In Search of the Fantastic in Tertz's Fantastic Realism

American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

In Search of the Fantastic in Tertz's Fantastic RealismAuthor(s): Erika HaberSource: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 254-267Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/310004 .

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IN SEARCH OF THE FANTASTIC IN TERTZ'S FANTASTIC REALISM

Erika Haber, Syracuse University

"I called it 'fantastic,' even though I consider it to be realistic to the highest degree. But it truly does contain something fantastic, which is the form of the story itself ..."

Dostoevsky, from the author's foreword to "The Meek One: A Fantastic Story"

Using a variety of complex narrative strategies in his fictional writing, known as fantastic realism,' Abram Tertz creates a dialectic between the realistic and the fantastic, between the self and the other, thus revealing the indeter- minacy of the boundaries of literature and subverting the tenets of Socialist Realism, which sought to regulate, simplify and prescribe the interpretation of literature for ideological purposes. The inability to control language - and literature by extension -is at the very core of fantastic realism, which often flaunts its metafictional status by consistently setting up frames only to break them. The fantastic-realistic opposition is just such a frame.

For the most part, the fantastic found in fantastic realism is not that of ghost stories and alien civilizations common to escapist literature but rather creative flights of metafictional fancy, structural transgressions and the defamiliarization of the familiar. Consequently, both reality and the fantastic are more the result of style and form than of content. Of course, one must use caution when speaking of either "reality" or "the fantastic" in literature since both depend on the referentiality of words for their creation. The realistic world is no more "real" than is the "fantastic" one; both are fictional literary constructs.

Never losing sight of the illusion of referentiality, Tertz playfully manipu- lates the boundaries between the signifier and the signified which causes the reader to pause, reassess, and reinterpret the text rather than accepting it in a direct or dogmatic fashion. It is precisely the complex and multivalent relationship between the signifier and the signified in a fantastic tale that creates the possibility of both a realistic and a fantastic reading of the same story. The resulting ambiguity confounds the reader and causes him to hesi- tate before assigning meaning to what he has read. According to Tsvetan

SEEJ, Vol. 42, No. 2 (1998): p. 254-p. 267 254



Tertz's Fantastic Realism 255

Todorov, hesitation before a text is the first condition of the fantastic. He explains, "The fantastic therefore implies an integration of the reader into the world of the characters; that world is defined by the reader's own ambiguous perception of the events narrated."2 Once this hesitation is planted in the mind of the reader, the ground is fertile for the development of various diverse interpretations since each individual reader will attempt to make sense of the text in his own way. Boris Tomashevsky states that merely creating the illusion of the fantastic in a text makes it susceptible to dual interpretation: "c)aHTaCTWHecKHe noBeCTBOBaHHS B pa3BHTOH JIHTepa- TypHOH cpeJe, noJ BJIHIHHIeM Tpe6oBaHIHH peaJIIcTHIecKOHi MOTHIBHPOBKI, o6bIUHO JaIOT ABOHHyi) HHTepnpeTauHkO 4ca6yJIbi: MOXKHO ee noHHMaTb H KaK peaJIbHoe co6bITHe, H KaK 4aHTacTHmecKoe."3 Creating the possibility of multiple, often conflicting interpretations, Tertz destabilizes meaning as such and ensures that the response of the implied reader cannot be predicted or prescribed. In this way, Catharine Nepomnyashchy, in her recent mono- graph on Tertz and his writings, suggests that fantastic realism takes interpretation away from the State and puts it back in the hands of the reader, affirming "the infinitude of meaning."4

A basic feature of Tertz's fantastic realism is the presence of an eccentric narrator, often a writer himself, who frequently plays a double role as both character and narrator, creating a highly self-conscious text. Recognizing the significance of Tertz's narrators and their "complex and ambiguous relationship" with the subject matter of these texts, Michel Aucouturier calls them Tertz's "poetic signature, his 'Apelles' mark."5 By providing opinion, interpretation and judgment on the events and characters, the narrator's voice and point of view may strongly influence and color the reader's perception of the story, because, as Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan explains, "the narrative level to which the narrator belongs, the extent of his participation in the story, the degree of perceptibility of his role, and finally his reliability are the crucial factors in the reader's understanding of and attitude to the story."6 With their ideologically and stylistically unique voices, the narrators in Tertz's fantastic realism at times contradict and even oppose the characters and events they describe, thereby creating a tension between the content of the stories and the manner of their presenta- tion. This tension helps to create doubt in the reader and to foster a plurality of possible interpretations.

The identification and study of the types of narrators and the functions they serve in the form and content of the stories provides a most essential key to understanding how fantastic realism operates. Thus, through an investigation of Tertz's creation and use of narrators in three of his early works, Liubimov, "Pkhents," and Sud idet, this paper attempts to show how Tertz develops his fantastic realism on the structural level.



