Desperate Househusband
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In the difficult and arduous profession of a writer there are projects which are quite impossible to tackle in an original or even satisfactory way. One of them is writing about love and male-female affairs. Just remember the famous phrase from the afterword to the "Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco. It seems love was, is and will be written about, but rarely anything meaningful comes out of that. Especially in Poland ... Recently, our literature has been dominated by a pattern of romance derived from what is called female prose (I do not like that term, but what can I do), based on the story of Bridget Jones. There are lots of quite fantastic stories, which ignore the reality of modern Poland, about roughly middle-aged women who do not have substantial material worries and focus their attention on finding the one and only. Even when he is not worth the effort. Grazyna Plebanek ignored this tradition. Well done. To say that "Illegal Liaisons" is a novel about love, is to say nothing (or almost nothing). Without the risk of over interpretation, one could read this novel as a story, for example, of the ups and downs of Poles looking for jobs and careers abroad. After all, the main characters of Plebanek's novel -- the marriage of Jonathan and Megi (don't be confused by the foreign-sounding names, they are our compatriots) -- go to Brussels in pursuit of professional careers. That is to say Megi, who works for the EU administration, much more than her husband (I will return to this theme yet). The heroes of "Illegal Liaisons" are neither uneducated losers, nor graduates of uninteresting faculties at secondary universities dreaming of a dishwashing job in Britain, who are so keenly portrayed in our prose. To the contrary - these are highly educated people, fluent in several foreign languages, who slowly but steadily advance in the so-called West. But -- one thing at a time.
There are at least two original and captivating tricks in Plebanek's novel which give her tale of romance more weight and surprising meanings. One of them is the rewriting - in a feminist spirit - of typical social roles, culturally ascribed to women and men, which largely controls the action. (Although I need to note that in "Illegal Liaisons" we have a "light" version of feminism, without the defiance and orthodoxy of the texts of writers defining themselves as feminist.) In the marriage of the main characters, Jonathan is a househusband. While Megi develops her career, often working overtime and earning a lot of money, her husband takes care of the house and their two children. Moreover, Jonathan, once a decent journalist and author of popular children's books, in fact gives up his professional ambitions so that his wife can pursue hers, because his low-paid job as a teacher of creative writing can hardly be considered satisfactory. What's more, the hero has a peculiar sensibility for a man. Rather than a macho, who seeks to affirm his value by conquering new women, he is closer to a sensitive, emotionally responsive woman. All this makes the main theme of the novel, the romance of Andrea and Jonathan, develop in an interesting and unexpected way. At the beginning of their secret affair, the hero still acts like a typical man, who, a bit bored with the routine of marriage, tries to raise his adrenaline level through the conquest of a new woman and gets carried away by his sexual fascination. But his lover is a peculiar woman. Andrea is very independent, self sufficient and collected and rarely gives in to emotions outside the bed. In fact, in the relationship with Jonathan she is the more masculine person (keeping in mind, of course, that I am still referring to stereotypically understood roles of men and women).
In stories, cheating is usually regarded as evil. The appearance of "the other" destroys the order - even if tenuous or highly fragile anyway - of family or partner relationships. To some extent the same happens in "Illegal Liaisons", when Jonathan, torn by doubts and increasingly indifferent to Megi, decides in a desperate step to move to Andrea. But Plebanek also points to the benefits of betrayal. The affairs of both Jonathan and Megi (even though hers was definitely less intense and stormy) have a - so to speak - transgressive dimension, they allow the heroes overcome the limitations of their own physicality and sexuality, to open to new experiences, and in the end - see themselves in the eyes of their partners to see themselves differently. They therefore constitute a kind of self-discovery path, allow them - though in a way painful and difficult way - to realise own desires and to reformulate, or even improve, their value system and set new priorities in life. Betrayal is so in this case paradoxical creation through destruction. Of course, I am not saying that Plebanek encourages cheating, but the positive aspects of betrayal are clearly noted in the novel. Frankly, when I read on the cover of Plebanek's novel that it is a story - in short - of love and betrayal, I was not expecting too much. But I was in for a surprise -- it turned out the author gave me a lot of reading fun, which confirms that if one wants to, has a bit of courage and a handful of original ideas, it can be done. Let's hope other writers try as hard as Plebanek does.
Translated by Jan Strupczewski |
photo by Stephan Vanfleteren