Momo jako powieść socjologiczna (rekonesans)

Abstract

Michael Ende’s novel (abbreviated here as Momo) could be considered a literary philosophical tractate on the subject of time and person in relational terms. The relationality and perception of the work as a “record of the experience of time” (as we would say, following Andrzej Stoff) also allow us to read the work as a sociological novel. The writer introduces the heroine, who becomes the activist of social changes, “out of nowhere” to the socio-architectural space of a city with an ancient origin. She becomes a time-use instructor and interpersonal connector, striving for balanced social relationships. In the novel, she acts as an antagonist of the so-called Men in Gray as non-human beings whose plan of action includes destruction and social atrophy. In the novel, we observe social behavior mechanisms founded on personal exclusions and inclusions. In the story, the conditions of social life change many times. At the same time, the prose structure includes survey, intervention, and repair “programs”. Intersecting surfaces and anthropocentric (Momo and city dwellers) and non-anthropocentric ideas (e.g., the organization of the Men in Gray) create in Ende’s narrative a field of conflict in the presented world, which is characterized by reversible apocalypticity. The writer treats storytelling and listening as social activities that produce and foster community. Momo is characterized by a special audiophilia, as well as ethics of simplicity (as we would say, following Józef Bańka). Listening becomes the second pole of telling the story as an epistemological and affective- psychological practice. The story is complex and multileveled in the structure of the novel. In the finale, the whole narrative is attributed to the narrator (a random passenger who could be identified with Master Hora). Inside the novel, separate stories can be isolated (e.g., scenarios of children’s group games in the ruins of the amphitheater, explanations of Master Hora, coherent fairy-tale worlds created by a young fantast named Gigi). Similarly, features of fairy tales and myths as elements of social communication are included in the structure of the work. Ende’s narrative has an ironic potential. Society, (self)managed by extreme decisions, is guided by radically perceived principles of productivity and usefulness, not only in relation to various economic sectors but also towards human capital (especially towards children). Indirectly, Ende creates a register of social values implemented in time, especially in “now” – meeting, conversation, kindness, care, sharing joy and sadness, and, in the existential plan, even consent to life and death in their biological and social dimensions. The writer also appreciates the simplest and most basic manifestations of social contact, important in the cultural phylogenesis of the youngest: the story and its oral character, dexterity, and simple objects associated with it, direct contact (associated with dialogue, touch, joint action).