Sorin Titel and Danilo Kiš

Abstract

The present study aims to explore the similarities between the novels Lunga călătorie a prizonierului (Prisoner’s Long Journey, 1971) by Sorin Titel and Grobnica za Borisa Davidoviča (A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, 1976) by Danilo Kiš. Both Central European writers, Titel (Romanian) and Kiš (a Serbian, born to a Jewish father and a Montenegrin mother) experienced the same traumas, stemming from their living through a nightmarish history and struggling to pursue their literary careers in countries under totalitarian regimes. Influenced by Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka, while also learning from the contemporary French nouveau roman, Sorin Titel employs the well-known theme of travel in an allegorical novel apt to be made into a road movie – a journey with no beginning or end, enriched by means of myths and symbols, but offering neither revelation nor salvation to the traveler. Danilo Kiš takes a different approach: at first glance a collection of short stories, the stories included in A Tomb for Boris Davidovich enhance the information in the previous texts, adding new dimensions to the characters, accounting for their actions and impulses. At times, the omniscient narrator becomes an unreliable narrator, adding to the confusion, despite the exhaustive amassing of facts and data. Nevertheless, subtle affinities can be discovered in the common motifs of Titel’s and Kiš’s works: victims turned executioners and vice versa; imposture; desacralization; blood and slaughter. On the other hand, the most terrifying characters in A Tomb for Boris Davidovich are embodiments of a certain type of prisoners: trapped in amorality and in their own inability to evolve.