Pawel Huelle is a writer and columnist for Gazeta Wyborcza. His fiction draws on autobiographical elements and especially pays homage to his hometown of Gdansk. He is the author of two collections of short stories and two novels, one of which David Weiser has been turned into a film. He has also recently published a selection of his columns.

The Last Supper has been published, available directly from Serpent's Tail. To coincide with this, we present two interviews with Huelle that appeared in the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza:

Interview with Pawel Huelle I

Interview with Pawel Huelle II

Huelle was also recently longlisted for the IMPAC International Literary Prize for Castorp.

Agnieszka Kołodyńska: Your latest novel has little in common with the world of old Gdańsk. The town is paralysed by terrorist bombs, traffic is at a standstill on 'Kaczynski Avenue', there is a mosque in the centre of town. Are you, as a writer, deliberately attempting to provoke controversy?

Paweł Huelle: This novel is not intended to be a provocation. Some bitter truths are told, but I don't know why it should be interpreted in this way.

'The Last Supper' draws on modernist approaches, it's a novel about the lives of artists. Polish literature has a rich tradition in this area: for example "The 622 Demises of Bung, or the Demonic Woman" by Witkacy or Wacław Berent's prose. Compared to these my novel is relatively mild.

You refer directly in the novel to the painting by Maciej Świeszewski of the same title. This work generated a lot of discussion in the press, many regarding it as kitsch, as an unsuccessful attempt to measure up to the greats. Where does the border lie between kitsch and art for you?

The modern avant-garde is a safe academism, it repeats well known gestures, without bringing anything new. Those who criticise Świeszewski don't know a great deal about the history of art. For me a return to the subjects of the old masters really is avant-garde. Video installations, new media have already burned out. Inspiration needs to be found elsewhere. What Świeszewski dared to do was for me a real act of courage. These days reviews of art are over-simplified into a formula of the type 'hit or miss'. What can you discover about an artist and his work from this? This is how the 'Last Supper' was labelled as kitsch. And who judged it? A few people from the avant-garde scene. Nobody asked, for example, art historians what they think of it – indeed some thought it was very good.

Do you think that modern art is in crisis?

Of course, but not because there are no artists who can measure up to the old masters. I mean particularly the way we talk about art. It's not necessary to immediately scream that something is kitsch, it's also worth understanding what the artist was getting at. Where is the harm if someone decides not to ape avant-garde art and make a pyramid of shoeboxes - as happened recently in the Wyspa gallery in Gdansk – and instead spends 10 years painting the same picture? So what if they are not politically correct? Of course, because it's not making reference to what is 'cool' and 'trendy' today. Luckily people 'vote with their feet'. People go to the Donald Kuspit exhibition in Oliwa 'New Old Masters'. They want to see it, but according to the avant-garde it's 'kitsch'. There is no understanding between the viewing public and progressive critics. Novelty is a mantra under which people hide who have no idea about art. It's sufficient – like Manzoni – to put your own faeces in a can and sell it in a prestigious gallery in order to become an artist. I expect from an artist something I could not achieve myself, something I can authentically admire. Forgive me, but I can put my own faeces in a can and run to curators, critics and journalists for their approval. Maybe everyone would be delighted, but not me.

You have the reputation of a man of strong views. You have had a very public row with Prelate Janowski. Your dislike of him has found another outlet in this latest book. 'Monsignore' isn't worthy even to be Judas in the painting. Do you want to provoke readers into discussing Polish Catholicism?

