scholarly journals Powieść SF uwalniająca się od politycznych serwitutów

2015 ◽  
pp. 209-236
Author(s):  
Ryszard Handke
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Stanislaw Lem ◽  
Blind Faith ◽  
Linguistic Means

Science-Fiction Novel Liberates Itself from Political DuesThe present issue of "Colloquia Humanistica" contains Professor Ryszard Handke's two last essays, until now unpublished. They belong together and deal with the works of Stanisław Lem, namely with the creation of a sui generis dictionary of this outstanding sci-fi writer. Handke highlights the coming of a new age in the evolution of the genre, already foreshadowed in Lem's early novels. This new sci-fi abandons uncritical beliefs in the power of science leading man to the conquest of cosmos and to a perfection of Earth's civilization. In Handke's analysis, in his first essay discussing "Astronauts" and "Magellan's Nebula," and in the second devoted to "Eden," Lem's evolution starts from a blind faith in the Marxist progress of civilization based on materialistic technocracy and moves towards an increasingly open polemic with this point of view, clearly demonstrating the beginning of doubts or of caution against an excessive faith in progress. The author of the essays is principally interested in the linguistic layer of the novels, the sci-fi terminology designating phenomena, objects or equipments from the imagined future. Handke analyzes the world reflected in the language and attempts to assemble a corpus invented by Lem in order to create an illusion of the future. The language seen from the perspective of the two texts remains a meaningful platform, but not a transparent one. This is where the space of the author's game with the readers begins, the space of inter-textual, cultural references, where the mentioned earlier naiveté of the older science fiction breaks down and an element of doubt, surprise, or irony surfaces frequently. The use of concrete linguistic means is conditioned by the creation of a world displaying a clearly determined character that borrows its particularities from the linguistic image of a fictional quasi-reality. It also results from the applied technique of story telling, from ways of verifying narration and from mechanisms of the reader's understanding of the meaning of words as building blocks of the presented world. The first novel discussed by Handke – "Astronauts" (1951), remains in the essayist's view still in the optimistic current of science fiction; the "fantastic" terminology, while already foreshadowing Lem's later plays with words, is deeply rooted in the traditional perception of the technical world. In the later novel – "Magellan's Nebula" – the focus of interest veers to how to construct with words a world in extreme conditions, i. e. when mimetic support in creation and in spelling out relations between the linguistic signs and what they designate, is curtailed. That is why, the attention is not centered on the spaces where the author takes advantage of the possibility of referring to phenomena and names known to the broadcaster and to the receiver in the real reality. The narrational situation constructed in the novel relies also on the premise that not much had changed in these fields, despite the passage of centuries, because human nature remains significantly the same. Both novels, while a system of "fantastic" concepts has been imposed on the presented world, reflect in fact current socio-political problems that cannot be grasped outside of the context provided by the communist faith in progress. "Eden" on the other hand, shows Lem's wavering in his faith in progress. In the novel, Earth people face another civilization; the author of the essay compares this narrational situation to the building of utopia, only situated in the Cosmos. The linguistic layer here resembles Lem's mature works, where irony in the creation of words keeps the readers at a distance when they view the displayed world and makes them ponder the author's intention.

scholarly journals Narzędzia językowe w sytuacji ekstremalnej. Stanisława Lema fantastyczne światy ze słów

2015 ◽  
pp. 159-207
Author(s):  
Ryszard Handke
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Extreme Situation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Stanislaw Lem ◽  
Blind Faith ◽  
Linguistic Means

