Western readers will notice something peculiar about the stern and impressive Stefan Chwin’s latest novel and other works of fiction from this part of the world: the unashamed name dropping. I mean brand names.

starannie ogolony i spryskany O… S…
carefully shaven and sprayed in O… S…
W supermarkecie A…
In A… supermarket
niczym dostawca wody mineralnej V…, innym razem wbiega? w szarym, postrz?pionym swetrze od H…-M…
like a V… mineral water distributor, another time he ran in in a ragged, grey H…-M… sweater

It’s hard to know what is going on here. Is Chwin entirely innocent of the wiles of advertising and marketing? Poland is new to that whole ball game and there is a gear and gadgets magazine on sale here proudly flying in Naomi Klein’s face called Logo. It is hard to imagine a serious western writer (and Chwin is a serious writer) taking the same pains as Chwin does to name the (random, anonymous, entirely incidental to the plot) fast food restaurant used by the protagonist.

Another passage suggests he is being ironic:

Trzej kr�lowie o imionach G…, K… i L…
The three wise men G…, K… and L…

But it is the only one that I have been able to find that suggests any criticism of or disillusionment with brandname led consumerism. A third possibility suggests itself. There are characters in the novel obviously (a little too obviously) based on real people. Perhaps the book is a response to fellow Gdansk man Pawe? Huelle’s novella M… B… (M… B…). (Hint: it’s about cars.) Chwin’s novel is entitled Z… P… (The G… P…) and is the brandname of a pen.