Научная статья на тему 'Postmodern characteristics in Paul Auster’s fiction'

Postmodern characteristics in Paul Auster’s fiction Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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Ключевые слова
П. ОСТЕР / ПОСТМОДЕРНИСТСКОЕ ПОВЕСТВОВАНИЕ / ТРИЛОГИЯ / МОДЕРНИЗМ / МЕТАПРОЗА / P. AUSTER / POSTMODERN NARRATIVE / TRILOGY / MODERNISM / METAFICTION

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Huseynli Gila Mehdi

This article is dedicated to the analyses of the narration of Paul Auster’s postmodern novel “The New York Trilogy”. First of all, general and theoretical principles of the classical, modernist and postmodernist narration are presented in the current scientific paper. Since P. Auster is the representative of American postmodernist literature, his trilogy is being analyzed in comparison with the modernist trilogy of famous Irish writer S. Beckett. One of the fundamental elements of postmodern narration metafiction is examined in the writer's work “The New York Trilogy”.

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Текст научной работы на тему «Postmodern characteristics in Paul Auster’s fiction»

Гусейнли Гиля Мехти кызы

ПОСТМОДЕРНИСТСКАЯ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКА ТВОРЧЕСТВА ПОЛА ОСТЕРА

Данная статья посвящена анализу повествования романа Пола Остера "Нью-Йоркская трилогия". Прежде всего, в этой научной работе представлены общие и теоретические принципы классического, модернистского и постмодернистского повествования. Так как П. Остер является представителем американской постмодернистской литературы, его трилогия сравнивается с модернистской трилогией известного ирландского писателя С. Беккета. Один из самых основных элементов постмодернистского повествования - метапроза - анализируется в произведении писателя "Нью-Йоркская трилогия". Адрес статьи: отм^.агат^а.пе^т^епа^^СИУ/ЕМ/в.^т!

Источник

Филологические науки. Вопросы теории и практики

Тамбов: Грамота, 2017. № 9(75): в 2-х ч. Ч. 1. C. 36-39. ISSN 1997-2911.

Адрес журнала: www.gramota.net/editions/2.html

Содержание данного номера журнала: www .gramota.net/mate rials/2/2017/9-1/

© Издательство "Грамота"

Информация о возможности публикации статей в журнале размещена на Интернет сайте издательства: www.aramota.net Вопросы, связанные с публикациями научных материалов, редакция просит направлять на адрес: phil@aramota.net

8. Ершов Л. Искусство реалистического эпоса. М. Шолохов и Л. Толстой // Звезда. 1966. № 5. С. 195-199.

9. Кирпотин В. «Тихий Дон» Михаила Шолохова // Красная новь. 1941. № 1. С. 173-200.

10. Колесникова Г. «Тихий Дон» // Октябрь. 1933. № 2. С. 223-224.

11. Лежнев А. «Тихий Дон» Михаила Шолохова // Прожектор. 1928. № 50. С. 18-19.

12. Машбиц-Веров И. Михаил Шолохов // Новый мир. 1928. № 10. С. 234-235.

13. Мотылев И. Рецензия на роман «Тихий Дон» // Книга и профсоюзы. 1928. № 9. С. 32-35.

LITERARY CRITICISM OF THE 1930S ON L. N. TOLSTOY'S TRADITION IN "QUIETLY FLOWS THE DON" BY MIKHAIL SHOLOKHOV

Vishnyakova Ekaterina Andreevna

А. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature, Moscow ekaterinav91@mail. ru

The article considers the continuity between L. N. Tolstoy and M. A. Sholokhov which is examined by literary critics of the 1930s. The paper raises the problem of M. A. Sholokhov's creative borrowing of story elements, techniques to create characters' psychological portrait from L. N. Tolstoy. Literary criticism of the 1930s proposes that M. A. Sholokhov creatively reinterpreted some of L. N. Tolstoy's artistic devices, and so "Quietly Flows the Don" appears - a unique in its artistic power literary work.

Key words and phrases: "Quietly Flows the Don"; M. A. Sholokhov; L. N. Tolstoy; continuity; literary criticism of the 1930s.

УДК 8; 82.0

This article is dedicated to the analyses of the narration of Paul Auster 's postmodern novel "The New York Trilogy". First of all, general and theoretical principles of the classical, modernist and postmodernist narration are presented in the current scientific paper. Since P. Auster is the representative of American postmodernist literature, his trilogy is being analyzed in comparison with the modernist trilogy offamous Irish writer S. Beckett. One of the fundamental elements of postmodern narration - metafiction - is examined in the writer's work - "The New York Trilogy ".

