Reflections of a vanished time. The melancholy of objects in Georgi Gospodinov’s and Orhan Pamuk’s works
Reflections of a vanished time. The melancholy of objects in Georgi Gospodinov’s and Orhan Pamuk’s works

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I focus on the role played by material objects in the evocation of a specific imaginary of the recent past (mainly the 1970s and 1980s) in the literary works of Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov (in the novels “The Physics of Sorrow” and “Natural Novel”) and of Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (in “The Museum of Innocence”). I analyze the presence of feelings of melancholy and loss accompanied by a fixation on objects in the fictional works and describe their possible overcoming through an externalization in the form of museum exhibitions in the city of Sofia and Istanbul such as the “Inventory depository of Socialism” and the “Museum of Innocence”. By viewing objects as actors capable of creating meaningful social networks, I consider their use in the narration of personal and collective histories and their transformation as powerful symbols of a bygone era.

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