The specifics of the embodiment of the author’s mask in the novel by V.P. Aksenova “Burn”

The specifics of the functioning of the author’s mask in the novel by V.P. Aksenov “Burn”. The author’s mask is considered as a means of positioning the author in the text. The concepts of “author’, “narrator”, “author’s mask” were used for the analysis. For the first time, the phenomenon of the author's mask in the novel “The Burn” was subjected to a holistic study. As a result of the study, it was found that in the novel by V.P. Aksenov, thanks to the branched system of author’s masks, a complex and multidimensional narrative space is created. Through the mask as an image of a “possible other”, the prose writer comprehends the topics provocative for the aesthetics of late socialism: the relationship of the artist with the authorities, the homeland, the existence of a creative personality in a totalitarian state. The system of Apollinarievich’s author’s masks demonstrates not only the possible options for the personal fate of the “author of the real”, but also the behavioral strategy for the survival of a thinking and thinking intellectual within the framework of a totalitarian system. The author’s mask of Tolya von Steinbock is introduced by Aksenov into the novel in order to fully reflect his own “Magadan” childhood, to present a complex psychological self-portrait. The key means of creating author's masks are, firstly, numerous autobiographical parallels and correspondences generated by the total reflection of the prose writer about himself; secondly, steady transitions from the first person to the third and, on the contrary, confusing the reader and turning the text into an experimental space of a literary game. The research materials and general conclusions can be used in university courses in the history of Russian literature of the twentieth century, special courses and special seminars dedicated to the work of V. Aksenov. Since the author’s mask is becoming quite a common technique in postmodern literature, the methodology used is quite applicable to comprehend the prose of the 1990s–2000s, where there is a play with the author’s “voices” (V. Pelevin, V. Sorokin, A. Kabakov and others.). 

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