Specifics of fictional town topos in novels by L. Deresh.

Abstract

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the artistic design of the fictional town Midni Buky in the novels by Ukrainian writer L. Deresh. In the present study the city is defined as a topos, which is a subject to specific spatial units of a lower order, which are localized in the novels “The Cult” (2001), “The Adoration of the lizard” (2002) and “Intent!” (2006). The present article systematized history of the formation of the city. It was observed, that building his own fictional town L. Deresh construct some real stages of legitimation of new settlement: for example, it has its own etiological myth, it has strong ties with local and regional history and it’s own mystery (periodical disappearance of inhabitants). We characterized the individual loci, both unique for separate novels and common for all three of them. It was observed that analyzed novels are united with the loci of college (previously – boarding school; deeper in history that building housed hotel, hospital and so on). The loci are certain backspine of the “Midni Buky cycle”, differently emphasized in every novel but bearing the clue feature: strong feeling of transitivity, uncertainty. The college building is defined with the wide range of malfunctions: from the edge of worlds to just one of the half-ruined buildings in the city. Some loci of the town are marked by rural features (empty roads, lack of cars, signs of agricultural activity). The town park, unfinished buildings have disproportion of their enormous scale and small population of Midni Buky. The cemetery and church have been vandalized, losing their sacral sense. It was generally concluded that the town of Midni Buky is marked by functional disproportionality, a mismatch between the nature and purpose, that the spatially enhanced with images of isolation and with emphasis on border nature.