Gombrowicz's Kronos: The Pornography of Aging. (October 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Oklot, Michal
• Is Part Of: Slavonica. Volume 19:Number 2(2013:Nov.)
• Page Start: 105
• Page End: 127
• Publication Date: 2013-10
• Subjects: Slavic literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Slavic philology -- Periodicals; Slavic countries -- Civilization -- Periodicals; Europe, Eastern -- Civilization -- Periodicals; 947.0004918
• DOI: 10.1179/1361742714Z.00000000021
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1361-7427

Abstract

<abstract> <title> <x content-type="archive" xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <sec> <p>An attempt is made to sketch a strategy for reading <italic>Kronos</italic> (2013), Witold Gombrowicz's (1904–1969) recently published intimate journal, which he kept in the years 1952–1969. It treats <italic>Kronos</italic> as belonging to Gombrowicz's corpus, not merely as a literary sensation or an indiscretion, but as an important artistic and philosophical exhibit, which throws further light on Gombrowicz's preoccupation with the expression of the body and the existentialist concept of person as presence, one of his Nietzschean strategies for countering metaphysics and its ideal transcendence. The key concepts that bring together the artistic, the autobiographical/somatic, and the philosophical are pain and aging. This reading, in demonstration of the artistic unity of Gombrowicz's corpus, situates <italic>Kronos</italic> in the context of the novel <italic>Pornografia</italic> (1960) and the <italic>Diary</italic> (1953–1969), which share the major themes of aging and pain.</p> </sec> </abstract>