Key words and phrases: P. Auster; postmodern narrative; trilogy; modernism; metafiction.

Huseynli Gila Mehdi

Azerbaijan University of Languages, Baku huseynli_ing@mail. ru

POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS IN PAUL AUSTER'S FICTION

Paul Benjamin Auster is an author having a unique voice in modern American Literature. In many ways, he is one of the artisans determining the major development direction of modern literary and artistic process in public literary speculation. The most important feature of the author's oeuvre is connected with his skillfulness in many different types of art, as well as his attempt to combine all of them synthetically: he was a poet and writer, playwright and screenwriter and acted as an interpreter - tried his pen in all the areas mentioned above and gained some relevant achievement. Owing to his versatility, different artistic styles and techniques are observed in the works of Paul Auster and moreover, the universality of the author's individual style consequently led to the formation of a postmodernist writer. Due to this universality, the literary heritage of Paul Auster draws attention with his being able to portray the most urgent, the most radical and painful problems of American reality, as well as with the diversity and variability of his ways of expression.

P. Auster's attitude to the modernist tradition differs sharply from the perspective of the other postmodernist writers towards their predecessors. As a matter of fact, "everything in everything" that seeks to embody the whole world, forms the basis of relationship of the art towards the reality. Modernists had repudiated from this principle -defining the context of the art since Aristotle's period and had divided them into the components to emphasize "everything"; as it is well known, the aesthetics of the classical art requires not only the unity of the literary work but also, its component parts and only in cases of following this principle, the assumption of providing unity was made: all the elements of the artistic work with obeying inevitably to the centrifugal forces are able to provide the unification of the structures [4, p. 1]. Modernist artists do not deviate from presenting "the intact" in an odd mode and in this way they were trying to prove "the intact" being away from the maturity or organic unity. This feature demonstrates itself distinctly in the art exhibits that generated on the basis of Cubist, Dadaist or Surrealist concepts. Characters in a literary text exist through narration, but in postmodern literature, mimesis is toned down, and their narratives are often fragmented, contradictory and challenge the readers' ability to perceive the characters as personae. Having faced the necessity of analyzing the principles critically - as catching up with the modernist predecessors' heritage and with their embodiment of the principles of reality, P. Auster strives to gather the pieces of the literary "intact" in his creativity and uniting them under the laws of the post-modernist poetics. To carry out this difficult mission P. Auster considers "intertextuality" the most effective and efficient means in postmodern criticism, that is

to say, for restoring the lost integrity the writer attempts to bring together the notions, which were created by the art throughout the history. However, it is also true that the author essentially does not use all the available resources at the same level; American writer treats warmly to the modernist sources, takes advantage of them directly and uses all relevant details. However, his appeal to the classical resources is alike in somehow in the mode of filtered through the modernist machine and presented in the edited version. Therefore, P. Auster's postmodernism in American literature is the modernism having been "modernized again" according to the postmodern principles; the modernism adapted to the requirements of the late 20th and early 21st century literary styles.

Obviously, the theorists of postmodernism justify all of them - literary and artistic concepts established in previous periods (such as romanticism, realism, modernism, popular literature and so on) and even various fields of human thought (as philosophy, sociology, political science, aesthetics, psychology or psychoanalysis, etc.) colorful, in terms of style of expression, but also semantically incompatible with each other, besides without changing the texts of the different facets (this is basically due to the refusal of any editing work of postmodernist poetics), speculating from the provisions of this theory the artists, in the process of consolidating their resources taken from various sources, do not seek their organic unity, refuse to misappropriate "the centrifugal" texts and express their opinions by means of post-modern irony. The researchers of postmodernism ascribe such an eclectic approach starting from the post-modernist text or the style of embodiment to the content of the literary work and explain this with the clarification of all the creative methods of postmodernism towards their means of expressions. Starting out from such colorful, different oriented principles of poetics P. Auster elucidates it with a lack of any hierarchical order within literary and artistic samples which are the manifestation of human life: the elements making up the reality of his thought are equally possible and have the same value. Auster experiments with form and narration of the novel, creating compound, multi-layered or polyphonic narrative structures with complex characters. Such novels reflect his special relation to reality - either by fictionizing it in an alternative way or by criticizing it and making it cruel or shocking. In terms of hybridity, the mixture of different narrative approaches, techniques and voices, and also of different genres can often be found in Auster's novels [8, p. 3]. P. Auster, performing from the non-hierarchical assumption of Holland scientist named D. Fokkema repudiates from the purposeful choice of the linguistic and other narrative elements in his literary work. Therefore, it leads to the refusal of readers having interpretted the text according to any objective laws suggested by P. Auster. The principles of narrative fiction which P. Auster displays in his works, in most ways reflect fundamental provisions of postmodernism, in some cases are distinguished by their originality. P. Auster's novel "The New York Trilogy" with its being leading work of postmodernist aesthetics is more typical for the analysis of post-modernist poetics.