Linguistic Tools in an Extreme Situation. Stanisław Lem’s Fantastic Worlds Built with WordsThe present issue of "Colloquia Humanistica" contains Professor Ryszard Handke's two last essays, until now unpublished. They belong together and deal with the works of Stanisław Lem, namely with the creation of a sui generis dictionary of this outstanding sci-fi writer. Handke highlights the coming of a new age in the evolution of the genre, already foreshadowed in Lem's early novels. This new sci-fi abandons uncritical beliefs in the power of science leading man to the conquest of cosmos and to a perfection of Earth's civilization. In Handke's analysis, in his first essay discussing "Astronauts" and "Magellan's Nebula," and in the second devoted to "Eden," Lem's evolution starts from a blind faith in the Marxist progress of civilization based on materialistic technocracy and moves towards an increasingly open polemic with this point of view, clearly demonstrating the beginning of doubts or of caution against an excessive faith in progress. The author of the essays is principally interested in the linguistic layer of the novels, the sci-fi terminology designating phenomena, objects or equipments from the imagined future. Handke analyzes the world reflected in the language and attempts to assemble a corpus invented by Lem in order to create an illusion of the future. The language seen from the perspective of the two texts remains a meaningful platform, but not a transparent one. This is where the space of the author's game with the readers begins, the space of inter-textual, cultural references, where the mentioned earlier naiveté of the older science fiction breaks down and an element of doubt, surprise, or irony surfaces frequently. The use of concrete linguistic means is conditioned by the creation of a world displaying a clearly determined character that borrows its particularities from the linguistic image of a fictional quasi-reality. It also results from the applied technique of story telling, from ways of verifying narration and from mechanisms of the reader's understanding of the meaning of words as building blocks of the presented world. The first novel discussed by Handke – "Astronauts" (1951), remains in the essayist's view still in the optimistic current of science fiction; the "fantastic" terminology, while already foreshadowing Lem's later plays with words, is deeply rooted in the traditional perception of the technical world. In the later novel – "Magellan's Nebula" – the focus of interest veers to how to construct with words a world in extreme conditions, i. e. when mimetic support in creation and in spelling out relations between the linguistic signs and what they designate, is curtailed. That is why, the attention is not centered on the spaces where the author takes advantage of the possibility of referring to phenomena and names known to the broadcaster and to the receiver in the real reality. The narrational situation constructed in the novel relies also on the premise that not much had changed in these fields, despite the passage of centuries, because human nature remains significantly the same. Both novels, while a system of "fantastic" concepts has been imposed on the presented world, reflect in fact current socio-political problems that cannot be grasped outside of the context provided by the communist faith in progress. "Eden" on the other hand, shows Lem's wavering in his faith in progress. In the novel, Earth people face another civilization; the author of the essay compares this narrational situation to the building of utopia, only situated in the Cosmos. The linguistic layer here resembles Lem's mature works, where irony in the creation of words keeps the readers at a distance when they view the displayed world and makes them ponder the author's intention.

scholarly journals Powrót do (już) nie swojego domu. Analiza porównawcza „Powrotu z gwiazd” Stanisława Lema i „Cylindra Van Troffa” Janusza A. Zajdla

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-124
Author(s):  
Andrzej Jamiołkowski
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Culture Shock ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Wrong Direction ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Creation ◽  
New Vision ◽  
Stanislaw Lem

The article is an attempt at a comparative analysis of the novels: Return from the Stars by Stanisław Lem and Van Troff’s Cylinder by Janusz A. Zajdel. Both works belonging to Polish science fiction present visions of humanity in the future. Despite obvious differences (both novels were written in different circumstances, one novel is a dystopia, the other an anti-utopia) it is possible to find areas common to both works representing the Polish science fiction genre. The novels present a pessimistic vision of humanity in the future. The greatest similarity, however, can be observed in the creation of the main characters, who experience culture shock when faced with a new vision of human society. The protagonists find themselves confused, discordant and despairing. They see that the changes have gone in the wrong direction. But it is too late for them to do anything about it, except for accepting this reality or trying to escape from it back into the stars. 

scholarly journals The image of a person of another nationality in the fantastic works of Oleg Divov

2020 ◽  
pp. 167-175
Author(s):  
Maria N. Krylova
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Political Correctness ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Russian Science ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Ethnic Affiliation ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Original Concept