256 Slavic and East European Journal

Narrative Levels Determined by where the narration is located in relation to the events of

the primary story, narrative levels help to identify and to define the narrator's role(s) in the text. Having a clear understanding of what levels of narrative exist in a story also makes it possible to recognize when characters or narrators appear in a narrative level in which they do not belong. In his fantastic realism, Tertz commonly transgresses the narrative levels as a further means of challenging the boundary between the real and the unreal. These transgressions result in subversive texts that flaunt their pseudo- referentiality and expose the ontological status of fiction.

Using the term diegese to signify the fictional world in which the narrated events take place, Gerard Genette establishes three basic narrative levels: "extradiegetic" or external to the primary narrative; "intradiegetic" or a part of the primary narrative; "metadiegetic" or embedded within the first level of narration.7 Providing information not ordinarily available at the level of diegesis, extradiegesis and metadiegesis can maintain or advance the action or offer an explanation of the diegetic level by adding valuable details or insights not accessible to the characters within the diegesis.

As the narrator relates events from different distances or a new narrator assumes control of the story, different levels of narration may appear within the same text. Since most of Tertz's narrators participate to some extent in the stories they narrate, many of his stories pass from the extradiegetic to intradiegetic levels at some point in the course of the narrative. Consequently, the stories flirt with their own fictionality as the narrators periodically call attention to their own role in the text's creation. For example, in the opening and closing frames of Sud idet, the narration originates on the level of the events it describes, or the intradiegetic level, whereas the body of the text is told extradiegetically, or from "above" the action of the story. This particular shift in levels is structurally motivated because the body of the work represents the subversive story for which the fictional author is serving time, so that the events narrated inside the frames - on the extradiegetic level- provide an explanation for the basis of the situations described in the prologue and epilogue. In other words, the story being read is the motivation for the events described in its last pages. But what cannot be explained by this shift in levels is the fact that the author of the story we read ends up working in a labor camp alongside his own characters in the epilogue. This represents a transgression of the narrative norms by which Tertz, as author, creates the illusion of the fantastic through a structural manipulation of his text. This structural incongruity destabilizes the meaning and causes the reader to re-evaluate the story: is this a biting satire of Stalinist society, a fantastic tale, or a playful metafictional romp, poking fun at the essential uncontrollability of the written word? The text makes all three interpretations feasible.




The inside narrative in Sud idet consists of the story that the author has been commanded to write by the Master (Khoziain) at the end of the prologue, however, the narrator or the Master occasionally intrude upon this inner narrative, momentarily disrupting the storyline. These intrusions keep the reader aware of the motivation behind the story, that there is an "author" at work here. At the end of chapter three, for example, while Globov, the Public Prosecutor, inspects a women's bathroom, the author leaves his subject and momentarily digresses on the subject of bathroom graffiti, which curiously leads him to express his own desire to believe in the written word.

MyIcqHHbI 06bIqHO B TaKHX cJiyqasx IIImyT OiHH HeIIpHCTOimHOcTH. XeHIMHHbI OKa3aJImcb

JIy'ime Hac, OHH IIHIIIyT CJIOBa JIO6BH H HerogoBaHH .... TOT, K KOMy o6pauieHbI 3TH cJIOBa, HHKorra o HHX He y3HaeT. Ha HHaIlcaHo Bce 3TO He nJIS qHTaTeJIS. A npocTO 6pomeHO B IpoCTpaHCTBO, Ha BeTep, B caMbIe gaJIbHHe gaJI. TOJibKO Bor HJIH cjIyqaiiHblii 'IyaK- JII6HTeJIb MO)KeT nogo6paTb 3TH MOJIHTBbI H 3aKJIHHaHHS. 5 XOTeJI 6bI TaK.Ke BepHTb B

CJIOBO, KaK Bep5T 3TH )KeHiHHbI. H1 CHIA B CBOCe KOMHaTe, nOxo)KeHI Ha TyaJeTHyIO Ka6HHKy, rJIy6OKOf HOqbIO, Korga BCe CHAT, nIHaTb CJiOBa, KOpOTKHe H npIMbIe, 6e3 3agHHX MbICJIei HI

anpecoB.8

What begins as an amusing digression on graffiti ends as a personal admis- sion by the author that encourages the reader to consider the motivation and anxiety of authors, who can never predict how and by whom a text will be read. In this instance, Tertz manages to capture the dissenting voice of an author in an act of structural treason -a digression that undermines the orders he has received "from above." At the end of the prologue the Master had instructed the author to sing Globov's praises in print, yet here the author intrudes with his own thoughts and fears. In this way, an author's textual digression becomes a criminal act, which helps to explain why the author ends up in a labor camp in the end frame.

To some extent, the text of Liubimov also has a framed narrative and exhibits shifts in the level of narration which complicate the story both on the level of fabula and siuzhet, making it difficult to reduce the text to simple referentiality. Two highly unusual plot lines develop simultaneously in Liubimov. First, the story chronicles the bizarre history of the town of Liubimov, where a simple bicycle repairman stages a bloodless coup using thought control to assume and maintain power. Second, it charts the whim- sical story of the creation and development of the official chronicle itself, written--or narrated--as it is by at least two different individuals, who battle for control of the text. With such a strongly self-conscious, structurally intricate narrative, Liubimov is an excellent example of fantastic content being reflected in form, because as the battle for rule over the town escalates, so too does the fight between the narrators for control of the style and content of the text. This juxtaposition of competing voices, plots, points of view, and styles ensures the absence of any one unified meaning or interpretation.




