„Tradycji musi się stać zadość…” – Siedem dalekich rejsów Leopolda Tyrmanda

Abstract

The perspectives I have proposed for analyzing Leopold Tyrmand’s hybrid novel Seven Distant Voyages are another attempt to interpret it, but also to understand why the author decided to publish it nearly twenty years after it had been written. I relate my concept of reading Tyrmand’s work to geopoetics, understood as a literary practice that makes it possible to study not only travel writing, essay writing or reportage, but also literary works as a whole using transdisciplinary methods. The seven installments, in which the protagonists take „seven distant voyages” to various locations in the coastal city of Darłowo, are attempts to make the right decisions, make sense of life, and finally choose the best path for the future. Descriptions of geographically oriented objects with topography, geology, flora, and fauna are not just staffage or decoration, but the geopoetic and geopolitical topography of the place. On the other hand, the musical element makes its presence known on various levels and intertwines all the most important dimensions of Tyrmand’s work: constant traveling, his beloved jazz music, and, above all, the autobiographical nature of his work. Looking at the novel’s narrative and its numerical „organization,” one can risk the thesis that the characters of Seven Distant Voyages take seven distant voyages in three days to various locations in Darłowo, and although they do not take part in spectacularly far-flung expeditions, they mentally cover enormous distances.