According to some experts American post-modernist writer P. Auster has written this novel on the basis of the motives and effect of Samuel Beckett's trilogy of the novels "Molloy", "Malone Dies" and "The Unnamable". Therefore, P. Auster's novel is not more than the reference to the trilogy of the Irish artist written in the first half of the last century, as well as the most influential postmodernist citation. P. Auster tries to misappropriate postmodernism both in shape and context of S. Beckett, who in his turn strives for taking possession of modernism.

P. Auster does not deviate from portraying the existing details of the different types of art in the novel of S. Beckett directly, he inflicts no formal or semantic changes, almost restating them at the level of plagiarism. Additionally, in the introduction of the modernist writer's novel, a nude man is depicted who is isolated from the entire world, sitting in an empty room and busy with constant writing. He was born to carry out one mission only: he has to write in a continuous manner. As with other types of art, in the art of fiction as well the author's essential duty is to embody human being as a physical and spiritual creature; just in this case, it is possible to portray him/her in all his/her complexity and contradictions as well as to reveal colorful manifestations of his/her nature. However, proceeding from the principles of modernist poetics, S. Beckett's "hero" is reduced to merely one feature - writing. That is to say, here the writing process is represented not as a symbol of contacting to the world or communicating but as a symbol of severing all ties and relations. Just like the protagonist of S. Beckett, the hero of P. Auster Daniel Quinn (from "The New York Trilogy") also writes day and night. He is also busy with writing, but with literary writing. As the protagonist in Beckett's Molloy Quinn has lost his man image, all his fortune and was deprived of his apartment. Yet, both Beckett and Auster's speech or writing, words and letters are needed as a sign of the boundary (including social), as well as the opportunity to go over the border [1, para. 8]. The comparison of Irish and American artists' works discloses two poetic systems, including the difference between two narrative methods; in modernist writer's novel the hero is awarded according to the absurd nature of dreaming, though P. Auster's hero does not get any prize for his writings.

Since, the narration in the trilogy of S. Beckett awakes owing to the delusions or constant pronounced voices and words of the deprived of all human qualities, moribund character, and the hero of P. Auster complies with the principles of narrative - the concept of written speech that is adequate to the artistic expression of the postmodern way of thinking.

In this respect, when it is compared, the modernism of S. Beckett, the post-modernism of P. Auster take the same stance on the interpretation of human existence, i.e., in terms of the main ideas - both novels are quite close to each other. However, in terms of the embodiment of this idea, the writers utilized different artistic methods, which are quite opposite to each other. These peculiarities result in referring the modernist and postmodernist artists to two distinct narrative principles. In the art of literary and artistic expression the narration of Beckett on the one hand expresses the peak of the artistic expression style, on the other hand denotes the end, in future implies no point in having a perspective on development; actually, his "anti-narrative" literary style is characterized with the fragmentation and disintegration of the syntactic relationships as well as with the disappearance or the violation of cause-and-effect relationships.

Obviously, P. Auster repudiates from the extreme points of modernist style based on "the delirium" poetics by S. Beckett, transforms it into the comprehensible postmodernist narrative language and the reader is actively involved in the communication process, besides the writer widely uses traditional methods of the classical realism. Moreover, having mastered the poetics of modernism, but being post-modernist P. Auster principally rejects the adherence to truth and using all the poetical opportunities of post-modernist narration emphasizes this artificiality and tries to draw our attention. For instance, in this novel the writer utilizes one of the key elements of the postmodernist work and very skillfully practices basic designs implying that it is fake metafiction: the author of the novel is presented as a hero of the novel; to enter into dialogue with the author of the hero, hinting to him; to write another novel inside the novel or turning this reading to an event and so on [5, p. 268].

P. Auster expresses his artistic philosophy, principles and ideology just with the preliminary sentences of "New York Trilogy": "It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. Much later when he was able to think about the things that happened to him he would conclude that nothing was real except chance. But that was much later. In the beginning there was simply the event and its consequences. Whether it might have turned out differently, or whether it was all predetermined with the first word that came from the stranger's mouth, is not the question. The question is the story itself, and whether or not it means something is not for the story to tell" [3, p. 3].

