„BABBLE, BABEL AND BABYLON“ OF JÁCHYM TOPOL Cover Image

„BLÁBOL, BÁBEL A BABYLÓN“ JÁCHYMA TOPOLA
„BABBLE, BABEL AND BABYLON“ OF JÁCHYM TOPOL

Author(s): Sergej S. Skorvid
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci

Summary/Abstract: This article tries to show how has Jáchym Topol’s manner of writing changed since he published his first novel Sister (1994), representing a kind of text, which was quite properly described by S. Čmejrková in the collective monograph The Czech Language at the turn of Millenium (1997) as „spontaneous, exalted, intermittent discourse of the narrator“ with such characteristic feature of modern literature as mixture of languages. The author himself called this text type metaphorically „babble, babel and babylon“. In his latest book entitled Through the Could Country (2009), however, there are no macaronic utterances, the author confines himself to using only few signal words or sentences being quotations from other languages (Russian, Belarusian, Slovak, German, English) in order to indicate their presence in the area of the novel and in the dialogues between the characters involved in its action. Topol’s „babylon“ is not manifested in language any longer, but it is still displayed in his vision of Europe, so various, but interconnected.

  • Issue Year: 2/2010
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 132-139
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: Czech