The strange case of early Mock and the Classics

Abstract

For more than a decade now, Marek Krajewski is publishing crime novels, starring police officer Eberhard Mock. Although son of a shoe-maker, prole Mock went to high-school, even to university. In Wrocław between the wars, we see him remembering his classical texts, which he still reads in the original. He’s not the only police man in a crime novel to do so. In contemporary Venice, Commissario Brunetti, the protagonist of Donna Leon’s stories, regularly returns to classical texts, too. Good cop Brunetti, however, a calm and settled man, luckily married to a professor of English at Ca’ Foscari, differs much from bad cop Mock, a more agitated character, unremittingly aroused by red-haired prostitutes. Once, Mock studied classical languages and published academic papers in Latin. Now, we find him leading a dissolute life, spending more time in brothels than at home, and this not only for reasons of duty. Perhaps, his intense flash-backs make him behave so erratically? In fact, more often than not, Mock remembers his classical education suddenly, involuntarily, as if he is reminded of a trauma. On closer inspection, these at first sight arbitrary citations comment on the narrative, a process intelligible to Mock alone, who more and more imitates the life of a highly classical loner. Since monstrous anger and over-whelming sorrow are his driving forces, Mock mirrors a great Homeric hero, Achilles.