Ferdydurke

{{Short description|1937 novel by Witold Gombrowicz}} {{Infobox book |  | name = Ferdydurke | release_date = Oct 1937 (1st ed dated 1938) | translator = Danuta Borchardt | image = Ferdydurke.Rój.jpg | caption = | author = Witold Gombrowicz | cover_artist = Bruno Schulz | country = Poland | language = Polish | genre = Novel | publisher = Towarzystwo Wydawnicze "Rój", Warsaw (1st ed); Harcourt, Brace and World (New York 1961); Yale University Press (2000) | english_release_date = 1961 (1st US ed), Aug 2000 (new translation) | media_type = Print (Hardcover & trade paperback) | pages = 281pp (YUP ed) | isbn = 0-300-08240-1 |isbn_note= (YUP pb), {{ISBN|0-7145-3403-X}} (2005 UK pb) | dewey= 891.8/5273 21 | congress= PG7158.G669 F4713 2000 | oclc= 43114995 }}

'''''Ferdydurke''''' is a novel by the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz, published in 1937. It was his first and most controversial novel.<ref name="Berressem1998">{{cite book|author=Hanjo Berressem|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XwHFP4kugKoC&pg=PA34|title=Lines of Desire: Reading Gombrowicz's Fiction with Lacan|publisher=Northwestern University Press|year=1998|isbn=978-0-8101-1309-1|page=34}}</ref>

The book has been described as a "cult novel".<ref name="Romanska2014">{{cite book|author=Magda Romanska|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hT2NBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA215|title=The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor: History and Holocaust in ‘Akropolis’ and ‘Dead Class’|date=1 October 2014|publisher=Anthem Press|isbn=978-1-78308-321-3|page=215}}</ref>

==Author's comment== Gombrowicz himself wrote of his novel that it is not "... a satire on some social class, nor a nihilistic attack on culture... We live in an era of violent changes, of accelerated development, in which settled forms are breaking under life's pressure... The need to find a form for what is yet immature, uncrystalized and underdeveloped, as well as the groan at the impossibility of such a postulate – this is the chief excitement of my book."<ref>* Danuta Borchardt: [http://www.corpse.org/archives/issue_5/critical_urgencies/borchar.htm Translating Witold Gombrowicz's ''Ferdydurke'']</ref>

==Translations==

The first translation of the novel, to Spanish, published in Buenos Aires in 1947, was done by Gombrowicz himself. A translation committee presided over by the Cuban writer Virgilio Piñera helped him in this endeavor, since Gombrowicz felt that he did not know the language well enough at the time to do it on his own. Gombrowicz again collaborated on a French translation of the book, with Ronald Martin in 1958. A direct German translation by Walter Tiel was published in 1960. In 2006, the first Brazilian Portuguese translation by Tomasz Barciński, direct from the Polish original text, was delivered.

The first English translation of ''Ferdydurke'', by Eric Mosbacher, was published in 1961. It was a combined indirect translation of the French, German and possibly Spanish translations. In 2000, Yale University Press published the first direct translation from the original Polish.<ref>Eva Hoffman: [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07E2D8133DF933A25751C1A9669C8B63 Stream of Subconsciousness] – review in ''The New York Times'' 10 December 2000</ref> The 2000 edition, translated by Danuta Borchardt, has an introduction by Susan Sontag.

Direct and indirect translations now exist in over twenty languages.<ref name="http://www.gombrowicz.net/Ferdydurke,1325.html">{{Cite web |url=http://www.gombrowicz.net/Ferdydurke,1325.html |title=Bibliography of translations of Ferdydurke |access-date=2011-07-24 |archive-date=2012-03-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120313122710/http://www.gombrowicz.net/Ferdydurke,1325.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Adaptations== Jerzy Skolimowski directed the 1991 film adaptation of ''Ferdydurke'' (alternate English title: ''30 Door Key'') with an international cast including Iain Glen, Crispin Glover, Beata Poźniak, Robert Stephens, Judith Godrèche, Zbigniew Zamachowski, and Fabienne Babe.

In 1999, ''Ferdydurke'' was adapted into a stage play by Provisorium & Kompania Theater from Lublin.

== Analysis == The novel has been described as a "meditation on stupidity and immaturity", with its other main themes being the tragedy of passing from immature, utopian youth to adulthood, and the degree to which culture can infantilize various subjects.<ref name="Berressem1998" /><ref name="Goddard2010">{{cite book|author=Michael Goddard|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iKzw9nL1H28C&pg=PA32|title=Gombrowicz, Polish Modernism, and the Subversion of Form|publisher=Purdue University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-1-55753-552-8|page=32}}</ref>

== Reception == The book was Gombrowicz's first and most controversial novel.<ref name="Berressem1998" /> It has been described since as a cult novel.<ref name="Romanska2014" /> Writing in 1995, Warren F. Motte commented that the book "exemplifies that rare bird of literary avant-garde: a text that retains, decades after its initial publication, the power to shock.".<ref name="Motte1995">{{cite book|author=Warren F. Motte|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gLZ3S0HTog4C&pg=PA51|title=Playtexts: Ludics in Contemporary Literature|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|year=1995|isbn=0-8032-3181-4|pages=51–}}</ref>

== Influences == Among works influenced by the book is Jacek Dukaj's novel ''Other Songs''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Tokarz |first=Bożena |date=2014 |title=Świadomość formy w powieści Jacka Dukaja Inne pieśni |url=http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-173c4411-8d5c-4bc2-bd76-03406cf4c7e6 |journal=Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich |language=PL |volume=57/114 z. 2 |pages=163–176 |issn=0084-4446}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * [https://witoldgombrowicz.com/en/wgwork/novels/ferdydurke/ferdydurke-introduction Presentation, analysis and excerpt of ''Ferdydurke''] on the official website of Witold Gombrowicz * [http://www.marionboyars.co.uk/Amy%20Pages/Ferdydurke%20Extract.html Short extract] at UK publisher website * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070813235650/http://www.polishlibrary.org/review/ferdydurke.htm Overview] at Polish Library * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070412150610/http://www.everba.org/spring05/ferdydurke.pdf Ferdydurke A. D. 1947]: article about the publication of the Spanish translation in Argentina (PDF) * [http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/reviews.asp?isbn=9780300082401 YUP page with reviews] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207161404/http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/reviews.asp?isbn=9780300082401 |date=2012-02-07 }} * [http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?html_title=&tols_title=FERDYDURKE%20(PLAY)&pdate=20011114&byline=By%20BRUCE%20WEBER&id=1077011429950 Review of the play] in 2001 NYT * [http://www.rogalinski.com.pl/untranslatable-elements-in-ferdydurke/ Untranslatable elements in "Ferdydurke"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160520123857/http://rogalinski.com.pl/untranslatable-elements-in-ferdydurke/ |date=2016-05-20 }}

Category:1937 Polish novels Category:Existentialist novels Category:Modernist novels Category:Polish novels Category:Polish novels adapted into films Category:Polish novels adapted into plays Category:Polish satirical novels Category:Novels by Witold Gombrowicz Category:1937 debut novels Category:Polish-language novels