Мyth and document in M. Shishkin’s novel “Maidenhair”

Abstract

   The article is focused on the problem of correlation between myth and document in M. Shishkin’s novel “Maidenhair”. The main character-narrator – a writer and an emigrant – uses, firstly, various forms of documentary genres (diary, letter, interrogation protocol) as a way of discursive cognition of reality, an attempt to objectify it. Secondly, these are different cultural myths (biblical and fairy tale stories, images of eternal love – Daphnis and Chloe, Tristan and Isolde, etc.) as universal models and meanings of life. The neomodernist nature of the novel actualizes the mythological as the basis of reality and human consciousness, the inevitability of myth-making, which has both destructive and salvific meanings. Therefore, the use of a more objective and documentary form allows the protagonist to overcome the limitations of the myth, to get closer to the phenomenality of life. However, the translation of consciousness into the text does not give rise to a document-fact, but creates a version of reality accepted as genuine (in this case the document becomes a subjective myth), or deconstructed by consciousness in search of a new version of being. The hermeneutic circle of the writing hero’s knowledge does not stop at the recognition of the mythological fundamental principle of life, there is demythologization of the myth, its constant correction by reality and the creation of a new myth.