Transparence
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Transparence, translucence, clarity: these concepts have imperceptibly begun to dominate virtually all spheres of human life, from political and social projects to literature and art, to transparent beauty products designed “to reveal the natural beauty of your skin.”
For Marek Bieńczyk the category of transparence is a filter through which almost anything in the world can be described. He takes it well beyond description, however: his bold essay is gradually infused with elements of plot, and transparence achieves an extra existential and metaphysical dimension.
[book excerpt]
I wanted to write about transparence and translucence, even if only a few pages, for a long time, many years now. Transparence, I said to myself, calls me loudly, sounds me like a sounder, it’s mine. In foreign cities I chose restaurants with panoramic windows to dine in, I used to stop by lit window displays in the evenings, friends started to mock me, give me glass domes as presents, I have amassed quite a collection. Glass was my idée fixe, I went to pet shops just to stare at fish tanks, I kept coming back to museums with exhibits (the bizarre Ötzi in Bolzano, frozen stiff, a forebear found in a glacier with his quiver full of arrows) protected by armoured glass; Lenin and Mao Tse-Tung in their glass coffins I would gladly forget. Working on a text, I unconsciously diluted the concreteness of senses, words kept escaping their meanings … whiteness shone through from behind the sentences. It may sound odd, but I had a penchant for clear soups, food with gelantine, fish or meat in jelly. I decorated the walls at home with reproductions of Edward Hopper, gleaming behind the glass like cheap pictures from a provincial church fair.
About the author:
Marek Bieńczyk (b. 1956) is a prose writer, essayist and translator. He has published two novels, Terminal and Tworki, book-length essays Czarny człowiek: Krasiński wobec śmierci (Black Man: Krasiński and Death), Melancholia: o tych, co nigdy nie odnajdą straty (Melancholy: On Those Who Will Never Recover Loss) and Oczy Dürera: o melancholii romantycznej (Dürer’s Eyes: On Romantic Melancholy), as well as a feuilleton collection Kroniki wina (The Wine Chronicles).
