Tefil

Tefil is the first name of the main character of this short novel, made up mainly of a monologue by Tefil himself. We listen to his claims, of prophethood perhaps, for we get a great deal of serious- sounding wisdom about the essence of life. But we also hear a lot of ostentatious clichés, so maybe instead we’re witnessing one of those pitiable oneman- shows performed by the aged and afflicted on the tram or out in front of the off license. Tefil’s narrative language – intricate, intellectual, sometimes poetic, rhythmic, conscious of its form – seems out of step with the character of an elderly vagabond, but it also sounds convincing and tempts us to surrender to his persuasive power. It is the reader, as the true addressees of this modern Diogenes, who must therefore decide whether to trust this character and the subjects he treats, or keep a sceptical distance.

We see an ageless man, living in a nearly undefined, though surely European, provincial town, finding for himself a patient listener who invites him to dinner at the area’s only, and therefore “famous”, restaurant. The listener does not speak, but the listener’s presence provokes the speaker. Over a pork cutlet and a beer, Tefil puts on trial a defectively constructed world, though as the sole and necessary one, it is therefore ultimately… beautiful. He diagnoses and condemns with such conviction, it seems he has experienced everything that is important, considered it deeply and finally had a flash of revelation. Later, the two characters will wander the town, its ugly streets transforming into a maze of archetypal signs, as Dublin was for the twentieth-century incarnation of Ulysses, or a map of the simplest symbols of human fate, as the hero of Hrabal’s tales discovered in Prague.

What is the goal of this pilgrimage of meaning? The euphoria of constant beginning. The condition of knowing the world fully without that getting in the way of life itself. As this small-town philosopher sums up his lecture: “all-encompassing, eternal and unyielding ignorance.” Wojasiński has noticed Tefil where we have not, gained wisdom from him and proclaimed it to the attentive.