- He didn't beat you. Not the fish.”

Santiago’s marlin would have brought him a small fortune if he had been able to haul it back in one piece to the market. But he ended up not receiving even a dime. The man is destroyed but not defeated.

We learn one more thing in the very end of the story. While Santiago is recovering after the ordeal, two groups of people notice the remains of the fish by his boat. The first are his peers in the village. Those who looking at the carcass are able to assess and appreciate the old man’s achievement. The other is a group of tourists who mistake the animal for a shark and shrug it off as a mere curiosity. How often do you allow tourists to determine the value of your accomplishments and to put you down by the force of their numbers and ignorant confidence?

It is no mystery why “Den gamle och havet” has become a classic not only in American but in world literature, and Hemingway’s Nobel Prize and widespread renown are, in my view, very well motivated.

ANIARA

Author: Harry Martinson
Year: 1974 (1956)
Publisher: Bokförlaget Aldus
Language: Swedish

In a distant future where Earth has been laid to waste by pollution and war, a project of resettlement to Mars is underway. Scores of advanced interplanetary vessels navigate through the void transporting refugees from the once beautiful blue planet to its desolate red neighbour, which now, in comparison, despite its barren surface is more hospitable than Earth, or Doris as Earth is now known.

One of these vessels is the Aniara, carrying eight thousand souls. A carrier of hope embarking on a routine journey from chaos to order. Alas, shortly after Aniara leaves Earth’s atmosphere a wayward meteor forces her to veer from her plotted course and due to an irreparable malfunction, which renders the ship uncontrollable but otherwise undamaged, she drifts off helplessly into the cosmic dance of the stars. With her, the eight thousand captives encapsulated in the contourless fabric of eternity, trapped like “a little bubble in the glass of Godhead”.

As all hope evaporates, the denizens of Aniara form an earthly microcosm. A replica, or more accurately, an offshoot of society, with all the petty quarrels, personal ambition, sexuality, betrayal, and identity struggle that we recognise from our planet in our time. In their loss of direction, they turn to the ship’s computer, the Mima, for guidance and comfort. The Mima keeps record of all that ever happened on Doris and upon demand, shows the passengers bits and pieces of Doris, as it used to be. Seeing the long-lost beauty of their home planet gives the people a sense of security and belonging. In time, the humans begin to treat the Mima like a deity, including a cult complete with rituals and anniversaries, until one day, burdened with the anguish, regret, inadequacy, and wickedness of mankind, it exhibits the final destruction of Doris to the people on the ship who turn on it and demand it be switched off. The Mima, in a final decision of defiance, decides to incapacitate itself permanently to avoid being exposed to people ever again.

“There is protection from near everything,
from fire and damages by storm and frost,
oh, add whichever blows may come to mind.
But there is no protection from mankind.” Song 26

And thus abandoned they press on, aimlessly in the general direction of the Lyra constellation. The Lyra, the god Apollo’s sacred instrument, tuned to praise the Apollonian virtues of self-consciousness and moderation, while at the same time the society on Aniara is rife with denial and indulgence.

The author, Harry Martinson, one of Sweden’s most beloved 20^th century writers, captures the fate of the Aniara and the passengers incarcerated inside her gut, in the format of an epic poem. Across a total of 103 songs the fates of Aniara, but also some of the individuals that are doomed to live out their lives on her decks, are described in verse. The meter is indistinct, fleeting and free without boundaries or rules. Sometimes resting in an iambic blank verse only to eject into a perfectly free format which only briefly produces a rhythm or a rhyme as if to tease or test the reader. By making up words of his own, Martinson pushes the limits of poetry even further.

“The richest of the languages we know,
Xinombric, has three million words,
but then the galaxy you’re gazing into now
has more than ninety billion suns,
Has there ever been a brain that mastered all the words
in the Xinombric language?
Not a one.
Now you see.
And do not see.” Song 85

Martinson several times declared his distaste for Sartre’s iteration of existentialism and it could be argued that Aniara is an attempt to make a case in favour of absurdism as opposite to existentialism. While he seems to agree with the existentialist worldview that actions come from nothing, it is difficult to find traces of an end goal of the actions of the passengers on the tumbling spaceship. Man’s freedom, a key concept in Sartres theory of Bad Faith, is severely curtailed. All purpose eradicated. All meaning nullified. Options expunged. The most respected person on the uncontrollable Aniara is at the same time the most useless; Isagel the pilot. Even Isagel’s scientific discovery in Song 39, that would shift an entire scientific discipline, was ultimately pointless.

“[H]ere her breakthrough never could become
in any manner fruitful, just a theorem
which Isagel superbly formulated
but which was doomed to join us going out
ever farther to the Lyre and then to vanish.”   

In the end, what is the difference between Aniara and Earth? Are we not all trapped on a space vessel that is uncontrollably crashing through the galaxy due to no agency of our own on a journey whose destination none of us will live to arrive at. There is no difference between the yurg danced on Aniara and the yurg danced in Dorisburg. And so are we all dancing, loving, fighting, cheating, and toiling our way through the forever expanding futility that is the universe. There is no one to pilot our journey.

All quotes are from Martinson, H. (1998) Aniara: An Epic Science Fiction Poem. USA: Story Line Press.

