Psychiatria w ogrodzie (Jarosława Fazana „Od metafory do urojenia. Próba patografii Tadeusza Peipera”)

The presentation constitutes an exhaustive review of Jarosław Fazan’s book devoted to the writings of Tadeusz Peiper. Andrzej Leder puts forth a hypothesis that Jarosław Fazan’s innovativeness consists above all in an attempt to present the literary output “marked by psychosis” as a trace of mutually superimposed sum total of various conditions, permitting a reconstruction of a very special position of the writing subject. At the same time it is with this innovative concept that the most controversial moments are associated. To put it simply, they are the outcome of the role which the language of psychiatry plays in the work. This language and way of thinking associated with it, which is deeply rooted in the modernist project – and even according to Foucault’s diagnosis, funding this project in the “humanistic” or “existential” version, does not favor an avant-garde critical deconstruction of ultra-modern subjectivity. The entirety of the review constitutes a systematic discussion of the successive parts of Jarosław Fazan’s book and an attempt to prove the above-mentioned hypothesis. The author of the review underscores with recognition a subtle and careful analysis of the writings whose effect is a dissertation about the “pope of the avant-garde”. At the same time, in many places the author enters into a debate with Jarosław Fazan, concerning issues that are important for contemporary humanist studies, such as an evaluation of a modernist project as a whole, or the place of psychoanalytical theory in the interpretation of a literary work.