Published: 2024-04-04

A Story with a Seashore. On Bruno Schulz’s Pseudobiography in David Grossman’s "Novel See Under: Love"

Beata Tarnowska Logo ORCID

Abstract

The article A story with a seashore. On Bruno Schulz’s pseudobiography in David Grossman’s novel “See Under: Love” is a comparative analysis of an important theme contained in a 1986 novel by Israeli writer David Grossman. In his work, Grossman presents an alternative version of Bruno Schulz’s biography, mixing biographical facts with oneirism. In this work, Bruno escapes from the Drohobych ghetto, goes to Gdańsk and, in the sea, is transformed into a lower form of being: retaining his human identity, he becomes a salmon. In doing so, he fulfils one of the rules of Schulz’s ontology, according to which “the wandering of forms is the essence of life”. The climax of the novel is a dialogue between the protagonist-narrator and the author’s alter ego, Szloma Neumann, and Bruno, who is storing his unknown work titled Messiah in the depths of the sea. Szloma wants to know the meaning of Schulz’s “genial epoch” and the related notion,
cabalistic in spirit, that of a progressive-regressive movement towards the future (the messianic times), identified with a return to the mythical origin and the erasure of human history. The artists’ alliance is thwarted by Szloma, who – burdened by the trauma of the Holocaust – is unable to reject his memory. He does, however, receive a hint from Schulz on how to write a novel about the Holocaust: not death, but love should be its theme. Grossman’s novel, a tribute to the Drohobych artist, is an example of an original reading of his work and, at the same time, a continuation of the motifs and themes that appear in it.

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Tarnowska, B. (2024). A Story with a Seashore. On Bruno Schulz’s Pseudobiography in David Grossman’s "Novel See Under: Love". Postscriptum Polonistyczne, 33(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.31261/PS_P.2024.33.01

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Vol. 33 No. 1 (2024)
Published: 2024-04-04


ISSN: 1898-1593
eISSN: 2353-9844
Ikona DOI 10.31261/PS_P

Publisher
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press

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