 

 

IN DESERT AND WILDERNESS

Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
Year: 1978 (1911)
Publisher: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy
Language: Polish

It seems commonly to be so that writers of children’s books are moderately successful when targeting a mature audience, and writers of literature aimed at adults fail to capture the hearts of the young whenever they try their luck at stories for children. Many have tried. Scandinavian legends Astrid Lindgren and H C Andersen are two examples of the former. Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf two examples of the latter.

There are a few, however, who have managed to make their mark on literature for all age groups. Swedish Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf is one. German writer and journalist Peter Härtling is another. Polish epicist Henryk Sienkiewicz a third.

Although Sienkiewicz is best known for his historical epics such as “Quo Vadis” or “The Teutonic Knights”, he is equally appreciated for his young adult novel “W pustyni i w puszczy” (“In Desert and Wilderness”). Despite the fact that this was Sienkiewicz’s only attempt at writing for teenagers, the book has become a classic in Polish literature and generations of Polish students have read it before graduating from grammar school.

The plot is set in Africa during the height of the colonial era. Staś and Nel grow up together near the Suez Canal and are fourteen and eight years old respectively when the story begins. Staś is the son of a Polish engineer leading the construction of the canal and Nel is the daughter of one of the senior directors of the company running the project. The fathers, both widowers, have become great friends over the years and also taken each other’s children to their hearts.

The point in time is 1884, just about the siege of Khartoum during the Mahdist war in Sudan. Staś’s and Nel’s fathers are called away on business and promise to send for the children once they have established themselves in their new location. When they finally do, the servants tasked with bringing Staś and Nel to them betray them and carry the children off to revolutionist Mahdi instead. The young captives realise that if they want to survive, they will have to find a way to escape from their captors.

Staś, who in the beginning of the story appears both boastful and vain, instinctively takes on the role as Nel’s protector. He proves himself protective, loyal and resourceful and on several occasions risks his life in order to save Nel’s. Nel, on the other hand, despite her tender age keeps Staś in line and more than once stops him from making mistakes or taking unnecessary risks.

The novel is aimed for a young adult audience in its early teens and upward but it shows that it is written by a master of the epic proportion and colourful characters. It is beautifully written, full of life and rich in flavour. The sentences, although suitably simple, are carefully crafted and contain much of the powerful yet gentle language that Sienkiewicz was world famous for during his lifetime.

But it also shows that he did not find it mandatory to spend his otherwise trademark attention to detail and facts on children. For although the historical context of “W pustyni i w puszczy” is largely correct, and the geographical descriptions are mostly accurate, his depictions of people and animals are bordering on fantasy. Vindictive elephants, oversized dogs that successfully fight lions and hyenas, one-dimensional representations of the local population and almost ludicrous dialogue where natives can barely put together a sentence in one moment, use elaborate vocabulary in the next, are all caricatures of what I assume someone born in the end of the 19^th century might imagine Africa to be. It is hard to believe that Sienkiewicz actually spent time there before writing this book, but he did.

Particularly the Muslim antagonists are portrayed not only as cruel and single-minded, but at times almost intellectually challenged (I believe the word Sienkiewicz’s contemporaries would use is “imbecile”). Furthermore, the relationship between Staś, the decision-maker and protector, and Nel, the damsel in distress, is all too well-known, although Sienkiewicz avoids some of the fiercest criticism by introducing a significant age gap between them.  

Modern critics have rightly questioned whether “W pustyni i w puszczy” should remain on the school curriculum provided its inaccurate and essentially racist content. Seeing as the book is intended for adolescents, this question is valid. However, as a reasonably well-educated adult, one should be expected to be able to identify these as relics of a past worldview no longer supported by society, and enjoy the novel for its remaining qualities.

Qualities of which there are many. There is no doubt that Sienkiewicz was a sublime storyteller. His environmental descriptions are enchanting and the main characters relatable and likeable. The storyline is simple but engaging and the pace is steady, although I suspect that a teenager in the 21^st century might find it too slow. We need to accept that an elephant simply does not make the same impression on the tiktok-generation as it did on the pegtop-generation.  

SPOILER ALERT

There are three random observations from my side that were probably unintentional from Sienkiewicz’s side but were all too obvious to me as a 21^st century reader.

The first is that Staś’s and Nel’s fathers appear to be very close friends, to the point of creating a family together for their children. To be clear, there is absolutely no trace of any romantic feelings between them, but short of that, they would make a remarkable same-sex couple.

The second observation is that Staś’s servant, Kali, is repeatedly quoted still to this day as a symbol of primitive morality when he concludes that stealing a cow from Kali is a bad deed, whereas if Kali steals a cow from someone else, it is a good deed. What people who quote these lines from the book as a way to make fun of non-European cultures fail to remember, and which I did not know until reading the book, is that Staś when he heard Kali’s reasoning thinks to himself that it sounds very much like high level politics is done in Europe at the time. Sienkiewicz 1, racists 0.

The third observation is that Staś and Nel, after surviving the ordeals in Africa, return to Europe and do not get together again until they are adults. To my disappointment, in the epilogue, Sienkiewicz decides to wed them in holy matrimony which shakes my image of them as brother and sister and is completely unnecessary for the ending of the novel.

All in all, even though I mostly enjoyed “W pustyni i w puszczy” my recommendation to someone who is curious about Henryk Sienkiewicz would be to read “Quo Vadis”, and someone who is curious about old young adult novels with adventure in them to read “Treasure Island”.