In Liubimov, the prologue and the last pages of the story detail the second level of plot found in the body of the story by focusing on the written manuscript of the chronicle rather than on the town. The prologue describes the conception of the chronicle and the final pages of the story represent a plea by one narrator to his co-author for help in hiding this manuscript that they have produced. Whereas in Sud idet the body of the text outweighs the events in the frames, in Liubimov both plot lines share equal prominence, a fact emphasized in the title of the work, which could signify either the town or the chronicle. Because of the distinct ambiguity of reference in the title, the reader never knows for sure which plot line Tertz meant as the primary one. However, except for in the opening and closing pages of the novella, the second story line about the writing of the chronicle is played out to a far greater extent in the unconventional structure of the tale rather than in its content, which playfully suggests that the writing of the chronicle seems more far-fetched than a bicycle repairman ruling the town by thought control.

The "dueling" narrators in Liubimov create metadiegetic levels and frequent metalepsis, which help complicate both the story and the structure of the text. Besides the original narrator, Savelii Kuzmich Proferansov, the town's official chronicler, a simple-minded librarian from the provinces, and the second narrator, his intrusive nineteenth-century relative, Samson Samsonovich Proferansov, there seems to be a third voice: a first-person narrator, who picks up the narration at times in philosophical asides, but remains unnamed and elusive. According to an analysis by Margaret Dal- ton, the preface and the first two chapters belong to Savelii Kuzmich, the designated chronicler of the town. In chapter three, the anonymous narrator takes over at first, but soon Samson Samsonovich picks up the narrative and controls it until chapter five. An unidentified narrator (either Samson Samsonovich or the "I") presents parts of chapters six and seven, with the other parts attributable to Savelii Kuzmich, who ultimately ends the novel.9 What Dalton fails to mention in her synopses, however, are the various metaleptic tugs-of-war that go on when Samson Samsonovich and Savelii Kuzmich try to wrestle control of the text away from one another. By transgressing the boundaries of narrative with these textual battles played out for the most part structurally, Tertz creates ambiguity in the interpretation of the text because during these battles the reader must struggle to identify which "author" to believe and whose story is the authen- tic one. By the very nature of its composition, Liubimov does not promote one author of the chronicle, one ruler of the town, or one reading of its pages over another. Instead, the various versions contradict and seemingly invalidate one another, obscuring signification. This has led Vladimir Alex- androv to suggest that Liubimov "reassesses the act of writing and the idea of 'fiction' as they had been conceived in the realistic tradition."10




Tertz introduces the struggle over the writing of the chronicle gradually, in the very structure of the text, so that the reader hesitates, not knowing how to interpret this seeming loss of control by the author: is this supposed to be comic or horrific, playful or malicious? At first, Samson Samsonovich tries to manipulate the text away from Savelii Kuzmich in subtle ways. For example, beginning in the very preface, Samson Samsonovich interrupts the narrative by causing Savelii Kuzmich periodically to write down unfa- miliar words.

lo0KHTE 6bE eige HeMHo)KKO. floKYPHTE, IIOIIHTE 6Eb IIHBO ... JiorOBOPpHTE C AOKTOPOM JIHHge Hac'ieT HTepogaKTHEiie ... Hy BOT OIIAETb! OTKya 3aJieTejio cioga 'yxqtoe HaM cJIoBo? A1 ero H

IIpOH3HOCHTb-TO He yMeLo, ITepo0aKTHJi513 TOFO, H FOBOuHJI BeJab-He B0JHTC51 B HaU1HX Kpasix HH'Iero TaKoro. KEiim6 TbI! KbImb! JIeTHI npo'E, ragkHHa! (Liubimov 284).

This seemingly accidental mention of a pterodactyl represents the earliest sign of interference from the second narrator and the reader's first clue that this is to be no official chronicle in either style or content. Within a few pages Samson Samsonovich begins intruding upon the text from the footnotes, contradicting, correcting, and commenting upon Savelii Kuzmich's narration.

14 nepege3IaHHbIi 'leJIOBeK jo6poBoIEHo ABHHeTC1 IIO UYTH K CoBepmeHCTBy, je eiie 3a BCIO

HaYKY 6ygeT BaM 6JarogapeH, H JIeHI THXOMHpOB 3T0 1OH11J 1H paCC'lHTaji./3 OH JIeHqI,

Aora1bI1Ba3Ic.1, 'ITO roiias 6ypxcya3HaI TeXHHKa HH K 'leMy He 11PHBeJeT, eciTH ee He 1IOAKpelIHTb

H3HYTPHi nepegeiuoiK CO3HaHHIA./4 To ecTE, KaK 3TO ciia6o goraEJbBa3Ic51, Korga OH B OJEHH geHE

MOr Bcex nepegeiiaTE no co6cTBeHHoMy BKyCy, H KTO TYT MHe IIOA pyKy IIOCTOPOHHHMH C3IOBaMH MeimaeT? . .15 )a KTO BbI TaKHe BaKHbIe, qTO6EbI eige KoMaHAOBaTb? . .A6

3/lljioxo OH paClHTaIi. 4/Cjia6o OH goragEIBancs1. 5/A BbI nomeHEme paccyxqIa Te H IIHIHTe, KaK 6bIn o gejio. 6IIrIHmHTe, IIHIHTe ga3ibIe, A1 Ha)KHMalO KHOIIKy! (Liubimov 297).

