Journal archive

Abstract: The publication of the novel by V. Makanin «Fear» was accompanied by the transformation of the initial concept and composition of text. The history of the occurrence of a new genre integrity indicates the writer's characteristic strategy for the cyclization of small genres, the ensemble of independent texts or the creation of a supertext, organized by a character and problematic center. The article highlights two stages of creating a new integrity. The idea of the «book» (cycle) of stories «High, high moon», accompanied by the publication of independent stories, gave rise to the novel «Fear» (2006), where the stories were united to reveal semantics of a novel — private life of an individual in the situation of approaching death and in the circumstances of the breakdown of the social system. The dominant conflict of the novel «Fear» is ontological — the return of appetence (Eros) as resistance to mortality and social determinism. The second stage is associated with the transformation of the novel structure in the «new author's edition» of the novel called «Fire» (2014). The article discusses changes in the text of the novel: 1) the inclusion or exclusion of chapters-stories, the plot of the episodes, changing the endings of stories; 2) re-composition of chapters (two-part composition); 3) change of paratext: renaming of the all the novel and the chapters, with the exception of epigraphs. The changes in the text of the novel reveal reduction in the content of the novel from ontological to socio-psychological, in particular, the strengthening of the plot of treatment for somnambulism (overcoming the power of nature over man). From the point of view of theoretical aspect individual experience confirms the correctness of Makanin's ideas of «an open text» (U. Eco) and «from work to text» (R. Bart).