Author: Piotr Huniewicz. Source: www.informer.bajo.pl. Date of publication: 2002.

The long-awaited fifth volume of Ryszard Kapuściński’s notes was a certain bestseller of November. No wonder — it is the first book since Heban, published in 1999, and the original form Kapuściński created places his achievement among the finest accomplishments of Polish writing in recent decades.

Lapidarium I was first published by Czytelnik in 1990. Since then successive parts of the cycle have gained a constantly growing crowd of admirers and enthusiasts. One might have thought that penetrating and critical observation of the world, cautious diagnoses that are usually pessimistic, would make Lapidarium a book for a narrow group of readers. Most of the notes in this volume concentrate on the problems of globalisation, multiculturalism, and various aspects of contemporary development and culture, including ethical and moral problems. Yet Kapuściński’s voice is not the voice of an enlightened European or a self-assured American. It is telling that Kapuściński devoted only a fragment to the attack on America of 11 September. His is the voice of a man who made the peripheries of the world his intellectual centre, and from that perspective looks at the great and small matters of this world. Kapuściński critically evaluates claims about the beneficial or at least positive influence of globalisation. The problem is above all the growing estrangement of people: despite advances in communications and connectivity, our mutual acquaintance — contrary to widespread myths — is still superficial, and most often none at all. (…) we do not live in a global village, but rather in a global metropolis, a global station or railway terminus, through which surges a “lonely crowd” (…) of neurotic people who do not want to know or come close to one another. Globalisation thus becomes a problem not only economic but also spiritual, accompanied by various ethical dilemmas.

One gains an irresistible impression that Kapuściński feels ill at ease among the world’s major centres. The peripheries of the world draw me — we read — the climate of the peripheries, the time that passes there slowly, torpidly, the lazy and drowsy atmosphere, the empty little streets, the motionless faces looking out through small windows, through half-drawn curtains. In this context one of the most essential elements of Ryszard Kapuściński’s writing is the discovery of the — obvious, after all — truth about the world’s diversity. Behind the banality of that observation he reveals what a great problem of the twentieth century the human mind’s dogmatism was. Ryszard Kapuściński “wins” the battle for the reader, for his concentration and attention, because at no moment does he try to court him, is not driven by a desire to lecture. If we find didacticism here, it will be a didacticism encouraging the development of a spirit that does not submit to the dictatorship of obscurantists. If we find faith here, it is certainly not faith in what is convenient.

Lapidarium V is also frequently philosophical reflection, conclusions from reading, or intimate confessions. After years of travelling the world, my ideal has become a monastic cell. Bare walls, a door, a window, a bed, a table, a few books, paper, a pencil. (…) Every day matters, every hour. I feel how time rushes me, I feel its pressure. (…) Constant pangs of conscience over lost moments. Kapuściński is everywhere accompanied by this awareness. Be an aristocrat in your thinking — he says.

Ryszard Kapuściński, Lapidarium V, Czytelnik, Warsaw 2002, p. 128, ISBN 83-07-02905-8

source: kapuscinski.info