Witold Grombrowicz's Ferdydurke. This book whisked me away on a grotesque roller-coaster.
Or perhaps it illuminated something within, routinely banished from the intellectual spotlight.
A stunning and playful whirlwind, the "thirty year old" school boy meets his match with the "modern schoolgirl", with youth and immaturity laughing at all things pompous, mature and proper. But it is not about a school boy, it is about Grombrowicz refusing to simmer down and be "adult", when it is clearly more fun to be daft and unconstrained.
Gombrowicz has that knack of elevating the reader with his visionary and perceptive rants on human nature, punctuated by mundane-slang ("the mug") and farcical slap-stick which has a refreshing freedom to it.
He writes in what can only be described as Gombrowicz-tongue and attributes the greatest nuance to everyday objects no one would care to notice:
The calf.
The mug.
Innocence.
At the same time he effortlessly interweaves broad philosophical criticisms of school, art, literature and time that creep up on you out of the mayhem, given extra punch being framed by the juxta.
What a joy to find such a playful and artistic celebration of juvenility. Rarely does a literary genius target that inner child in us, let alone suggest that it is THE part we should celebrate. A slap in the mug for the constraints of maturity.
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