Interrupting the frame of the story as they do, the footnotes actually com- pete with the text in this instance as Samson attempts to make the work his own. If the footnotes contradict that which they are meant to support, conventions have been subverted and meaning is thoroughly destabilized, leaving the reader to rethink his ideas of how texts function.

By the end of chapter two, Samson Samsonovich moves from the footnotes into the text proper. Savelii Kuzmich at first refuses his assistance, and Samson Samsonovich hinders his writing by forcing him to transcribe language from various genres and linguistic levels. The stream escalates from neologisms, puns, rhymes and nonsense words to non sequiturs and a line from a battle tale, until it finally culminates in a line from a familiar folk song. r'e xe BaM Hag IeHefi, Hag PYCCKHM repKyJIeCOM KoMaHAOBaTb! . .-r1omeMy wKe

HeHpeMeHHo-KoMaHAsoBTb? He Jiy'niie JIH-oaRaJDKHBaT? Hac Bcex RageRAseT CHJIaMH




KTO-TO rocTapmie Hac. BOT BbI Ke cefi'iac HIHIieTe HipH MoeM y'iaCTHH, BO MHOrOM HH7IHB- HgyaJIbHO, O7HaKO, c Moeii HoMoIIbio.-He Hyiqgaiocb A B Bamieii HOMOI1AH! A1 H 6e3 Bac Mory! CTHCHY nepo HOKrperi1e H Ha'IHY-HY-Hy CaM CbIH COH, CaM-COH, CaMCOH CaMCOHOBH'1, OTHyCTHTe, HyCTb, KaHycTa AHOHCKaA, rePKyJisi6HAi, KyJIe6AKa, CKOJIbKO CTOHT, 6e3 112TH ABeHagiAaTb cKa3aRa KopoJIeBa H cahmojieT C KYTKHM peBOM BbIHbIPHYJI H3-3a iieca, H3-3a iieca-Jieca TeMHOrO, KaJIHHKa-MaJIHHKa MOq, B cagyAroga-MaJIHHKa MOA... (Liubimov 308-9).

When Savelii Kuzmich sees that Samson can indeed get control of the text, he relents and Samson Samsonovich takes over portions of the narration. From here on in they cooperate and collaborate, writing the chronicle together in layers, each using his own voice and perspective. Once Savelii Kuzmich lets Samson Samsonovich into the narration of the chronicle, the anonymous narrator also plants himself in the middle of the story and the town itself, as he relates his perceptions from the level of first-person narration. By diverting the direction of the narrative to different eras and topics with digressions and so-called corrections, the "dueling" narrators create different stylistic and semantic narrative levels within the chronicle which help further both story lines and simultaneously ensure the linguistic instability of the chronicle.

In addition to the frequent changes in narrative level, there is also constant metalepsis in Liubimov, where the narrators commonly break into their chronicle to address each other or the readers. For instance, in the middle of chapter four, Samson interrupts the story to introduce himself formally and clarify his identity for the readers.

MeHA 30BYT rlpo(epaHCOB, CaMCOH rlpo4epaHCOB, H BbI KOe-'ITO 3HaeTe o6o MHe OT moero

OAHoW aMmJIbiLa, KOTOpbIlH IIOIeMy-TO C'IHTaeT MeHA CBOHM AaRJbHHM POACTBeHHHKOM, XOT2 ARA 3TorO HeT peIIHTeRJIbHO HHKaKHX OCHOBaHHH. OH BaM HaHJIeTeT o6o MHe JIa6HpHHT

He6bIJIiHi, H B 3THX POCKa3HAX BaXHa He 4)aKTHIeCKa2 KaHBa, KOTOPYIO Ham HcTOpHOrpa4) 3aHMCTBYeT H13 aHeK7OTOB, a JiiHib OKYTbIBaOUomaR aTMOC4)epa Moefi IIPHB23aHHOCTH K 3eMJIe, rge Bce MM POA7HJIHCb H Kyga Bac rorpe6aIoT. rIpou1y He HlyTaTb MeHA C BaMiHHpaMH, yHbIpAMH, KJIHKyLur MH H Apyr`HMH OTHPbICKaMH HexIHCTOA COBeCTH (Liubimov 352).

