Kamil Kasperek

THE AMERICAN SUCCESS OF ANDRZEJ BRYCHT'S CHARACTERS FROM HIS EXPATRIATE FICTION

Summary

    The expatriate fiction of Andrzej Brycht, who at this time used the pen-name Andrew Bright, combines the devices of popular sensation literature and incisive cultural analysis; its plot invariably exploits formula of a Pole'a adventures in America. America awakens in the main character of a Brycht novel an acute sense of cultural difference. He is not able to accept the capitalist system of values based on the absolute priority of money. He opposes to it a sense of personal dignity and independence and a commitment to the ideals and friendship of his youth. Those characters in Brycht's fiction who succumb to the temptation and turm worshippers of the Americal idol Daal (a portmanteau word which welds the initial letter of the US currency with the Biblical Baal) are soon confronted with the disastrous consequences of their conversion (e.g. Sandra'a suicide).
    The American experience of Brycht's characters includes encounters with art. In this field, too, the Pole demonstrates his superiority over the materialist, soulless American. It is clear that the latter is unable to create great art; at best he can make a product that makes money. The Pole does not think that way. In consequence the American public does not understand his art, which adresses feelings and experiences that are beyond the scope of their narrow sensibilities. Moreover, it is only Brycht'a Polish characters that possess a natural ability of getting a contemplative insight into works of art. In this way art is made to rpovide an oblique commentary on the characters' experiences and thoughts.
    It cannot be denied that Brycht's cultural analysis is firmly embeddes in stereotypes. The Americans are dull materialists, which the Poles, by contrast, embody all that is noble and beautiful. Consequently, the American success of the Brycht hero is patterned into a spiritual victory over the materialist Western world. In the end the hero repudiates the fortune he made in America: he does don want to be tied down and have his freedom and integrity compromised.