Anaesthesia

Anaesthesia

Anaesthesia. Where would we be without it? In pain.  I want to write about the anaesthesia that masks truth. You can hide the truth from others; you can have the truth hidden from you. You can hide the truth from yourself. Indeed, we can all join hands and dance together in a collective waltz, which, for as long as it goes on (and these dances can last a lifetime), moves us all away from and keeps our minds off the ugly, dangerous, disgusting and painful truth standing solitary and partnerless in a dark corner.

And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools

tryin' to anaesthetise the way that you feel

A Minor Apocalyspse - Tadeusz Konwicki (1980) and [briefly] Casablanca - directed by Michael Curtiz (1942)

(The picture above shows a plaque commemorating the self-immolation of a Polish man, Ryszard Siwiec, in protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 - the novel A Minor Apocalypse has the build up to such an act as its central plot)

In Konwicki’s novel there are ludicrous levels of the kind of group deception I mentioned above. The narrator moves through his day (it is his final day as he has agreed to burn himself to death as a political protest) and hears some of the most ridiculous utterances in defence of the political status quo. The novel was written in the late nineteen-seventies and so Poland is under Soviet control. If Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968 taught these benighted souls anything it was that the Soviets were not going loosen their grip on the vassal states east of the Brandenburg Gate. 

So, in this novel from occupied Poland life is miserable: buildings and bridges are falling down (literally), the gas and the water are cut off arbitrarily, the police stalk the sidewalks bullying their fellow citizens on a whim, the shops are empty (although there is a choice of 3 colours when it comes to petrol canisters!) and “everyone is on the take and everyone is stealing”. And to reiterate: the Soviets have enslaved the country.   

That is the painful truth.  Now the anaesthetic:

One character, an official in the state Censor’s office describes what happens to language under such circumstances:

“So, in our situation,” continued the philosopher, “allusions play a vital role. Not calling a thing by its name reveals what it is; allusions have suggestive power…The tension caused by the hunger for truth [is] artificially eliminated by a skilfully employed allusion. For that reason, allusions should not be repressed; quite the contrary, they must be encouraged, people must be taught to make more intelligent, more meaningful allusions. After a certain amount of time, people will prefer an allusion to the truth itself”

At another point a secret service agent tells the narrator that “we’ve given the oppressor the slip. We’ve outwitted him. We are free because we have imposed our own slavery”.  Just in case the narrator is any doubt as to what lies behind this ludicrous mask of sophistry the secret service agent injects him with a drug that amplifies his sensitivity to pain and proceeds to torture him.

Of course, the plot of A Minor Apocalypse has agony at its core: what could be more painful than being doused with petrol and burned to death? 

Perhaps having to swallow the daily insult of anaesthetic sophistry?

Obviously, I don’t have to read an obscure Polish novel to find a blueprint for how lies replace truth. If I could bear to listen to the news on TV I would have no shortage of material. But the argument goes the other way, too: if I can find evidence of sophistry anywhere then Konwicki will serve just as well as anything.

Besides there is something more in this novel and the fact that it was written under a communist regime makes this no surprise: an exploration of a kind of historical dialectic where truth is hidden and protected by lies, where subjugation itself is adorned as a dress rehearsal for revolution.

This dynamic is an audacious one. It is a risky business. To take part, its protagonists need heavy doses of credulity, fidelity, and determination – and that is only in relation to the promise of springtime. 

Who else but the utterly credulous, blindly faithful and steely determined could believe – not swallow – a line such as that expressed by one of Konwicki’s narrator’s associates (Rysio, the brother of the “Philosopher of Allusions”): “Slavery has always perished at the hands of slaves”? In other words, only through acting out the role of slave; taking on all that it has to offer, exceeding the remit of slave (just as the secret service officer claimed the Poles had done by enslaving themselves), can you prepare to overthrow your oppressor, can you prepare to assume power for yourself.

Sounds medieval – Christian, doesn’t it? Ignore the lies and put up with the abuse because one day, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day in the (probably posthumous) future life will get better. It’s obvious, too, that Casablanca should cross frequencies here. What else is “We’ll always have Paris” if it is not a tissue of pretty lies, an anaesthetic pill, a beautiful utopia to compensate the young men who were being sent off to die in World War Two in the days, months and weeks after they left the cinemas in 1942 and 1943?  You’d almost believe that Ingrid Bergman was waiting for you back home. Believe us, have faith, be resolute, young man, your time will come. All kinds of anaesthetics are needed in war.

In any case, the proponents of complicity in Konwicki’s novel are state-licensed opposition. Rysio is one of the sanctioned political opposition, paid by the state to criticise the state:

“They all get government salaries. It’s all one big provocation. Don’t you find it surprising that the years go by and they keep playing at protest, revolution, publication, demonstration, as calmly as peasants in springtime?”

From this tissue of lies emerges a narrator who is, by his own admission, mediocre. And yet the truth he has to tell, his advice on his last day, is useful, humble and above all, neither dialectical nor duplicitous: He offers cures for dandruff and constipation, explains how to cheat at cards and later, suggests reciting Pan Tadeusz during sex so as to prolong the act! 

Lead by his increasingly introverted and dissolving hero, Konwicki’s narrative takes scatological and fatastical detours that are reminiscent of the ‘Nighttown’ episode of Joyce’s Ulysses: He has sex with a Russian girl (whose name is ‘Hope’); he is lead into an underground dining hall where he witnesses a feast prepared for visiting dignitaries being ransacked; he happens upon a campfire gathering of fifteen women, all of whom he has in the past loved and narrowly escapes being lynched by them.

This narrator makes his way to the Palace of Culture where all of his current associates, friends and lover await. Snow has begun to fall (the snow begins in the middle of a reflection on time, passing, death – another reference to Joyce!], and the story ends just as he is about to burn himself to death. 

His life concludes in agony, by reaching for and pointing to truth, with ordinary, ugly confessions paving its last few minutes – no anaesthetic, no allusion, no dialectic or duplicity.

Thankfully the truth is never as painful as self-immolation.

What would I import or export to Ireland after reading this novel?

Konwicki’s sense of humour is perverse. Import.

Duplicity, sophistry, abuse of language. Export.

Konwicki’s love and respect for animals [the little dog following the narrator as he walks towards his death has replaced Bulgakov’s cat, Behemoth, as my favourite animal in 20^th Century Literature] Import.

The sincerity, honesty and simplicity of the love between the narrator and Nadhezdya. Import.