`Compensation in the Word for Everything'

“To live off the word, particularly the written word, which doesn’t yield either hallucinations or exact understanding, requires one to renounce many ambitions and become as simple as a cook who, in a spirit of simplicity, not knowing any chemistry or physiology, mixes in a pot the victuals he has brought back from the market.”

As readers we are feeders, consuming what gives sustenance and pleasure; as writers, preparers, heating a box in the microwave or serving eight-course feasts. Some of us prepare the sort of food we enjoy, seating ourselves happily beside our readers. Others, with a more didactic palate, serve what they believe is good for us, regardless of toothsomeness. Still others are indifferent to flavor and nutrition. They move product.

The passage quoted above is from “On Scribbling,” a 1957 essay by Jerzy Stempowski, included by Adam Zagajewski in Polish Writers on Writing. I wrote about Stempowski here and hunger for more of his work, which has rarely been translated into English (though I’ve located Polish and French editions). Zagajewski writes of him:

“An erudite who seems to have read the entire Western literature in original languages, he is never academic or purely didactic in his writing. Formed by the tradition of the Enlightenment, he never succumbs to a rationalistic dryness of style. Just the opposite: he is a poet always able to elevate his discourse by a sudden turn of phrase, by a metaphor, a rare simile. He is an aesthete with strong political opinions, somebody who hates tyranny and totalitarianism but believes a writer should be elegant even when dealing with tyrants.”

Based on the few pieces by Stempowski I’ve read (Zagajewski includes letters the essayist wrote to Czeslaw Milosz and Józef Czapski), his prose is indeed elegant but also homely. His “rare simile” of the “simple cook” is quickly understood but swells like a soufflé with suggestiveness. I was ripe for it on Monday because just hours earlier I had applied for an interesting-sounding job as a food writer, a position that would mingle knowledge, experience and playfulness – qualities that, at a more exalted level, Stempowski embodies in his prose. Earlier in “On Scribbling” he writes:

“…writing throughout the ages has been an occupation of the minorum gentium. Admittedly, it was taken up by those who had ruled by the grace of God, in moments of reverential remorse at the sight of the miserable results of their rule, by ministers in disfavor, ambassadors obliged to live on a meager pension, as well as parliamentary representatives whose mandate was withdrawn when the people sent a better demagogue to the capital, and who had to wait several years for a new election campaign to begin. But the main core of writers were people who looked for compensation in the word for everything that life had denied them or could not offer anyone.”