Rescued Music and Music which Rescues. About Wiesław Myśliwski’s Treatise on Shelling Beans

The article focuses on the interpretation of the last novel written by Wiesław Myśliwski: Treatise on Shelling Beans (Traktat o łuskaniu fasoli). The author presents a biography of the hero – a musician and homo viator. The novel describes his life and its connections with Polish history in the 20th century. Above all, it presents reflections on the role of music in culture after World War II. In his Treatise on Shelling Beans Myśliwski performs anti-logocentric turn – music is created as a sphere of art which has a/the power of salvation: it could save a human life from destruction and could stop the destruction of rudimental senses which formed European culture.