Tkanki miękkie

A novel by a woman about masculinity? Yes, but it’s nothing like a feminist manifesto. Zyta Rudzka doesn’t criticise men from the standpoint of an oppressed woman, but depicts the masculine soul with an empathy that’s both affectionate and merciless all at once. This monologue of a man in late middle age, a man undergoing an endless crisis of masculinity, really only focuses on two themes: his relationship with his wife (with women) and with his father (with men).

The narrator stops loving the most important woman in his life, and starts loving his male progenitor more; his wife is moving away from him mentally and physically, and his father is dying. So his monologue about these relationships gradually changes into an account of loneliness. The “soft tissues” of the title are the sensitive spots in the male identity. Rudzka exposes the feelings that men are afraid to display: weakness, a sense of defeat, dependence on others, and a constant need to be loved. Every thought the central character has and every decision he makes is guided by a quest for happiness in love and an effort to assimilate death, and as a result the narrative acquires psychological authenticity and philosophical profundity. In this story a man’s life is laid bare and deconstructed to reveal its lowest depths and its foundations.

Yet all this occurs within the “soft tissue” of language that shows great wealth, because the other main hero of this novel is talking. In fact Rudzka has written a sort of extended poem in prose, treating each sentence like a separate line of verse. She juxtaposes words on the basis of associations and false etymologies, uses plenty of alliteration and homonyms, and draws cultural allusions. At the same time, never for a moment does she lose touch with a genuinely “masculine” way of talking: brusque, sometimes even brutal, self-ironical and sarcastic. Potential translators will face a hard task, but also a fascinating challenge that will give them the opportunity to show off their linguistic ingenuity.