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The article deals with the main line of development in Jan Balabán’s prosaic works which can be called “from decline to hope”. It is, unwittingly, outlined in one of the author’s early short stories Kateřina Nováková: the story opens with the portrayal of an old man who is on the decline although he has never reached his peak; at the end a young couple heading towards new life and hope is depicted. The whole following author’s work develops in this direction – although this development is not merely linear. The author’s debut, a collection of short stories Středověk, is filled with the feelings of “decline”, however, glimmers of hope are also present. They grow stronger in his following books and we could say that this line of development culminates in his collection of short stories Jsme tady. The last Balabán’s novel Zeptej se táty can be considered as a view of one specific aspect of human hope.
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Nabokov’s The Real Life of Sebastian Knight presents the ambiguous identities of the two heroes, V. and Sebastian, attracting great attention among Nabokovian scholarship. The present article intends to reveal that Nabokov’s design of Sebastian and V. pertains to his own Gnostic faith and the ambiguous identities of V. and Sebastian, in light of certain Gnostic tenets and concepts, are the representation of their spiritual evolution and their merging spirits during their respective quest of “gnosis”. The article will show how the heroes as “aliens” break the shackles of “this world,” undo the chains of the heavy flesh, regain their spiritual identities of the inner selves, start the journey of spiritual evolution and self-revelation, and finally achieve the fusion of spirits in “the other world” by way of attaining “gnosis”.
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In the novel Seventh Autobiography, writer Ota Filip established a wide range of strategies for using quotes from archival documents from the State Security Archive. The writer attempted to respond to public accusations of his collaboration with agents of Czechoslovak military intelligence in the 1950s when he betrayed his colleagues who were planning to escape to West Germany. In the late nineties this scandal led to the writer’s son’s suicide and forced Filip to write his autobiographical novel to deal with the burden of guilt. By using this quotation strategy the writer was able to reassess past events from the perspective of his current position to follow his personal and artistic development and redefine his identity following this chain of traumatic experiences. Quotation also allows us to follow the gradual interlinking of individual autobiographical motifs in wider structures and to observe the relations functioning between them, which enable the autobiographical space of the writer’s literary work to be established. An important and simultaneous process in this context is the development of literary communication between the writer and the recipient of his novel. For the first one, this is an opportunity to share his personal experience and observe how it influences the process of dealing with the problematic past. The main goal of the article is to present the essential strategies for quoting from archival documents in the text of Seventh Autobiography. The author of the study particularly emphasizes the influence of quotation in the field of relations between the actual author of the literary text and the agents holding his security files in the past and the way the disproportion in accessibility of source material on the part of the recipient of the novel influences the process of literary communication. The final result of conducting analytical activities in these fields creates a broader picture of the writer’s methods for dealing with his experiences.
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This study analyses the chromotope of the suburb of Stínadla (“The Shades”), which plays a key role in the narrative organization of the cult “Stínadla” trilogy by Jaroslav Foglar, comprising his novels Záhada hlavolamu (Mystery of the Conundrum, 1941), Stínadla se bouří (The Shades in Revolt, 1947) and Tajemství velkého Vonta (Secret of the High Vont, 1986). The spacial structure of the trilogy’s text is divided into two spheres — the suburbs separated by a boundary, with their distinctive structure. By crossing this boundary the boys in the Rychlé šípy (“Rapid Arrows”) gang enter Stínadla, a labyrinthine chronotope with radically different rules, a dangerous unknown space where they lose their bearings and continually find themselves in danger. The labyrinthine topology of Stínadla impedes the gang and causes them to get lost. As they are escaping, Rychlé šípy come across transverse passageways between individual locations. The atmosphere is another stylistic and motif-based emanation of the Stínadla chronotope. The chronotope textually constructed in this manner helps to generate the mysterious adventure story: as by crossing the boundary and infiltrating the Vont community the protagonists find themselves encountering a space where they generate the events of an adventure story. Another emanation of this chronotope is the special caste of boys who inhabit this space — the Vonts, whose character is determined by the topography and architecture of this labyrinthine suburb. The Vonts’ organization is structured on the model of a secret society with sacralized rituals. The “hedgehog in a cage” conundrum as a talisman is a sacral object symbolizing power and safeguarding unity within Stínadla. It is a mysterious object, a quest object, which sets the story in motion, as well as an object with a market value (an invention). In the trilogy the Stínadla chronotope generates three analogous plots, each of which is a mystery story built on the structure of an investigation, a quest for a mysterious object and the revelation of a dark tale from the past, in each of which the motif of the tragic demise of a boy plays a role, together with the mystery of his death and the notes he wrote before his death. The demonic Stínadla even has a destructive effect upon the Rychlé šípy boys themselves, sowing discord amongst them and an atmosphere of suspicion. For example, this chronotope even generates a dark doppelgänger of the exemplary Mirek Dušín.
