Syncretism of the image of enigmatic Barcelona (based on the series of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s novels “The cemetery of forgotten books”)

Abstract

This article deals with means to form the syncretism in creating the image of enigmatic and sombre Barcelona in the series of novels “The Cemetery of Forgotten Books” written by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. The image appears as the structural novel unit where the language with its expressive metaphoric means is used to suggest the notions of things, actions, feelings, ideas, mood and any living experience where the imagination with its integrity, agility, difference and openness forms the base of syncretism. Our aim was to confirm the original and dynamic of these stylistic means brilliantly combined to delineate the mysterious image of Barcelona with the distinctive and peculiar author’s style of Zafón. We notice the fusion of them while their unique qualities and characteristics are kept untouched. We came to the conclusion that the prevalent to construct the metaphoric context are dark colors (black, grey), reigning darkness against almost defeated light, fog (mist, veil), water (sea and endless rains) and the different materials (like steel, cooper, coal, lead, etc.) It is the originality of artistic methods in Zafón´s work (richness of linguistic means, namely the use of epithets, metaphors, allegories, stylistic resources) not only determines the individual style of the writer, but also emphasizes the multidirectionality of this imagery, ways of its creation and perception by the reader.