KIŠ I ALBAHARI – JEDNA POETIČKA RAZLIKA
KIŠ AND ALBAHARI – A POETICAL DIFFERENCE

Summary/Abstract: A comparative analysis of Kiš’s novel Peščanik [Hourglass] and Albahari’s novel Cink [Tsing] commences with a reference to the apparently similar theme of the two novels: they both deal with the role of the deceased father. The hypothesis is then formed that the two novels, despite their similar theme, are poetically different. To prove this hypothesis, an analysis is conducted of Kiš’s modifications of the authentic father’s letter, which ends the plot of Peščanik. In a statement by Peščanik’s protagonist, that “everything dwindles,” the reader is confronted with both a universal claim and an autopoietic set problem: how to create a literary time frame in which everything dwindles? Kiš achieves this by trusting Literature. Kiš, much like Šklovski, believes that Literature has the power to convert recognition into the observation of an object. In the same manner, it has the power to keep and preserve continuity. As opposed to Kiš’s trust in Literature, Albahari’s work demonstrates a radical doubt of literature: the power of its form and the power to preserve continuity are in doubt. A result of this doubt is that fragments in Cink, unlike in Peščanik, are not marked by literary tradition. Likewise, while Peščanik accentuates the continuity between father and son, Cink subtly brings forward the doubt into such continuity. The expression of doubt in Albahari is the genre of metafiction. Finally, to the possibility is suggested that the difference between modern and postmodern poetics, among other things, can be understood as a difference between trust in literature and doubt of literature, which results in the appearance of the genre of metafiction.

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