The project of Ferdydurke is an existential quest for a solution to the problem of form, a problem which is characterized from a variety of perspectives, but which refuses to yield anything but further problems, more intricate questions. While it is pleasant enough, in studying Gombrowicz, to recall Chekhov's famous distinction between "the solution of a question and the correct putting of a question," and his conclusion that "Only the last is required of the artist," Gombrowicz puts so many questions, and with such incredible abandon, that one is hard put to take consolation in the recollection of precedents. (pp. 284-85)

Gombrowicz's handling of the problem of form is in an older tradition, ultimately, I think, more satisfying than many more recent experimentalists want to concede…. Where one has every reason to suspect a writer like Robbe-Grillet of deliberately concealing meanings which even he would be unable to...