Andrzej Franaszek Herbert: Biografia 2 vols. Kraków. Wydawnictwo Znak. 2018. 857 & 958 pages. Andrzej Franaszek once again undertook a gigantic task when, after his successful biography of Nobel Prize–winning Polish author Czesław Miłosz (2011, English translation 2016), he decided to write a comprehensive biography of another outstanding Polish poet, Zbigniew Herbert (1924–1998). In the case of the latter, Franaszek had at his disposal a wealth of unpublished material : Herbert’s diaries and notes, letters from friends and translators, correspondence with women close to the poet, as well as many eyewitness accounts of his poetry readings and opinions from different periods . Paradoxically, Zbigniew Herbert, first a silent, later increasingly a vocal opponent of the Communist regime in his country, reached fame sooner outside Poland, provoked controversy after his final return to his homeland, while his memory was kept alive twenty years after his death by the Republic of Poland declaring 2018 a Memorial Year of Zbigniew Herbert. Franaszek divides his material into seven longchaptersacrosstwovolumesandwithin his chronological approach finds room for subchapters focusing on particular themes. This works reasonably well, though it leads to minor repetitions. While following the biographical thread, Herbert appears in at least four distinct roles: as a private person, a talented poet, a budding dramatist, and a cultural essayist with an excellent eye for the fine arts. It is as an essayist that Herbert scored his first international success: Barbarian in the Garden (Babarzyńca w ogrodzie, 1962), a collection translated into several European languages, was proof of the poet’s profound interest in the beginnings of European culture (Lascaux) as well as Greek and Italian art, not omitting the consequences of such antiheretical “internal Crusades” as the war that ended with the extinction of the Cathars. While writing this book, Herbert spent more time in Paris and London than in Poland, finding new friends and supporters in western Europe and the United States: the critic Al Alvarez in London, his translators Karl Dedecius and Klaus Staemmler in Germany, and the most loyal American Polish couple, John and Bogdana Carpenter in America. This comprehensive biography will also satisfy readers curious about Herbert’s private life, providing information on his international romances as well as long-standing emotional attachments. As for the latter, here two women seem to dominate: Halina Misiołek, a married woman whom Herbert met in 1950, and the aristocratic Katarzyna (“Kasia”) Dzieduszycka, his wife from March 1968 to his death thirty years later. The correspondences with and reminiscences of both are essential to understanding the twists and turns of Herbert’s colorful life, spiced from time to time by romances with a French woman, an Austrian actress (both older than the poet), and a young German admirer. Equally important are Herbert’s friendships with (usually older) writers and critics such as Jerzy Zawieyski, Books in Review ANDRZEJ FRANASZEK monsters reveal themselves to be inside the characters. And in each character there are monsters asking us, “What beast do you have clawing inside?” Luisa is a teenage idealist , a thrill-seeker, and a novice researcher of shipwrecks. Her monster is discovered along the way to her many random yet pointed decisions, such as her most surprising one to run away with a boy to a beach known to drown even skilled swimmers in its treacherous undertow. The randomness of Luisa’s decisions are a part of the allure and mixed engagement one may find in the book; even Luisa’s escapades in Zipolite are conjured by an obsession she finds arbitrarily: an old article in the newspaper describing the escape of twelve Ukrainian dwarves from a Russian circus, last reported to be heading to the coast of Oaxaca. Although this exotification of little people may seem problematic to 2019 readers, this is part of what sets the tone of the novel: Luisa is detached from the world in her nascent adulthood and innocent of hard experiences. Luisa believes the world around her is calling her to be a part of a grander mystery, but in reality, her decisions are the acts of someone in the midst of becoming who they are. Aridjis gives us a character who is hard to pin down...
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Mar 2, 2020
Katarzyna Struzińska 
Open Access