The Gospel says: "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth". The role of a writer is to engage with the world, I am not trying to provoke for its own sake. But disagreement is an important element of democracy. Prelate Janowski represents a movement which dominates current Catholicism, as with Father Tadeusz Rydzyk... Their version of the Church is xenophobic, anti-European, and populist. The intellectual Catholicism of Lasek, "Więza", "Tygodnik Powszechy", "Znak", which used to be a Polish specialism, has today lost its meaning; at least in the sense that at least half of the episcopate consider it suspicious, ineffective, Masonic and infiltrated with Jewishness. The mainstream is precisely on the side of Father Rydzyk. The intelligentsia and intellectuals are in retreat. The Polish Church is dominated by shallow sloganeering, similar to the Communist era. For many people Rydzyk's opinion counts for more than that of the Pope! But what am I saying, after all they don't listen to a single word of the Pope. This kind of folklore is sick, which is why it is the writer's obligation to raise some questions. Of course I could be wrong, but I think this 'Sarmatism redux' is at least worth questioning.

Who represents the Polish Catholic? Is it the person who, during your trial with Prelate Janowski shouted 'Treblinka' when they saw you?

The crowd shouted that I was a Jew, that I should leave Poland, ideally via a chimney at Treblinka. Happily, there are many different types of Pole. It still surprises me, that such movements find support in the Church, especially after the teachings of Pope Wojtyla. Can you imagine John Paul II sending someone to Treblinka? For me Christianity is a personal relationship with the Messiah. These extreme movements try to force onto us that this relationship depends on the Father Director, or some other functionary. They don't realise that this relationship with the Messiah is available to everyone, not only for supporters of the Monsignore or the Father Director. Their heads have been completely turned. They're shameless and arrogant. Like typical 'God's policemen'. I think that neither John of the Cross or Thomas Merton – my own teachers – would stand on the side of those who would stuff people into gas chambers. In the end, these ways of resolving problems were instigated by the greatest enemies of Christianity, who without blinking murdered thousands of nuns, priest, and Christians.

In the world of your novel we find a mosque in the centre of Gdansk. Do you think Poland will also experience, as in Western Europe, a large Muslim population? Is this a warning against Islamic fundamentalism? Are you echoing Oriana Falacci's concerns?

Europe is in a state of dissipation. Weakness. Impotence. There is no concerted policy against militant Islam. Politicians are powerless, paralysed by political correctness. In 15 or 20 years we will have the same problems in Poland as France has. It can't be resolved only by correctness. In democratic countries integrationist Islamists will win elections and our opinion will not count for anything. They don't respect our conception of freedom, tolerance, multiculturalism. We must demand a clear position from our politicians on this question. I'm not talking about aggression, the last thing that I would like to see is a Christian-Muslim war in Europe. The problem of the aggressive elements of Muslim society will not solve themselves. Terrorist attacks are a reality, arguments about headscarves in schools also. The majority of Europeans do not wish to follow any religion. We must nevertheless think, in this situation, how we can oppose the strength of Islam, this offensive. We can't always be apologising, withdrawing from this dialogue, because it will mean a new Islamo-facist dictatorship. Is what binds us together only growth in GDP, or setting the price of olives? If that is the case then we must immediately admit that Europe, European society is already only a myth.

There are many references in your novel to David Roberts' drawings of Jerusalem. Why did they inspire you so much?

I didn't know his work at all, until I went to Jerusalem. In a souvenir shop I found an exquisite reproduction of a panorama of Jerusalem he did in 1839, with a modern view of the town on the other side. I liked it so much I looked for books of his drawings. I found, among others, an album published in Polish of his travels in Egypt. Also prints of his work published in London and Jerusalem. I decided to use his watercolours as a counterpoint in my novel, and also his meditations on Messiahs, Jews, Christianity and Jesus. He belonged to the generation, – like Chateaubriand – who searched for profound forms of faith. And he was not ashamed to look for his own European, Christian roots. Above all, David Roberts is for me an artist, who – besides anything else – values craft, perfect workmanship, the deepest respect for the viewer. This today has no meaning, it's enough to set up a camera on the street or in the toilet, and it's fantastic. What are fantastic are the drawings Roberts produced during his travels. It's a shame that he missed Slowacki by a couple of months on this expedition. That's why one of the apocryphal scenes in the novel is the meeting between Roberts and Juliusz Slowacki, who – it's worth remembering – had a great artistic talent, he could draw beautifully. As did Zbigniew Herbert. But who today does that kind of thing?

