Prochy doświadczenia w urnie pamięci. Nad pudełkiem Nieszczęsnych B.S. Johnsona
The Ashes of Experience in the Urn of Memory. Over the Box of “The Unfortunantes” by B.S. Johnson

Author(s): Tomasz Gruszczyk
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, History of Art
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: In the article, the author discusses the artistic output of B.S. Johnson and he suggests that thewriter’s desire to confine his subjective experience to the work of art seems to be the commonelement of his novels. As a heir of Joycean and Beckettian literary traditions, Johnson declaresthat the only chance for literature — pushed to the margins of cultural communication by thecinema — is to present everything that is individual and unique; everything that is internalised inone’s personal experience. This claim for the explication of an individual thought in the pages ofa novel comes to the fore in “The Unfortunantes”. The form of separate pages placed in a box (anelement of liberature) is perceived here as a reflection of the random activeness of the mind andmemory. Simultaneously, it illustrates the described experience in its whole chaotic and incoherentform. Moreover, it allows the readers to reduce the distance which usually exists between themand the book, so that not only can they become its witnesses but also its confidants.

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