Now in this introduction of "New York Trilogy" from the angle of vision set, a number of rooted problems of P. Auster's literary heritage find their incarnation. It is likely to cause the creation of chaos in the thinking style of narrator, the sayings of a man who got wrong with the address; thresholds are breached among the past, present, and future, the cause transmits into the result, and the result turns into the cause as well, on the one hand they are introduced as absolutely tiny items with having not of great importance, on the other hand, it is presented as the context of the events demolishing all thinking modes of the narrator.

The author depicts a method already used in modernist narration - a variety of events, and emphasizes the possibility of development in the opposite direction. Additionally, P. Auster states that the author has no responsibility for the flow of happenings in accordance with the principles of postmodernist poetics: unlike the divine status reflected in the classic realist fiction, the author in the post-modernist work is one of the ordinary players on the background of the story: this author does not have accurate information about the causes of the events and does not bear any responsibility in relation with the way in which the events will take place.

P. Auster in his story for understanding the reality especially the truth about human nature has practiced successfully the iceberg technic of one of the towering figures of the 20th century literature, Ernest Miller Hemingway. However, P. Auster has not utilized the iceberg technic of his great predecessor directly; the writer used the mechanism according to his post-modern philosophy just practiced it as the metacitation. Yet, it should be noted that, whether E. Hemingway's "iceberg" - the metaphorical expression reflecting the poetics of "implication", including the top layer of the text is several times smaller than the inner part of the text, if between these layers there is an extremely intensive relations system and the layers are guided to clarify each other, in the narration of P. Auster, the relations between the two layers are extremely vulnerable, each layer actually exits on its own, semantically they are diffused and their artistic and aesthetic parameters, the events and objects of the reality are difficult to determine.

As can be seen, in his early career Paul Auster attempted to replicate the traditions of modernism; however, later formed a creative attitude to the artistic heritage of the world literature and was able to personalize it. Supposedly, having applied modern literary technics extensively, American artist was not entirely 'enslaved' by those technics, moreover, endeavored to defeat the limitedness and indifference specific to modernism. Therefore, the author succeeded in embedding the postmodern fiction with the painful existential problems of the last two centuries and introduced a new fiction mode to literary theory. The author in his later works continued to rely on the postmodernist narrative principle and attempted to distinguish its major regulations.

References

1. Бавильский Д. Моллой умер. Знаки препинания - 59. Пол Остер «Нью-Йоркская трилогия» («Эксмо», 2005) [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://www.topos.ru/article/3544 (дата обращения: 02.06.2017).

2. Auster P. The Art of Hunger: essays, prefaces, interviews; and, The Red Notebook. N. Y.: Penguin, 1993. 359 p.

3. Auster P. The New York Trilogy: novel. N. Y.: Penguin Books, 1990. 371 p.

4. Berge A. M. K. The Narrated Self and Characterization: Paul Auster's Literary Personae [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://ojs.ub.gu.se/ojs/index.php/njes/article/viewFile/273/270 (дата обращения: 06.06.2017).

5. £agda§ dunya adabiyyati. Elmi-kulturoloji publisistika, 2013 [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://elibrary.bsu.az/yenii/ kitabxana/1385540941. pdf (дата обращения: 03.06.2017).

6. Hudspeth J. R. Metafiction: Definition and Examples [Электронный ресурс] // Study.com. URL: http://study.com/ acade-my/lesson/metafiction-definition-examples.html (дата обращения: 03.06.2017).

7. International postmodernism: Theory and literary practice / H. Bertens, D. Fokkema (ed.). Amsterdam - Philadelphia: J. Benjamins publishing company, 1997. 585 p.

8. Kovacevic D. Postmodern Narrative strategies in Paul Auster's novels "Man in the dark" and "Invisible" [Электронный ресурс] // 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (May 5-7, 2011. Sarajevo). URL: http://eprints.ibu.edu.ba/50/1/FLTAL%202011%20Proceed%C4%B1ngs%20Book_1_p335-p341 .pdf (дата обращения: 06.06.2017).

9. Paul Auster (Bloom's modern critical views) / H. Bloom (ed.). Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publ., 2004. 254 p.

