Stories - Genres (The Role of the Haphazard in Nadas' Parallel Stories) Cover Image

Történetek – mûfajok (A véletlen szerepe a Párhuzamos történetek mûfaji narratívájában)
Stories - Genres (The Role of the Haphazard in Nadas' Parallel Stories)

Author(s): Sándor Bazsányi
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Pannonhalmi Főapátság

Summary/Abstract: Peter Nadas' Parallel Stories (2005) is a radical subersion of modern novel form. Instead of a linear and story-oriented narrative, a kind of genre narrative is developing here gradually, changing in each chapter. The chapters of the novel can be read as a chain of parodies of various traditional literary forms, such as detective story, love story, prison novel etc. By this subersion or nearly total deconstruction of the genre, frutrating the expectations of the implicit reader, a new textual experienc is emerging: that of the chaos (as Nadas comes to call it). The chaotic and provocative structure of the novel may be transfigured into an ''anomalous beauty'' (to use the chapter title of Nadas' 1986 novel 'A Book of Memories'). This essay is an attempt to give a concise analysis of the ''chaos'' form.

  • Issue Year: 2010
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 97-108
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Hungarian