Similarly, in the last pages of the text, Savelii Kuzmich pleads for the help of his co-author, to once again join him in the narration, and when he receives no response to that plea, he begs the other narrator at the very least to hide the manuscript from the secret police. LTO )Ke BbI TaHTeCb, rPOpeCCop? Hy, gaflTe KaKOfl-HH6ygb YCJIOBHbI]i 3HaK, BIIHIIHTe OAHY TOJIbKO 6YKOBKY Mexgy CTPOK, H A BCe HOflMy H BO BCe 1OBepio ... (Iiriymaia rpo4)eccop. ThI )Ke Mofi COaBTOP. rPkHHPIIAb BpeMeHHo rge-HH6ygb TaM y ce6A Hauiy IOBeCTyUIIKy. flyCKaiR noJIe)KHT HOKa B KaKOM-HH6yTb TBOeM HegOCTyHHOM ceg(ce ... (Liubimov 396-397).

By breaking through the narrative'levels and making their presence obvious with addresses to the readers or to each other, the narrators in Liubimov add subjectivity and humor to the town's supposedly official chronicle through their unconventional nature and behavior, which in turn undermines the meaning and alleged reality depicted in this so-called




chronicle. Since the narrators divide the responsibility over the text's creation between them, the reader cannot locate one voice, one perspective or one version of the tale being narrated which he can identify as the official one. In this manner, Tertz constructs a variety of so-called realities, each of which begins to seem questionable when the next narrator picks up the narration.

The worlds constructed in this story are purely verbal constructs, created by the narrators' words which bring them to life, no matter how contrary to the laws of nature and conventional narrative they may seem. For instance, one narrator, long dead, gets to influence the course of the story and history of the town by meddling with the manuscript of the other narrator; in this way, the metalepsis helps give the story a supernatural reading. Likewise, the pterodactyl that Savelii Kuzmich claimed did not exist in the town when Samson Samsonovich boldly slipped the word into the text in the prologue suddenly appears at the end of chapter three. Not just a word in a text, this time it appears as a living creature, which when addressed mentally in French, replies in "perfect Parisian" (Liubimov 336). In this instance, Tertz foregrounds the shift in signification between the verbal "pterodactyl" and the flying reptile itself--the very name of which is enough to make it a reality in a text, despite the fact that the creature has long been extinct. Such transgressions of the narrative increase the fantastic thread that is woven into this strange chronicle, which never allows the reader to forget the powerful fictionality at play here.

The wonderful irony of both of the works discussed so far is that although the narrators in Sud idet and Liubimov act as the creators of texts/worlds, they have only limited control over their own writing. In Sud idet, the Master guides the narrator-author's pen; similarly in Liubimov, Samson Sam- sonovich tries to control Savelii Kuzmich's writing. Likewise, even though they are omniscient, the Master and Samson Samsonovich are unable to fully control the respective texts being written under their supervision. In this way, Tertz makes a further statement about the "uncontrollability" of language, because in both narratives the perfidious texts exist, despite the threats and attempts at control from above.

Narrator vs. Implied Author Although the narrator recounts the situations and events of a story, it is

the so-called implied author who is accountable for their inclusion and combination in the text; thus, any discussion of the workings of fantastic realism must also take into account the relationship between the implied author and the narrators he creates.

To identify and analyze the creation and moral positions of a text without having to refer responsibility to the biographical author or to the narrator, Wayne Booth introduced the term "implied author" to represent that




which is often described under the terms "style," "tone" and "technique." Unlike the narrator, who possesses an audible voice, the implied author is rather "the sum of his own choices."" Not limited to the author's actual opinions or true voice, the implied author may vary form work to work in any given author's oeuvre.

Interestingly, the implied authors in all three of these works exhibit re- markable similarities. All of the stories under discussion contain narrator- authors or at the very least narrators who claim authorship of the text we read, so that the concept of the implied author is further complicated here by these once-removed authors. Furthermore, the voice that runs through all of these stories sounds the constant themes of alienation, misunderstanding and the inability to communicate. In Sud idet and Liubimov the narrator- authors all labor away on texts that they cannot be sure will ever be published and over which they admit to not having control of the writing. Meanwhile, by continuously creating meaning only to collapse it, the implied author makes clear that he has no control over the reading process either. Consider- ing that Sinyavsky published all three of these works abroad under his pseudonym Tertz, which he regarded as his brash and criminal alter-ego, the relative similarity of the implied author's (Tertz's) voice in all three of these works is not all together surprising.