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In this text the emphasis is put on the representation of the individual and transtemporal identity in the novel “Hidden camera” by Lidija Dimkovska, originally published in Macedonia in 2004, and later translated into several languages. The novel sets its main character Lila Serafimska into different cultural backgrounds, and the characters evolves into nomadic subject, highly aware of the Other and Otherness. This results in Lila’s perception and understanding of the others not in static categories, but as fluxes whose identity is created in the relation of the I and the Other.
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Excerpt from the unpublished novel "Majka od kruha" by Siniša Vuković.
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Fragment from the novel "Sime sluga Sotonini sinova i sime sinova Sotonini sluga"
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On 1 July, 1926, Express Wieczorny Ilustrowany [The Illustrated Evening Express] began printing the episodic novel Białe niewolnice [White Female Slaves] by Jan Teodor Grzechota. Twelve days later, the newspaper published an article in which it informed that the printing of the novel was suspended, because the work turned out to be a plagiarism of a novel with the same title by the Scandinavian writer Elizabeth Schoyen. The Jan Teodor Grzechota pseudonym stood for a well-known Łódź-based poet – Mieczysław Braun (Aleksander Mieczysław Bronsztejn). The subject of the plagiarism was an extremely popular novel, whose numerous trans- lations appeared in Polish in separate book editions several times in the 1920s and 1930s. The popularity of the motif of human trafficking might have proved itself, as the motif was also used at that time by Polish and European cinematography and theatre. A careful analysis of both works shows that Brown copied the content of Shonyen’s novel almost exactly, i.e. the plot, the characters, and the details. The Polish writer added several initial episodes of the novel in order to set the plot in the reality of Lodz, which was one of the determinants of the poetics of the seg- mental novel. It is probable that the only punishment Braun suffered was public critique of his shameful act, since copyright regulations were not yet in place.
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This interview addresses, among other themes, the art of the short story writing, the construction of the action and of the characters, the impact of style on readers, the future of literature and books and Lambert’s last collection of short stories, Je me retournerai souvent (2020).
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Myths are symbolic narratives that date back to ancient times. These narratives undoubtedly have a very important place in understanding, recognizing, and interpreting people. Myth and Mythology have a strong connection with disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, literature, philosophy, and history of religions. Starting from the collective unconscious of Jung, Joseph Campbell, the founder of analytical psychology, aims to reveal the common aspects and similarities of myths. In this study, the journey of Anguilla, the hero of Cesare Pavese's novel La luna e i falò, will be examined in the context of the monomyth theory expressed by Joseph Campbell, who argues that all myths arise from a single myth and its variations.
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In the novel “The Mandarins”, Simone de Beauvoir shows the crisis of French intellectuals, namely writers facing ideological and political dilemmas after World War Two. Reflecting on the usefulness of their works, the main protagonists ask the fundamental question, namely why / for what to write and act. In the writer’s optics, two solutions are possible. On the one hand, the commitment, and the need for being aware of situations and actions. On the other hand, the idea of the autonomy of literature. This opposition seems to cause a failure of common expectations and hopes, conformism, collapse of values as well as love failures. The history of "broken illusions" of a known milieu allows the writer to make us realize the importance of morality, responsibility, and the presence of another human being. The meaning of the crisis in the novel is expressed by exposing what is most intimate, and by ascribing this state of affairs to the ills of the age, which become a political and ethical imperative.
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In the article I have analysed the concept of improvisation recorded in Jedyne wyjście by Witkacy. He described the notion as unconstrained variation-based creation flowing from an inspired vision. Witkacy considered vision as the most fundamental source element of artistic theory and creative practice. I have also analysed the traces of improvisation in the manuscript of Jedyne wyjście and I have discussed the play between amplifications and visions recorded in the improvised fragments.
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