KIŠ AND ALBAHARI – A POETICAL DIFFERENCE

Abstract

A comparative analysis of Kiš’s novel Peščanik [Hourglass] and Albahari’s novel Cink [Zink] commences with the reference to the apparently similar theme of the two novels: they both deal with the role of the deceased father. We then form the hypothesis that the two novels, despite their similar theme, are different poetically. So as to prove the hypothesis, we analyze Kiš’s modifications of the authentic father’s letter which ends the plot of Peščanik. In the line of Peščanik’s protagonist, that “everything dwindles,” we are confronted both with a universal claim, as well as an autopoietic set problem: how to literary frame a time in which everything dwindles? Kiš achieves this by trusting Literature. Kiš, much like Šklovski, believes that Literature has the power to convert recognition into observation of an object. In the same manner, it has the power to preserve and keep continuity. Differing from Kiš’s trust into Literature, Albahari’s work demonstrates a radical doubt into literature: the power of its form and the power to preserve continuity are doubted in. 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 a father and a son, Cink subtly bring forward the doubt into such continuity. The expression of doubt in Albahari is the genre of metafiction. At the end of the paper, we point to the possibility that the difference between modern and postmodern poetics, among other things, can be understood as a difference between a trust into literature and a doubt into literature, which result in the appearance of the genre of metafiction.