PERCEPTION AS A NARRATIVE CATEGORY IN MIKHAIL SHISHKIN’S LARIONOV’S REMINISCENCES AND PISMOVNIK

Abstract

Aim. The purpose of the paper is to identify modernist principles of composing a text in modern Russian literature or, to be exact, to identify a tendency for a narrative to be based on perception rather than actions.

Methodology. The research investigates narrative structures of Mikhail Shishkin’s Larionov’s Reminiscences (One Night Befalls Us All, 1993) and Pismovnik (2010). The quality of these structures correlates with theoretical ideas of José Ortega y Gasset and Vladimir Weidle who postulated the crucial change in the quality of an early 20^th century literature narrative (they claimed that a traditional plot was replaced with 1a sequence of subjective perceptual images). It also investigates syntax and tropes of Shishkin’s novels.

Results. The results of the study are the identification of perceptual images replacing traditional actions in Shishkin’s novels. It is shown that the character’s perception influences the syntax (nominal sentences and simple sentences with a predicate describing a subject’s quality predominate) and tropes (metaphors and similes make highly subjective perceptual image) of novels.

Research implications. The research results contribute to the theory of a narrative change in the 20^th and 21^st century literature.