Existence (or Bio-graphy). Review of “Universal Promiscuity” [Powszechna rozwiązłość] by Michał Paweł Markowski

Abstract

The full title of Michał Paweł Markowski’s book includes four elements: Universal Promiscuity. Schulz, Existence, Literature. Also the list of contents has four segments. The term “existence,” used both in the title and in the list of contents, reveals the author’s emphasis. Markowski remembers Walter Benjamin’s dream of writing a book made exclusively of quotations and uses a similar method. His point is to show a close connection between the “key idea of Schulz’s world” and “Schulz’s language.” Markowski claims, “The present book is about Schulz and about his own existence inscribed in literature which has become an existence of the second degree.” By “bio-graphy” he understands “existential analysis” and in this respect his book is about “Schulz as a philosopher” and the “philosophy of Schulz.” The composition of the book corresponds to its title – it includes a large number of mostly very short chapters of which the reader has not been informed in advance. That is why the present review contains a necessary supplement.