The Poetics of Fantastic in the Vladimir Fyodorov’s ”Unthinkable Antinovel”

Abstract

Vladimir Fedorov, a geologist by occupation, an artist by vocation, began his career as a poet, but today he could subscribe to Voltaire's motto "All genres are good, except boring ones". This article is devoted to his first prose work "Citizen No. 1 of the forever vanished city", the genre specifics of which the author defined as "unthinkable antinovel". Indeed, "reality, strange fantasy and absurdity" are being mixed in it. Like Jonathan Swift and Herbert Wells, the writer skillfully "neutralizes" the fantastic by a system of artistic means and techniques. In particular, to limit direct fiction, Fyodorov uses an appeal to the form of sleep, and his "antinovel" is constructed as an alternation of dreams and memories of childhood. Further, the fantastic is hiding by spatial localization and "inclusion" in a real, everyday environment. Finally, a special role in the poetics of the fantastic in Fedorov’s work is assigned to the figure of the author. His presence in the narrative as an eyewitness and a participant confirms the reliability of fantastic situations and events.