Violetta Szostak: I'm rather nervous about this interview…

Paweł Huelle: Why should you be nervous, I should be nervous, it's me they would like to kill…

Because of this book?

It's not as bad as that!

The worst that could happen to a book written with such – as I see it – angry and taunting passion, would be if it were not taken seriously.

I agree, yes.

This hasn't happened to 'The Last Supper', the book has resulted in heated discussion and diverging evaluations. I also have problems with it, which is why I was talking about nerves…

I'm very happy to hear it. Because if some are driven into a fury by the book, and for others it's enigmatic, that there's something within it that attracts them but they don't understand, and when they go back to it, they see something new – you can't have a better situation for a writer.

The strongest reactions were regarding what you have done with your contemporaries, the elements of gossip, pamphleteering, satire – the villain of the piece is the priest Monsignore, in whom we recognise a well-known Prelate from Gdansk, the main characters of the book walk along Kaczynski Avenue – some are delighted that you are engaging with contemporary life, while others consider it to be courting controversy, cheap, even below the belt.

I have written a contemporary novel. Maybe partly because critics were always saying that my novels are escapist, I thought: OK, now I will present you with a contemporary novel 'par excellence'.
And references to living people? This is an approach that to different degrees has been used by many writers before me. One can give as an example 'The Wedding' by Wyspianski - which doesn't mean I am comparing myself to Wyspianski!
The book is written fairly bluntly, because I think that we find ourselves in a moment of crisis, linked with postmodernism. We've lost our goals, our centre; we have fallen off the right track, and can't create a new one. I didn't originate this diagnosis, but I'm a participant in this crisis, it's happened to me, so I am reacting and asking some questions. My book is fairly pessimistic, it doesn't give a recipe to overcome this situation. I think that it is necessary to make oneself conscious of it, because a large number of us don't realise that we are in such a difficult, strange situation.

The different threads running through the novel are brought
together around the painting of "The Last Supper" which the artist Mateusz wants to paint, posing his acquaintances in the roles of the apostles. In reality the painter was Maciej Swieszewski, and you were one of the models.

Yes, and I immediately realised, that it was an excellent pretext for writing a contemporary novel. Choose a few characters who are heading to the sitting with the painter, to show them and their different lives, but to also put a mirror up to our religious attitudes, because if someone has to pose for "The Last Supper" they will inevitably think of what that "picture" might say about their own lives.

This mirror shows some very unpleasant things. We pose for religious paintings, but Jesus has been lost somewhere.

Things aren't going brilliantly for us. We are an ultra-catholic country, religion is present everywhere in terms of symbols, but is a deeper spirituality also present? It happened that I criticised Father Jankowski and was immediately called a Jew by his allies, I was jostled in court, spat on, and the crowd shouted: "Treblinka! To the gas chamber!". So I ask you, what kind of Christianity are we supposed to be dealing with?

You also mercilessly chastise avant-garde artists.

It isn't that I am an enemy of avant-garde art, or contemporary art, this is a caricature that has been thrust upon me. I am only saying that a large part of this art is running in circles. It's repeating what the avant-garde created in the 1920s and 30s. This is impotence, tedium, it's not any kind of novelty…

Is the kind of art Mateusz creates any better? Is he in a better position? Isn't he running in circles?

Mateusz takes great risks. He's attempting something Quixotic: He wants to paint a representational picture, on a religious theme, making reference to the old masters…

And what results from this link with the old masters?

The narrator asks the same question and has an ambiguous view on it. What annoyed me the most was the fury with which the avant-garde community attacked Świeszewski's painting, they denied him his right to be heard. It's exactly this revolutionary-dictatorial pose which I don't like in the avant-garde: only one form of art is important, because it's contemporary, and the rest should be destroyed and mocked. This is where I start to ask: "hang on, what kind of 'contemporary' are we talking about?"

