PERCEPTION AS A NARRATIVE CATEGORY IN MIKHAIL SHISHKIN’S LARIONOV’S REMINISCENCES AND PISMOVNIK

Abstract

Aim. The purpose of the paper is to identify modernist principles of composing a text in modern Russian literature or, to be exact, to identify a tendency for a narrative to be based on perception rather than actions. Methodology. The research investigates narrative structures of Mikhail Shishkin’s Larionov’s Reminiscences ( One Night Befalls Us All , 1993) and Pismovnik (2010). The quality of these structures correlates with theoretical ideas of Jos é Ortega y Gasset and Vladimir Weidle who postulated the crucial change in the quality of an early 20 th century literature narrative (they claimed that a traditional plot was replaced with a sequence of subjective perceptual images). It also investigates syntax and tropes of Shishkin’s novels.