Dystopia or Transgression? (Two readings of V. Sorokin’s story “The Blizzard”)

Abstract

The subject of work is the question of V. Sorokin’s creative method. An attempt to explain the writer’s creative nature leads to the idea of an internal contradiction that is characteristic of his work as a whole and is realized in each individual work. The point is that the writer’s creative declaration, reduced solely to a “linguistic experiment”, does not fit well with real practice, which leads to contradictions in the interpretation of his work in criticism. There are as if “two Sorokins”, one insists that his works are exclusively texts for exercises in “transgression”, the other creates dystopias perceived as works saturated with social meanings. V. Sorokin was originally

“against literature”, but lives “at the expense” of literature and is interpreted by readers and researchers as literature of the highest level. He dissociates himself from “literary centrism”, but paradoxically becomes its epicenter. This study proves that this contradiction does not really require resolution, it is the “driving force” of the writer’s work, “organic” for the “Sorokin phenomenon”. The result is the creation of a “linguistic dystopia”. The problem is of undoubted relevance, the results of the analysis allow us to clarify important points in assessing the writer’s work.