My journey on 38 […] approved by a lot of fascinating cities into the London you to definitely retrospection try because the evident because the unavoidable. […] Angel Islington towards wonders off Top Path and you can my personal memories of your own Polish chapel with the Devonia Road; following Holborn, on direct location of which were my foremost towns and cities out-of work; Tottenham Legal Roadway towards the sculpture off Freddy Mercury and therefore to help you tourist are more substantial attraction than the rocketed skyscraper out of Centre Area, in accordance with a perspective so you can Oxford Path that we got walked up-and-down countless times in search of certain sounds records; Western Avoid into congested Piccadilly Circus lighted because of the advertising; Hyde Park, and then eventually my destination, Victoria Station, in which everything first started, and you can in which everything were to stop. (284)
Sitting about mentor that is planning to happen your domestic, Tomasz realises ‘just how great faltering my stay-in London has turned out become.
What’s even worse, We realised brand new pointless machine away from my expose lifetime once i is actually leaving The united kingdomt having absolutely nothing and you will back once again to Poland – so you can about nothing’ (285)
In a manner, so it sense echoes the fresh new down public versatility of Windrush generation, nevertheless nevertheless offers the latest expect an urgent spin out-of destiny. The narrator out of ‘Hard Londing’ investigates the nice English terraced houses on the homebound shuttle with a past believe into his mind: ‘I will buy including property one day’ (Jakubowski 199). Tomasz Plachta, the fresh eponymous sociopath off Koziarski’s novel, disembarks regarding coach in the eleventh hour as he was informed one a beneficial screenplay he previously written having a pal has been approved by the an uk Tv station. The final terminology off their story was: ‘[N]ews from my demise turned out premature’ (Koziarski 287). Therefore, although the two messages avoid with amazingly comparable scenes – male protagonists sitting into the a mentor to help you Poland and you may musing more than its failure – he is suffused with stubbornness in addition to optimistic expectation out-of ideal minutes.
‘The latest Promised Island’ (‘Wyspa obiecana’) into the Jacek Ozaist’s London facts demonstrates comparably equivocal. Here, the audience is confronted by a great narrator just who, even after his experience with several overseas dialects, even after holding several school degrees and you will even after ages invested at the instructional institutions, cannot find work within the Poland. The guy hence unwillingly renders to your British Isles in which his first reaction to London area was a mixture of admiration and you may nonchalance:
Yet , in addition, new narrator’s fellow squatters, that have equipped their rooms smartly which have situations discarded because of the rich Londoners (42-3), have indicated how a new, comfortable lifestyle could be forged regarding nearby rubble
I’m not sure London in which he [i.elizabeth. London] does not see me. The two of us don’t need you to definitely. I’m too small to possess him, and you can he could be also gigantic personally. They are come right here forever, I have been here just for be naughty a few hours. There is absolutely no manner in which he’ll comply with me – I must value his usually. So, Learn, render me a lesson in daily life. Bring me a kick in the fresh new anus otherwise keep me to your center. (26)
The brand new ‘lesson’ of your own ‘Master’ actually is ambivalent, since Ozaist’s facts stays suspended ranging from failure and you may triumph. New narrator leads to a-squat in which the guy takes up good derelict, ill-smell space disregarding a rubbish pile. This can be a clear parallel on dustman-updates generated specific for the Bolec’s text message, which in Ozaist’s story is further emphasised by the protagonist training Robert McLiam Wilson’s Ripley Bogle (1989), the storyline out-of a beneficial abandoned son in London area (43).