But didn't you hesitate when the artist asked you to pose as an apostle?

I joked, that of course I would be Judas. I came to the conclusion that historically they also posed people they knew in religious pictures, and not only saints.

"When I finish a book," he says, "I hope that some images will settle in my mind. I hope there are some of those in the book – powerful images for readers to take away."

Read more here. Via the The Complete Review.

Interview with Pawel Huelle 23.11.2004. Polish version here. Translated by Hanna Siemaszko.

Magdalena Walusiak: Castorp is a surname well-known to all those, who have opened the cover of “The Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann. One sentence from “The Magic Mountain” inspired your newest novel: “Four terms of studies at Gdansk Polytechnic were behind him.” What was more tempting – the fulfillment of a certain undefined literary reality in Mann’s novel or the creation of a new myth of Gdansk?

Pawel Huelle: I wouldn’t like to create more myths concerning my town, because it is such an unrequited love. I caress Gdansk, but it doesn’t always caress me back. It is not that I claim anything, God forbid, though this is what this love resembles.
I didn’t want to create another literary myth. I assume that Gdansk has already got a dense enough literary topography; I wanted, though, to write a book about love, a little bit different from contemporary books about love. Today people write a bit like in a screenplay: a pair of lovers meets, they go to bed, and afterwards he asks her or she asks him: what’s your name? And I wanted to write differently, about love, which doesn’t necessarily have to be consummated. Of course it has an erotic background, because the main character’s fascination with a beautiful Polish girl is obviously erotic; searching though, aspiration, seeking, the desire to be under another person’s spell, this is what love is. It seemed also interesting to me that a German falls in love with a Pole. And it wasn’t a German from West Berlin 20 years ago with a woman from Warsaw or Gdansk , but a 19th century German and a 19th century Pole. I took this situation to be interesting, to talk about Germany a little bit indirectly.


Magdalena Walusiak:Your characters encounter each other during a very innocent time for our continent – at the turn of the 19th and 20th century.

Pawel Huelle: You probably know this term – Czesław Miłosz used it frequently, although it wasn’t he who coined it – la belle epoque, that is 'the beautiful era'. This belle epoque is associated with old postcards, on which fascinating cars, developing cities, the Secession could be seen – it looked similar in Warsaw, Prague, Vienna. And of course wonderful feminine hats. It was an era, where women didn’t go out, if they weren’t beautifully dressed. The gowns had to be wonderfully, appropriately ornamented. It is worth remembering that during la belle epoque people were optimistic, they thought that the 20th century would bring freedom, equality, justice, and that technology and medicine would solve all problems. It turned out that the 20th century was the most horrible bloody time and a time of dictatorship. But there are people who have forebodings and Castorp has forebodings, although he cannot tell what the catastrophe will be. He feels the darkness coming over Europe. Sensitive people have such forebodings. It is also a book about a person, who predicts a less optimistic vision of the future. We live also at the turn of the century. It should be noticed, that when communism ended, the Berlin Wall collapsed, Fukuyama wrote a book about the end of history, in which he predicted, that the free market and democracy will be everywhere; slowly creeping happiness. He have Iraq and we will have thousands more problems. Knock on wood, maybe not in Poland, but all over the world. And this is a book about that too: that you shouldn’t be an exaggerated optimist. One should be happy, entertain oneself and love, but one shouldn’t be so confident of the future.

The Times:

Huelle is a Polish writer from Gdansk, and this is a meditation on his family’s history and the history of their country. In the early 1990s, after the end of communism, the narrator is taking driving lessons. While he negotiates the hair-raising Gdansk traffic, he tells his teacher about his father, his grandparents, and their ownership of Mercedes- Benz cars. Illustrated with personal photographs, the book revisits the lost, prewar Poland and Huelle ponders his nation’s uncertain future. Quirky, thoughtful and often poetic, it opens a subjective and fascinating window on to the recent past.