Swimming in the Dark- Tomasz Jedrowski
By Hannah Johnson
“I adored this book more than you knew,” it read there in your stocky, right-leaning script. “I wanted to keep it…but it’s yours. Bring it back one day if you can. I’ll be here. J.”
Swimming in the Dark is a dazzling debut from Polish writer Tomasz Jedrowski, diving into heartbreak, intimacy, tenderness and uncertainty, in a nation crumbled by political instability. Set in early 1980s Poland amid a decline in Communism, two young men fall in love, though the differing politics of a broken nation begin to tear them apart.
A political and social commentary outside of the United States, as well as a love story, Jedrowski examines a feeling as natural as love amidst wavering, harsh, and fragile social ideas and expectations. The protagonist, Ludwik, meets Janusz at a summer camp, where their romance begins to blossom. Later, they get away to the countryside for a while, in privacy where love can be free. In nature, there’s freedom from society’s eyes and maybe for a moment, things seem like they can be okay. They’re able to connect strongly over a copy of Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, another LGBTQ+ story. Jedrowski is able to set up a language through literature, to tell a story in a unique context with another. If there are no words out loud that can be spoken of love, aren’t there always books there to tell their stories, to bring others together? Their love exists in secrecy as well as among political divide, but the burden from society weighs heavy.
In society, Janusz rises in the ranks while Ludwik can’t ignore the crumbling world around him. The suffering is all encompassing in this society, how people suffer amid the chaos and how that permeates into the lives of the people. How does society cope and change as the uncertainty grows? What does one do with fear, or with anger? Jedrowski examines what suffering looks like for Ludwik in his view of society, against a popular member of society, Janusz. Ludwik isn’t compelled to stay quiet, to be swallowed up by society as is. This society has its own methods of silencing in regard to homosexuality, Jedrowski including elements of the church and the state with religion becoming a factor as well. Jedrowski asks how and if a love of two different stories can survive amidst this massive, all imposing being of politics and society as a whole. In such a broken society, how are hearts bound to break?
“We’re just queuing for a possibility, queuing for something, maybe queuing for nothing,” she said, smiling her sad and loving smile. “But it will pass, my dear. Even the longest queue dissolves eventually.”
Jedrowski’s writing is tender and artful, with incredibly beautiful language, flow and tone leaving the reader hanging on and the heart aching with every word. The heart bleeds and soars for the story and its characters, its immeasurable joy and painful conflicts taking one beyond the pages and enveloping the reader entirely.