Affecting our response to a story simply by the type of story he chooses to compose and his stated purpose in writing it, the implied author cannot feign neutrality. However, since the implied author communicates through the design of the work as a whole, the reader must infer him from the text. Fortunately, the "voice" of the implied author often differs either emotion- ally, intellectually, physically or ironically from the voice of the narrator, thereby making it less difficult to identify. Bakhtin describes the relationship between the narrator and the implied author as one of constant opposition: 3a paccKa3oM paccKa3IHKa MbI mITaeM BTOpOfi paccKa3-paccKa3 aBTopa O TOM aKe, o meM paccKa3bIBaeT paccKa3IHK, H, KpOMe Toro, o CaMOM paccKa3MHKe. KawfbIfI MOMeHT paccKa3a MMI OTieTJIHBO oiIlyiaeM B AsBX niiaHax: B rIIaHe paccKa3sqHKa, B ero IIpeMeTHO-cMbICJIOBOM H 3KCnpeCCHBHOM Kpyro30pe, H B nJiaHe aBTopa, npeJIoMJIeHHO roBopaimero 3THM paccKa30M H mepe3 3TOT paccKa3.12

Thus, the discourse between the narrator and the implied author adds yet another layer to the discourse of any given work, which in turn significantly influences the reception and understanding of that work. Bakhtin proposes that if the implied author's voice and message are not uncovered, then the reader has in fact failed to understand the work.13

Consequently, in Tertz's fantastic realism, if the reader misses the implied author's message, he will fail to acknowledge the different interpretations suggested by the text. For instance, Richard Lourie faults Tertz in Sud idet for introducing fantastic details before the fantastic premise, which in his opinion weakens the fantastic.14 To prove his point, he cites an example




from the first page of the story, where by way of censorship letters are scooped off the page during a search of the author's apartment, but when one letter tries to escape, it is caught and its legs are torn off and it is squashed, like an insect. According to Lourie, this is not an effective usage of the fantastic. But does the implied author really intend for this to be a read merely as a supernatural tale? The scene with the escaping letters represents a marvelous example of realizing a metaphor, suggesting the wild and unruly nature of the very letters themselves. Thus, where the text may "fail" if read as a pure example of the fantastic genre, it works bril- liantly as a statement on the literal deconstruction of a text. Because meaning does not end with the narrators' words, the reader must be aware of the implied author's message in order to understand that Tertz intentionally fails to define anything categorically, making a singular, straightforward reading of his text impossible.

The "Unreliable" Narrator When the narrator's norms and behavior are at odds with the implied

author's norms, the narrator is called "unreliable."'5 The discrepancy between narrator and implied author may be caused by any number of things including the narrator's lack of information or limited knowledge and understanding, his emotional and/or physical involvement or his personal value system. The deeper the narrator's knowledge and involvement, the greater the chance for so-called unreliability. For instance, when he plays a role as a character in the story he tells, a narrator has the the ability to misunderstand, misinterpret or lie, since he will not usually be privilege to all of the thoughts and actions of the other characters; whereas a narrator not involved in the plot is more likely to be reliable since he has more distance and perspective on the story he relates.

Yet even when not a character in the story, a narrator may create ambiguity and disbelief in the reader with the inclusion of markers of unreliability in his narration. For example, the narrator may use verbal shifters (he appeared to be, she seemed to), modal expressions (probably, clearly, somehow), impersonal constructions, subjunctives, and other grammatical constructions to create doubt and uncertainty in his narration. Boris Uspensky calls these "words of estrangement" (cJIosa ocTpaHeHHI ) and explains that they allow "the transposition of the description from 'within' to one from 'without'."16 The markers need not be grammatical, because "unreliability" may be openly expressed or admitted in the narrator's discourse. Thus, when a narrator not involved in the plot expresses uncertainty concerning the facts or likewise when a narrator-character claims to know the internal state of another character - neither logically permissible based on the location of the narrator to the story - the discourse flaunts the questionability and believability of the narrator's account.




When the story undercuts the discourse in this way, the reader senses that he knows more than the narrator and this results in irony. Textual irony arises from the collusion of the implied author and the reader behind the back of the narrator. Booth admits, however, that even otherwise "reliable" narrators may indulge in irony, so that the presence of irony alone does not constitute "unreliability."17 In fact, the reader may respond to feeling over meaning, so that the presence of an "unreliable" narrator may instead cause reactions as diverse as sympathy, doubt, fascination, fear, identification or dislike. This capacity for influencing the reader's reaction to the story makes the "unreliable" narrator a useful element in the creation of the ambiguity that is inherent in the interpretation of all three works under discussion.

Tertz makes use of the quirkiness and unreliability of his rather offbeat narrators as an effective means of developing the fantastic in his stories, but not always in the most obvious or overt manner. For instance, even though Tertz's narrators seem at times to take the forms of other-worldly creatures such as the long-dead Samson Samsonovich in Liubimov or the cactus-like narrator in "Pkhents," these narrators are no less believable than Tertz's recognizably human narrators. In fact, the cactus-like narrator of "Pkhents" does not differ in terms of the "reliability" of his discourse from the other stories' unquestionably human narrators, commonly writers or artists of some kind. Consequently, the unreliable element in Tertz's stories arises not necessarily from the character of the narrator, but rather from the narrator- characters' perception and description of himself and his environment in opposition to what the reader knows or understands from the implied author. These conflicting discourses break down the possibility of absolute meaning and create hesitation and skepticism in the reader, who must as a result rely on his own system of signification for interpretation.

