The fridge of love, ten piastres of hope, or a brief gloss to “Piotruś” [Little Peter]

Abstract

The starting point for the article is the fact that Leo Lipski’s literary works are evidently
rooted in the anal-faecal universe. This aspect of the writer’s oeuvre can be relatively easily
analyzed from a psychoanalytical perspective, which has traditionally linked the anal with
sadomasochism. However, synchronously the author of the article demonstrates that: (1) the anal-faecal is related to memory, (2) the references to the anal-faecal are partly counterbalanced by the references to the oral, to the pleasure of eating and conditional release, which is provided by the narration itself and serves partly to downplay the overburdening resulting from traumatic memory. Analyzing the short novel Piotruś [Little Peter] in terms of the relations between the faecal, the realm of eating and the art of storytelling, the author attempts to highlight the brighter segments of Lipski’s dark masterpiece, which may suggest a paradoxical victory, if not of the main character, at least of the author of the novel.