The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma
by Tadeusz Dolęga-Mostowicz
(translated from the Polish by Ewa Małachoska-Pasek and Megan Thomas)
A review
What
is the best-known Polish novel you’ve never heard of? I’ll hazard a guess and
say it’s The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma by Tadeusz Dolęga-Mostowicz. First
issued in 1932 as Kariera Nikodema Dyzmy, it is now
being published by Northwestern University Press in a translation by Ewa
Małachowska-Pasek and Megan Thomas, the first one ever in English. As Benjamin Paloff explains in his introduction
to the work, this novel had such an impact in Poland that it has penetrated
popular culture and parlance where the word “Dyzma” is used for “a phony, a
fraud, especially one whose trickery depends on others’ assumptions,
self-deceptions, and moral shortcomings”.
Jerzy Kosinski’s Being There (1970), later adapted into a film featuring
Peter Sellers, was immediately recognised by Polish critics to be a plagiarised
version of Dolęga-Mostowicz’s novel.
Ironically, the original Dyzma is making his debut in the
English-speaking world fifty years after his copy did. It is a twist of fate which seems strangely
apt considering that this is a novel about an impostor and trickster.
The Career
of Nicodemus Dyzma is set in the (then contemporary) Poland of the
1930s. With the declaration of the
Second Polish Republic in 1918, Poland had become an independent state, after having
been previously ruled by the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. This
novel is a biting satire on the ruling class which took over the country,
portrayed as a society corrupt at its heart, built on an unhealthy and unholy alliance
between the political class, Polish nobility and big business. We meet the protagonist, Dyzma, as a down-and-out,
unemployed clerk, eking out a hand-to-mouth existence. Having acquired, by pure chance, an invitation
to a high-class party, he decides to gate-crash the event, with no other
expectation than to eat his fill for free.
However, an altercation with bigwig Terkowski, hated and feared by all,
marks him out as a brave straight-talker, exactly the “strong man” needed in
politics. No one is more surprised at
this than Dyzma himself. As his fame grows
and he becomes the darling of the upper classes, Dyzma cunningly manages to survive
by lying through his teeth, recycling other people’s opinions, surrounding
himself with trusted collaborators and, when necessary, relying on the power of
his newly-found riches and connections.
In the circles he frequents, Dyzma’s ignorant silences are seen as proof
of his wisdom; his uncouth behaviour is excused as a mark of his strong,
magnetic personality; his demeaning attitude towards women is admired
(including by some of his conquests) as the embodiment of the virile.
What I
found brilliant about this novel is that Dyzma beguiles even us readers, even
though we know he is a fraud. He is
presented, not unfavourably, as an anti-hero. His often comic escapades,
sometimes redolent of early Waugh (there’s a brilliant set-piece involving Dyzma’s
appointment as the leader of a cabal of high-society witches), make him a
surprisingly endearing character, one we root for as he hoodwinks a corrupt and
morally bankrupt political class. It is
when Dyzma’s actions become unequivocally indefensible that we realise that,
like many others in the novel, we have also been taken in by the protagonist (and
his creator). This is
not light-hearted comedy but a dark and cynical satire. And real satire always has a moral heart. In this case, the message is as relevant as
ever. By all means, take the ruling
class to task. But be equally
careful of charismatic figures who portray themselves or are portrayed as political
saviours. Be careful of those jesters
who promise to short-circuit the system, and yet end up using it for their own
ends. Close to a century after its publication, as the culture of the “strong
man” seems to be gaining ground again, the novel comes across as a frighteningly
timely one.
Paperback, 312 pages
Expected publication: September 15th 2020 by Northwestern University Press (first published 1932)
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