You've captured Cosmos admirably, and in remarkably few words. What else is left to describe? Very little, I think. That said, I do believe Cosmos is a rather secondary accomplishment compared to Ferdydurke, which revs all these concerns about the limitation of language and rationality into high-speed insanity. Gombrowicz's delirious, feverish joy puts me in mind of Nietzsche's Dionysius, that laugher who takes his greatest pleasure in destruction, affirming deeper ideals through mockery and negation--except one wonders whether Gombrowicz was affirming anything but destruction itself, whether he felt himself capable of creating ideals. Yet Gombrowicz's atomic laughter is one of my favorite sounds in all of literature, and I don't mind that he leaves very little standing.
You've captured Cosmos admirably, and in remarkably few words. What else is left to describe? Very little, I think. That said, I do believe Cosmos is a rather secondary accomplishment compared to Ferdydurke, which revs all these concerns about the limitation of language and rationality into high-speed insanity. Gombrowicz's delirious, feverish joy puts me in mind of Nietzsche's Dionysius, that laugher who takes his greatest pleasure in destruction, affirming deeper ideals through mockery and negation--except one wonders whether Gombrowicz was affirming anything but destruction itself, whether he felt himself capable of creating ideals. Yet Gombrowicz's atomic laughter is one of my favorite sounds in all of literature, and I don't mind that he leaves very little standing.