"Pkhents" represents a prime example of this so-called unreliable narration. Since the narrator tells his own confessional story, he participates as a character and the reader has access not only to his thoughts and opinions, but also to his actions. This added information on the narrator's habits as a character serves to create suspicion about the narrator's strange personal- ity. The suggestion of dubiousness grows stronger as the story progresses so that it becomes a distinct and significant element of the story's peculiar atmosphere. In fact, the narrator's story seems less important to the reader, who finds himself consumed with the desire to learn the identity of the curious narrator.

The story unfolds in such a way as to inform the reader only gradually as to the unusual nature of the narrator, but the hints begin immediately. By observing and describing a hunchback doing his laundry, the narrator dis- tracts the reader and diverts his attention away from the narrator himself. At first, the narrator, who has assumed the name of Andrei Kazimiro-




vich,18 seems human, just shy, secretive and perhaps a bit paranoid. He spurns the advances of his young female neighbor and worries about draw- ing attention to himself by the amount of time he spends in the bathroom.

His descriptions, however, defamiliarize the most commonplace ele- ments of human existence, causing the reader to wonder about his origins. Since he has no experience with the female body, the narrator reacts with alarm and curious surprise when his neighbor, Veronika, offers herself to him one day in an act of simple-minded devotion. Startled and repulsed by what he sees, the narrator describes her body in detached terms; he com- pares what he sees in front of him to imagery from his own everyday world:

CnepejH 6oJITaJIacb napa 6eJIbIx rpygeiI. AI npHHSJI Hx BHaIaJIe 3a BTOpHxIHbIe pyKH, aMnyTHpoBaHHbIe BbIme JIOKTS. Ho Ka.aa 3aKaHmHIBaJIacb KpyrJIoi npHCOCKOHi, noxoaKei Ha KHOIIK 3BOHKa. A ajibIme-g-o caMbIX Hor-sce CBoGOHOe MeCTO 3aHHMaJI LaposBHiHbIii IKHBOT. 3gecb co6HpaeTcA B oAHy KyIy nporJIoueHHH. 3a geHb ega. HEIKHs ero noJIOBHHa,

6yRTo roJIoBa, nopocJIa KynpsBbIMH BoJIocaMH.... TaM i MeJIbKOM yBHlien tTO-TO noxoaee Ha JIIHUO leJIOBeKa. TOJIbKO 3TO, KaK MHe noKa3aJIocb, 6bIJio He >KeHCKOe, a MyKcKoe JIHuo, noKacHJoe, He6pHToe, C OCKaJIeHHbIMH 3y6aMH. roJIO7HbIH 3JIOfH MyaXMHHa O6HTaJI y Hee

Mexrgy Hor ("Pkhents" 179-180).

Writing about "Pkhents," Andrew Durkin explains that "metaphor and simile function throughout the story as links between the earthly and the unearthly levels,"19 as the odd narrator tries to make sense of a world that is clearly foreign to him. Finally, at the end of the story, as the narrator prepares to die, he reverts to a mixture of languages and styles which are only partially intelligible to the reader, evidence, according to Durkin, that "language, as a conventional system devised by human culture, is ultimately meaningless, useless, and uncontrollable."20 With this ending, Tertz cleverly leaves the narrator's identity unexplained and uncertain, but suspi- ciously alien, because of the claims to that end of the narrator-author himself. By making the reader constantly question and reinterpret every- thing that the narrator says and does throughout the story, the implied author is responsible in this instance for creating the unresolved and indefi- nite reading of this story.

Because they refuse to define or represent an absolute, the creative narrative situations of Tertz's texts allow him to explore topics and use narrative techniques that were forced underground during the Soviet era. Unlike the thematically-based fantastic genre of the nineteenth century or contemporary science fiction, fantastic realism does not aim to be escapism, mere entertainment or dire predictions for the future of society. Instead, Tertz elucidates his theory and understanding of fiction through his practice of writing fiction, and refuses to subordinate his fiction to aims or goals beyond the text. However, since he wrote when and where he did, these ideas and practices were considered subversive and criminal. Nepomnyashchy explains: "Thus, the crime committed by What is Socialist Realism and The




Trial Begins - and by all of Tertz's other works - consists in posing a chal- lenge to claims to linguistic authority, to the right to define and therefore judge, including those staked by the literary text."21 Knowing full well the probable consequences of his subversive style and despite the lifetime of controversy that it caused, Tertz held firm to his ideas about fiction, believ- ing to the end that «<<IoBJIaeTCS oWlyueHHme, tTO HCKyccTBO rge-To BbIlme

leiCTBHTejlbHOCTH H BaKHee H KH3HH.22

NOTES

I am grateful to the outside readers for their constructive criticism and invaluable comments. 1 When Siniavskii-Terts began writing fiction, he described his style as yTpHpOBaHHHbIl

and c(aHTacMaropHmecKHH, but it was not until a 1975 interview, published in the Times Literary Supplement (23 May 1975), that he first used the term fantastic realism in a discussion of his own work.

2 Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic. A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Trans. Richard Howard (Ithana: Cornell University Press, 1973) 31.

3 Boris Tomashevskii, "Tematika," Teoriia literatury. poetiki. 4 izd. (Moskva & Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1928) 149.

