Saturday, March 14, 2026
Witold Gombrowicz Is Like Jim Gaffigan
Time and time again we have established that I am wrong about everything. Here, let me give you a recent example! So, remember when I said I remembered going to Square Books and... wait. Please remind yourself that my brain was zapped by mysterious forces just a couple of years ago. But remember when I said I had seen a version of THE ILIAD blurbed by Emily Wilson but not translated by her? That can't be the case. Because I went to Square Books yesterday and saw with my own eyes Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD, which I had convinced myself did not exist. And why would she blurb an ILIAD when she had a fresh new ILIAD of her own? I said to Mevelyn... wait! Let me tell you about Mevelyn. Mevelyn is from Cuba. She is a great bookseller. Case in point, she has forced me to buy a lot of Alejo Carpentier with her hypnotic powers. She tells a good ghost story. She knows everything about books! You can ask her about the different translations of DON QUIXOTE, for example, and she'll point out all their strengths and weaknesses. I always hope that Mevelyn will be working when I visit Square Books so I can hear a good ghost story or a nightmare she had about Karl Marx. Anyway, I grasped Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD in my wizened paws and I says to Mevelyn, I says, "Hey! Mevelyn! Wasn't there a recent version of THE ILIAD with a blurb by Emily Wilson, but she didn't translate it? I feel like I'm going crazy!" So it sounds familiar to Mevelyn, too! She feels like she saw it recently. So we stand there a long time trying to figure out what the hell we are talking about. We are having one of those folies à deux that people enjoy so much. Anyway! When I got home, I realized what I had seen was a new translation of THE AENEID for which Emily Wilson wrote the introduction. Not a blurb! An introduction! Not THE ILIAD! THE AENEID! The important thing is that I had a coupon, so I was able to get Emily Wilson's translation of THE ILIAD for free, just about. That's the thing! Get yourself a "Constant Reader Number" at Square Books! Then you too will be able to grab an almost-free book once in a while. And so it came to pass that THE ILIAD is my current "nighttime book" and the DIARY of Witold Gombrowicz is my current "daytime book." I have reached the point in the diary where Gombrowicz has begun to attack himself, sotto voce, the way Jim Gaffigan does in his standup act. You know, Jim Gaffigan will tell a joke and then he'll switch to a soft, high-pitched, almost strangled voice, pretending to be an audience member, questioning his own premise. Is that a good description of what Jim Gaffigan does? No? How the hell would you know? Anyway, now Witold Gombrowicz is doing what Jim Gaffigan does... in diary form! It's like when Milhouse said that ALF was back in pog form. Everything is like when Milhouse said ALF was back in pog form.
Labels:
blurbs,
brains,
dreams,
electricity,
medicine,
money,
mysterious,
poetry,
Square Books,
trance