Pornografia
Pornografia is a 1960 novel by the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. The narrative revolves around two middle-aged Warsawian intellectuals, who during a trip to the countryside construct a scheme to make two teenagers fall in love.
Publication
The book was originally published in 1960. In 1966, an English translation from French was published in the United Kingdom through Calder and Boyars, and the United States through Grove Press. In 2009 Grove Press published an English translation by Danuta Borchardt, from the original Polish.
Critical response
Upon the 2009 American release, Michael Dirda wrote in The Washington Post that Pornografia "seems as sick, as pathologically creepy a novel as one is ever likely to read. In some ways, it resembles a rather more polymorphously perverse version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses or one of those disturbing fictions by European intellectuals that blend the philosophical with the erotic: Think of Georges Bataille's The Story of the Eye or Pierre Klossowski's Roberte Ce Soir. ... Through its sado-masochistic material and its almost Henry Jamesian analyses of human motives, Pornografia underscores Gombrowicz's lifelong philosophical obsession: the quest for authenticity." Dirda continued: "Certainly, most readers will find Pornografia perturbing, or worse: repulsive, confusing, ugly. As Milosz once said of Gombrowicz: 'He had no reverence whatsoever for literature. He derided it as a snobbish ritual, and if he practiced it, he attempted to get rid of all its accepted rules.'"
Pornografia (film)
Pornografia is the name of a number of films, with the 2003 version being the best known one. In 1992, a short film with the same name was made in Brazil. The 2003 version was a collaboration of the Polish and French film industries.
2003 version
Pornografia (2003) was directed by Polish director Jan Jakub Kolski. It is based on the Witold Gombrowicz novel, Pornografia (1960), set in Nazi occupied Poland during World War II. The film is filled with many intricacies, touching such themes as the European society of the 1940s as a whole, conspiracy, guerrilla warfare, the Nazi invasion, murder, and suicide, as well as eroticism, guilt, and manipulation of youth by adults. The film was released in selected cities across the United States.
Film crew
Several Polish actors of name appeared in the film, including the following:
Podcasts:
Pornografia
ALBUMS
- 1989 - 1990 released: 1990
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by The Cure
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by Cure
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by Momus
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by Cruxshadows
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by The Crüxshadows
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by Katy Rose
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by Angelika Express
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by Georges Moustaki
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by Client
Pornography
by: The CureA hand in my mouth
A life spills into the flowers
We all look so perfect
As we all fall down
In an electric glare
The old man cracks with age
She found his last picture
In the ashes of the fire
An image of the queen
Echoes round the sweating bed
Sour yellow sounds inside my head
In books
And films
And in life
And in heaven
The sound of slaughter
As your body turns
But it's too late
One more day like today and I'll kill you
A desire for flesh
And real blood
I'll watch you drown in the shower
Pushing my life through your open eyes
I must fight this sickness
Find a cure
I must fight this sickness...