Living through the horrors of the Nazis and then the Soviets in his home country of Poland, Slawomir Mrożek had ample material to draw from in writing his satire on totalitarianism in The Elephant, his first short story collection.
His second book of short stories, The Ugupu Bird, contains all the humor and cleverness of the first but the author has widened his lens beyond an oppressive political system to address the universal struggle between the individual and society.
In the seventeen stories making up The Ugupu Bird, we find elements of folk tale and the fantastic mixed in with Slawomir Mrożek's signature theater of the absurd-style plays such as Tango, The Émigrés and Striptease. In this short story collection we read how an Ugupu Bird's bird droppings provides the needed balance in nature to maintain the cycle of life; an average, everyday citizen fills out an application to head the world's government but admits he has no money for things like warships since his son-in-law is already supporting eight people other than himself and his daughter is once again expecting; a man suffering from sclerosis writes from an abandoned prison noting that even the guardroom is deserted nowadays but he takes hope in his occasional encounter with other prisoners who walk the halls and even sometimes venture outside.
In A Meeting, the narrator is bullied by a stranger on the road into coming to his apartment to clean but then this stranger walks off without having provided his address - thus he was being bullied by a bully for the sake of the bullying and not for any practical purpose; in other words, a man exerts his power as an end in itself.
With Crime and Punishment we meet a rambunctious little boy who continually gobbles up his food, runs, jumps and shouts, all to the consternation of his guardian Angel who takes to kicking and clobbering him as the way to straighten out his bad habits. But the Angel learns the hard way, a little boy's rambunctiousness isn't such a bad thing after all.
An Adventure During Vacations features a couple of college students who come upon a veteran soldier with three arms, which came in handy, he tells them, after plundering a city since he could not only, like all the other soldiers, grab a bottle of wine with one hand and a woman with another but also grab something of more lasting value with his third.
A Recollection tells of a poet traveling to a Polish farming town to read his poems about honesty and integrity. His poetry has such a dramatic impact, a number of the audience confess their misdeeds, including a book-keeper who is so moved he admits to cooking the books for his own benefit. A book-keeper moved by poetry to make a public proclamation of his dishonesty! Now that, ladies and gentleman, must count as a first - both in literature and in life. Thanks, Slawomir Mrożek! I would never have dreamed it possible.
Wedding in Atomtown is as bizarre as it gets. The narrator, a guest at the wedding, informs us the bridegroom has a respectable laboratory, a couple reactors and a chemical synthesis plant. The bride, in turn, was given a power station as part of her dowry. Added to this, she possess at least six patents involving biochemical processes. Now that sounds like a match made in science heaven!
All is not well the day of the wedding. The powers that be decided that very day to change the very nature of the countryside: what was forest is turned into productive "civilized" land; what was desert is now covered in trees. Sure, the narrator has to deal with a new dam in the middle of his farm and the road to the church is nothing like it was yesterday, but, hey, this is progress.
No sooner does the narrator, let's call him Jan, arrive at the wedding then the bridesmaids begin singing and the bride is given electrolysis and placed in a compression chamber. Meanwhile more guest arrive, all wearing thermostatically controlled diving suits over navy blue tennis clothes. This collection of stories was published in 1959 so, sorry, no labels for commercial sponsors on either tennis gear or diving suits.
Some of the guest are already high but Slawomir Mrożek doesn't mention high on what. Dogs bark and tipsy pilots roar with their exhaust pipes. Again, the author leaves the nature of those exhaust pipes to our imagination. But one thing is certain: the real fun begins after church.
And that's fun as in Smyga from across the river joining in the action - for Smyga, you see, is an accomplished dancer, crooner and jokester. Smyga does his funky thing to the appreciation and applauds of all. But young Pieg who has been leaping, jumping and kicking his heals doesn't appreciate Smyga robbing him of center stage.
Words are exchanged and then Smyga gives Pieg a wallop with his atomic knuckleduster. Pieg staggers back and begins to radiate but isn't prevented from shooting off a short-range rocket from his trouser leg. But, alas, the rocket misfired so Smyga isn't blown to bits but rather he leans against the heat barrier that gives way. Bad news for Smyga. He "fell into the vortex of temperature with a constantly rising co-efficient."
The father of the bride thinks enough is enough and points to the old-fashioned Geiger counter on the wall, at which point pandemonium breaks out resulting in radioactivity, flying rockets, the release of poison gas. Your normal Polish wedding.
Jan decides to take his leave but then a most unexpected phenomenon occurs: mass radiation. To find out if Jan, the bride, the bridegroom and everybody else at the wedding survive, you will have to read for yourself. Wysoce rekomendowane!
Polish author Sławomir Mrożek, 1930-2013
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