THE ROLE OF THE CYCLE THE SUITCASE IN THE EVOLUTION OF S. D. DOVLATOV’S POETICS

Abstract

In The Suitcase, the central subject of Dovlatov’s prose (the clash between form and meaning) manifests itself both on the level of the depicted world, as in his early prose, and on the level of the narrator’s parlance: the formal «theme» never corresponds to the actual «content», «meaning». As the reader enjoys the aesthetic experience («meaning» of the literary text), despite the narrator’s misleading parlance, he thereby crosses the communicative barrier, and this is exactly the effect that Dovlatov wants to achieve.