Something to Read

30 July 2021

The best reading spot in Planty Park used to be on the eastern side, along Straszewskiego and Podwale streets – close to the university and to Bunkier Sztuki for a coffee with friends (not any more). One of the benches nearby serves as the city’s smallest second-hand bookshop. Busier and more shady nearer Franciszkańska, although a good spot for watching editors of “Tygodnik Powszechny” making their way to the office at Wiślna (also not any more). Basztowa was usually out, and Westerplatte even more so, although it’s hard to say why. In any case, when half the benches are now labelled with names of Cracovian authors, things are even more complicated. Would it be rude to read Herbert’s essays on Miłosz’s bench? Could you really read “Polityka” with Marian Eile behind you? Lem – surely just at Lem’s?
Of course home would be simplest. But there are times when others have their own plans, say dancing around to Caribbean rhythms. Or neighbours are tearing down partition walls for the third time this year. Or for no other reason than you just can’t stand being at home any more and simply need to go somewhere else, to keep sane. Although reading seems like a solitary activity by definition, enjoyed by people with a tendency to introspection, it’s actually rather social. After all, books exist so we can understand one another better, and if that requires extricating ourselves from our tribal reality for a while, it’s all the more reason to return and occasionally lift our eyes to compare characters from the pages to their living counterparts.
Reading is also a spectacle, because even when we tell ourselves that we’re purely interested in the content, we also read so that others can see us reading. And that needs a good setting. Take the Jagiellonian Library: its vaulted ceilings, centuries-old desks and 17th-century prints at your fingertips can get overwhelming. If you do read there, you do it with dignity, seriously, respectfully; and no nonsense, either – I’ve never seen anyone leafing through a comic book (although I’ve seen people napping, but that’s another story). The library on Rajska Street is totally different, with its modern, well-lit loft – you can read what you like there. So what, though, when other readers are mainly Scandinavian medical students (or at least they were before the pandemic, so that’s probably also out of date) memorising vast anatomical diagrams and making the average reader feel they’re reading the wrong thing. Perhaps the friendliest reading room is the one at MOCAK, next to the reconstructed study of Mieczysław Porębski, where – according to modern legend – a certain young man spent his entire summer studying Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit, taking notes all the while. MOCAK is friendly because it’s intimate and comfortable; but maybe it’s actually too friendly – you get drawn into conversation with the librarians – and too comfortable, because the mezzanine is filled with mattresses for visitors to stretch out on, and we all know how that ends.
And stretching out is another thing, because when the hour is right the banks of the Vistula are best. The right bank, of course, because there are fewer people and the sun is less brazen in the summer. But the truth is that this isn’t a place for reading – it’s a place for dreaming. And I won’t even mention picturesque valleys near Kraków: once I stretched out on a blanket in Bolechowicka, but that made no sense at all – only Gombrowicz could possibly detract from the limestone rocks set against the vivid blue sky, and only if I hadn’t read him before.
Searching for the perfect reading spot is like searching for the Holy Grail or Atlantis. And that’s hardly a surprise – we read so we don’t tarry for too long. That’s probably why reading on a tram is best, maybe the no. 4 from Bronowice.

Maciej Jakubowiak

Maciej Jakubowiak – b. 1987, essayist, literary critic, literary scholar, editor of the “Dwutygodnik” magazine. Author of two books. Vegan, wife, daughter, two dogs; born in Żory, lives in Kraków.

The text published in the 2/2021 issue of the “Kraków Culture” quarterly.

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