Skaz Rulz: (Re-)Oralisation of Contemporary British Fiction
Skaz Rulz: (Re-)Oralisation of Contemporary British Fiction

Summary/Abstract: Taking as its starting point the Russian Formalist concept of skaz, this paper discusses a number of contemporary British novels in which the illusion of spontaneous speech is created. It analyses basic textual signals of the skaz: the narrator’s idiosyncratic style, frequent addresses to the “you” of the addressee and a highly digressive narrative structure. The skaz mode proves to be a narrative strategy which cannot be associated with a particular literary convention: its popularity should rather be related to the tendencies in contemporary culture indicative of its general re-oralisation.

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