4 Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy, Abram Tertz and the Poetics of Crime. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995) 39.

5 Michel Aucouturier, "Writer and Text in the Works of Abram Terc (an ontology of writing and poetics of prose)" Fiction and Drama in Eastern and Southeastern Europe: Evolution and Experiment in the Postwar Period. Henrik Birnbaum and Thomas Eek- man, eds. (Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1980) 1.

6 Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (New York and Lon- don: Routledge, 1989) 94.

7 Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method. Trans. by Jane E. Lewin (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980) 228. It was originally published in French as Discours du recit a portion of Figures III (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1972).

8 Abram Terts, Sud idet, Fantasticheskii mir Abrama Tertsa (New York: Inter-Language Literary Associates, 1967), 232. All further citations from this collection will be noted in the text by the title of the story and page number.

9 Margaret Dalton, Andrej Siniavskii and Julii Daniel'. Two Soviet "Heretical" Writers (Wurzburg: Jal-verlag, 1973) 124.

10 Vladimir Alexandrov, "Typographical Intrusion and the Transcendent in Bely's Peters- burg and Sinyavsky's Lyubimov." The Slavonic and East European Review 2 (April 1984): 162.

11 Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2nd ed. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1983) 75.

12 M. M. Bakhtin, "Slovo v romane," Voprosy literatury i estetiki. issledovaniia raznyx let (Moskva: Izdatel'stvo "Khudozhestvennaia literatura," 1975) 127.

13 Bakhtin, 127-128. 14 Richard Lourie, Letters to the Future. An Approach to Sinyavsky-Tertz. (Ithaca and

London: Cornell UP, 1975) 80. 15 Booth, 158-9. An "unreliable" narrator is just as slippery a term to discuss as the

"fantastic" or "realistic" in a text, since all of these terms depend on the referentiality of words for meaning.




16 Boris A. Uspenskii, Poetika kompozitsii. Struktura khudozhestvennogo teksta i tipologiia kompozitsionnoi formy. (Moskva: Izdatel'stvo "Iskusstvo," 1970) 112-115.

17 Booth, 159. 18 For a fascinating discussion of the relevance of his remaining unnamed and the signifi-

cance of his pseudonym, see Catharine Nepomnyashchy's Abram Tertz and the Poetics of Crime, pp. 64-67.

19 Andrew R. Durkin, "Narrator, Metaphor, and Theme in Sinjavskij's Fantastic Tales." Slavic and East European Journal 24.2 (1980): 134.

20 Durkin, 135. 21 Nepomnyashchy, 63. 22 Abram Terts, "Iskusstvo i deistvitel'nost'," Sintaksis 2 (1978): 115.

WORKS CITED

Alexandrov, Vladimir. "Typographical Intrusion and the Transcendent in Bely's Petersburg and Sinyavsky's Lyubimov." The Slavonic and East European Review 2 (1984): 161-179.

Aucouturier, Michel. "Writer and Text in the Works of Abram Terc (an ontology of writing and poetics of prose)." Fiction and Drama in Eastern and Southeastern Europe: Evolution and Experiment in the Postwar Period. Eds. Henrik Birnbaum and Thomas Eekman. Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1980. 1-10.

Bakhtin, M. M. "Slovo v romane." Voprosy literatury i estetiki (issledovaniia raznykh let). Moskva: Izdatel'stvo Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1975. 72-178.

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2nd ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983. Dalton, Margaret. Andrei Siniavskii and Julii Daniel' Two Soviet "Heretical" Writers. Wurz-

burg: Jalverlag, 1973. Durkin, Andrew R. "Narrator, Metaphor, and Theme in Sinjavskij's Fantastic Tales." Slavic

and East European Journal 24.2 (1980): 133-144. Genette, Gerard. Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method. Trans. Jane E. Lewin. Ithaca:

Cornell UP, 1980. Lourie, Richard. Letters to the Future. An Approach to Sinyavsky-Tertz. Ithaca: Cornell UP,

1975. Nepomnyashchy, Catharine Theimer. Abram Tertz and the Poetics of Crime. New Haven: Yale

UP, 1995. Pomerantsev, K. "Sinyavsky: Fiction and Reality." Times Literary Supplement (23 May 1975):

560. Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen,

1983. Terts, Abram. "Iskusstvo i deistvitel'nost' " Sintaksis 2 (1978): 111-119. Terts, Abram. Liubimov, "Pkhents," Sud idet Fantasticheskii mir Abrama Tertsa. New York:

Inter Language Literary Associates, 1966. Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic. A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Trans. Richard

Howard. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1987. Tomashevskii, Boris. "Tematika" Teoriia literatury. Poetika. Moskva-Leningrad: Gosudarst-

vennoe izdatel'stvo, 1928. 131-158. Uspenskii, Boris A. Poetika kompozitsii. Struktura khudozhestvennogo teksta i tipologiia

kompozitsionnoi formy. Moskva: Izdatel'stvo Iskusstvo, 1970. Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. London:

Routledge, 1984.



Documents

In Search of the Fantastic in Tertz's Fantastic Realism