«PHILOLOGICAL NOVEL» AS E SET OF MARGINAL TEXTS

Abstract

The article deals with a genre modification which has different designations in Russian literary criticism: metanovel, egonarration, pseudodocumentalism, memoir novel, and, finally, «philological novel», where all characters are involved in literary activities. Comparative analysis of three books written by three friends, philologists, and devoted to one and the same person, another writer Sergej Dovlatov («When S.D and I had occasion to sing» by Dovlatov’s first wife A. Pekurovskaja, «I'm bored without Dovlatov» by the poet E. Rejn, «Dovlatov and environs» by A. Genis) helps to identify the specificity of the «philological novel». The titles of the three books declare the authors’ positions.Pekurovskaja’s recollection cannot be called a «philological novel» yet. Its structure, organized by chapter headings and epigraphs, exists in itself, regardless of the narrative, presented in the traditional chronological order. Drawing the reader's attention to herself, the narrator obscures the subject of narration, which cannot be separated from the narrator. The title of Rejn’s book, having the subtitle «New scenes from the life of Moscow bohemia», also shifts the focus from the character, who turns out to hold a peripheral position, to the narrator. This book may be called a photo-novel. Its text and photographs create a complex structure of layers heterogeneous in time, where illustrations become marginal supplement to literary text and accompanying text in the album becomes marginal as well. A. Genis defines his own «philological novel» as «a picture of the soul located between the body and the text», which brings the author back to the centre of the world being created by him. In Dovlatov’s prose the narrator keeps distance with everything that happens in his story, but easily crosses the border, endowing characters with the author's omniscience.