“To be a chronicler of one’s own degeneration”. Reading "Dziennik" by Jerzy Pilch Cover Image

„Być kronikarzem własnego zaniku”. Lektura "Dziennika" Jerzego Pilcha
“To be a chronicler of one’s own degeneration”. Reading "Dziennik" by Jerzy Pilch

Author(s): Monika Ładoń
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego

Summary/Abstract: The text concerns one of the main motives to be found in journal notes made by Jerzy Pilch, the motive of disease. The author of the text pays attention to diversified realization strategies of this phenomenon in Pilch’s text. To the most important belongs rationalization of the process of getting ill, withdrawal of one’s own body from the text, and accumulation of formulas aiming at concealment or camouflage of pain and suffering. The author also asks a question on the functions of disease textualisation, especially in the light of the autotherapic power of noting down many a time questioned by Pilch. Besides, what is important in this book is irony, scorn, and black humour that stylistically organise Pilch’s intimate testimony. In final, Pilch’s journal of disease turns out to be a refined game with oneself, a reader and genological possibilities of a journal.

  • Issue Year: 2013
  • Issue No: 2 (4)
  • Page Range: 159-174
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Polish