ПОСТМОДЕРНИСТСКАЯ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКА ТВОРЧЕСТВА ПОЛА ОСТЕРА

Гусейнли Гиля Мехти кызы

Азербайджанский университет языков, г. Баку hыseynliing@mail. гы

Данная статья посвящена анализу повествования романа Пола Остера «Нью-Йоркская трилогия». Прежде всего, в этой научной работе представлены общие и теоретические принципы классического, модернистского и постмодернистского повествования. Так как П. Остер является представителем американской постмодернистской литературы, его трилогия сравнивается с модернистской трилогией известного ирландского писателя С. Беккета. Один из самых основных элементов постмодернистского повествования - метапроза - анализируется в произведении писателя «Нью-Йоркская трилогия».

Ключевые слова и фразы: П. Остер; постмодернистское повествование; трилогия; модернизм; метапроза.

УДК 8; 821.161.1

В статье раскрывается своеобразие реализации темы любви в произведениях русских писателей второй половины ХХ века. Автор анализирует произведения «сорокалетних» (А. Проханов, А. Битов, В. Михальский), показывая в них специфику изображения любви-страсти, и сравнивает их с произведениями писателей «деревенской прозы», в частности с повестью В. Белова «Привычное дело», делая вывод о том, что только у последних любовь представлена как духовно-нравственное чувство.

Ключевые слова и фразы: А. Проханов; А. Битов; В. Михальский; В. Белов; «сорокалетние»; любовь; любовь-страсть.

Евдокимова Марина Петровна, к. филол. н.

Армавирский государственный педагогический университет evdokimova. т.р@таИ. гы

СВОЕОБРАЗИЕ РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ ТЕМЫ ЛЮБВИ В ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЯХ РУССКИХ ПИСАТЕЛЕЙ ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЫ ХХ ВЕКА (А. ПРОХАНОВ, А. БИТОВ, В. МИХАЛЬСКИЙ, В. БЕЛОВ)

Любовь в литературном произведении можно считать той сферой человеческих отношений, в которой наиболее полно раскрывается личность героя. В прозе А. Проханова преобладает любовь-страсть, главный герой чаще испытывает только физический интерес к женщине, воспринимая ее на внешне-телесном уровне.

Главный герой романа А. Проханова «Время полдень» - энергичный, деятельный столичный экономист Ковригин - является представителем новой профессии эпохи НТР - экономической прогностики. В процессе сюжетного развертывания Ковригин знакомится с молодым врачом Ольгой Кирилловной, их сводит совсем неромантическая ситуация - болезнь героя. Чувство, возникшее между ними, прозаик стремится изобразить в ореоле бурно развивающейся НТР и торжества машинной эстетики. Так, объяснение Ковригина и Ольги происходит в электрическом поле высоковольтной линии, как бы освещающей их будущую совместную жизнь. Этот эпизод многие критики воспринимают как пародию. Хочется возразить и отметить, что чувства пожилого, страдающего сердечными приступами Ковригина к юной красавице Ольге поданы в свете теории о единстве человека, природы и техники: нет старости и юности, а есть только продолжение, бесконечное развитие, означающее бессмертие всего сущего.

Но есть в романе и эпизод, когда это триединство на время нарушается: «Ковригин и Ольга вышли, утонув по колено в стеблях. Дверца захлопнулась, зацепив красный цветок. Вертолет взмыл, исчезая, унося цветок в поднебесье» [5, с. 104]. С этим вертолетом исчезает техника, остается только природа и человек, и герои погружаются в мир настоящей природы. Они находятся в деревенской избе, которой чужда современная техника. А. Проханов обращается к традициям русского фольклора, отдаляя своих героев от цивилизации. Эти страницы романа пронизаны нежностью и лиризмом. Подобно представителям «деревенской прозы», писатель запечатлел крестьянский быт, но вот только нет в романе А. Проханова той сыновней любви к «малой родине», которая присутствует в произведениях В. Распутина, В. Белова, Ф. Абрамова, В. Астафьева. Следующий пассаж это со всей очевидностью подтверждает: «Среди людей, с которыми приятно. Есть о чем поговорить. А то одичал по избам-то...» [Там же, с. 181], - произносит прохановский герой. Думается, что приведенная нами цитата не требует комментариев.

Человек, всю жизнь проживший бок о бок с техникой, не может долго находиться среди природы. И Ольга с Ковригиным возвращаются в благоустроенную квартиру, где современная техника проникает в домашний быт, который становится предметом ее приложения. Взаимоотношения этих людей являются основной сюжетной линией романа.

Ольга предана своей работе, которая обязывает помогать людям, считает своим долгом посвятить жизнь пациентам, но, как и любая женщина, хочет, чтобы заботились и о ней. Она искренне любит Ковригина и пытается ему помочь. В романе Ольга как раз и является выразителем любви как духовно-нравственного чувства.

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