How Sharov’s novels are made: The Rehearsals and Before & During

Journal article

This article considers two fundamental works in Vladimir Sharov’s corpus in terms of their construction and narrative technique. It is concerned above all with addressing a question previously raised by Mark Lipovetsky: how does Sharov manage to offer the reader both immersion in the traumatic past and the critical distance from which to reflect on it? The main contention of the article is that The Rehearsals and Before & During both model a movement from density and difficulty to lucidity (only to then return the reader to the initial complexity). The convolutions of content and narrative organization that disorientate readers of Sharov have as their unacknowledged counterweight a search for clarity that is being conducted at the level of language, style and metaphor. Moreover, this duality of complexity and lucidity is intimately linked to the thematic oppositions that are sustained and never resolved in Sharov’s fiction, notably that between good and evil. A mise-en-abyme of these processes is identified in a discrete section of Before and During, which is analysed here before the main contention is tested against the two novels as a whole, with particular reference to the distinctive features of Sharov’s handling of plot, pace and language.

Authors: Ready, O

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
• Journal: Slavic and East European Journal
• Volume: 64
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 42–61
• Publication date: 2020-07-06
• Acceptance date: 2020-01-29
• ISSN: 0037-6752
• Language: English
• Keywords: FFR