The article is devoted to the analysis of the image of a person of a different nationality, who is created in his works by the modern Russian science fiction writer Oleg Divov. Based on the analysis of the author’s three novels, “The Best Solar Crew,” “Technical Support” and “Elephants’ Homeland,” his original attitude to the problem of the national and ethnic affiliation of a person is revealed. The aim of the study was to analyze the image of a person of a different nationality in the books of O.I. Divov and to represent a person of a different nationality in the context of the image of the “Other”. The tasks were set to identify the author’s treatment of the image of a person of a different nationality, to detect interpretations of this image in various works. The scientific novelty of the study was provided both by the novelty of the text material introduced into the scientific circulation, and by the approach to the problem of the image of the “Other” in modern literature from the point of view of the optionality of observing the principles of tolerance and political correctness, more precisely, new ways of observing these principles. In the reviewed works of the writer, heroes of different nationalities appear, and the national differences between them are not hidden, but, on the contrary, stand out in relief, are brought to the fore. Representatives of each of the nationalities (Russians, Jews, Germans, Americans, French, Chukchi, and others) are portrayed as people with undeniable merits, and at the same time – ironically, with humor. The writer does not demonstrate any stable national preferences: in the novel “The Best Solar Crew”, Russians are glorified first of all, and in the novel “The Land of Elephants” – the Chukchi. Despite ridicule, reflecting the stereotypical perception of a particular nation, the description of none of them becomes nationalistic. The author creates an original concept of perception of heroes of a different nationality, opposing the popular in modern culture of tolerance, showing the importance of national differences and the uselessness of silencing them.

scholarly journals Репрезентация животных в рассказе Севера Гансовского Зверек (1969)

2020 ◽  
pp. 191-201
Author(s):  
Karolina Gansovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The Creation

The literary works of Sever Gansovsky are an excellent example of modern eco-literature. For many years, the writer worked with the genre of eco-science fiction, which is engaged into the study of the nature of human existence and the interaction of humans with non-human animals. The methods of Human-Animal Studies, applied to science fiction works, allowed us to analyze the writer’s novels in the context of the latest research in eco-literature and bioethics. The object of this study is the novel Little Animal, written in 1969. The novel tells a story of a small boy who is particularly cruel to animals. Little Animal represents the creation of a man as an exponent of a new eco-culture. The novel shows the formation of a new cognitive model of the world, in whichanimals are playing a mediating role between the man and the nature that is beyond the limits of human experience.

The genres of documentary novel of the “Neue Sachlichkeit” and the problem of cognition

Neophilology ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 502-509
Author(s):  
Olga A. Dronova
Keyword(s):  
Literary Text ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Neue Sachlichkeit ◽  
The World ◽  
Documentary Fiction ◽  
The One

We consider genre typology of documentary novels of “Neue Sachlichkeit”: a “report” novel, a “novel of fact” and a documentary montage novel. The proposed classification is based on the different nature of the interaction of narrative and document in these types of novels. In the “report” novel the narration is conducted from the point of view of the observer, the literary text appears as a testimony, the document of an era. The “novel of fact” is based on real documents that are partially or fully integrated into the artistic whole. In the montage novel fragments of doc-umentary material and narrative are connected with each other associatively, resulting in a frag-mentary image of the world. We analyze the novels of 1920s – early 1930s by J. Roth, A. Doeblin, E. Ottwalt, E. Reger, R. Brunngraber and E. Koeppen. We substantiate the conception, that the problem of cognition acquires special importance in the documentary-fiction novels of “Neue Sachlichkeit”. On the one hand, the hero of the novels is trying to understand the changed social reality. On the other hand, documentary-fiction novels of “Neue Sachlichkeit” require special way of reading: they are designed to activate the reader's perception, to teach the reader to recreate a complete picture of reality based on the comparison of different ways of its image: narrative, evi-dence and documents.

KONSEP DIRI “ I “ DAN “ME” TOKOH HIROKO DALAM NOVEL NAMAKU HIROKO KARYA NH.DINI

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Besin Gaspar
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Fictional Character ◽  
Social Customs ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Village ◽  
The City

This research deals with the development of  self concept of Hiroko as the main character in Namaku Hiroko by Nh. Dini and tries to identify how Hiroko is portrayed in the story, how she interacts with other characters and whether she is portrayed as a character dominated by ”I” element or  ”Me”  element seen  from sociological and cultural point of view. As a qualitative research in nature, the source of data in this research is the novel Namaku Hiroko (1967) and the data ara analyzed and presented deductively. The result of this analysis shows that in the novel, Hiroko as a fictional character is  portrayed as a girl whose personality  develops and changes drastically from ”Me”  to ”I”. When she was still in the village  l iving with her parents, she was portrayed as a obedient girl who was loyal to the parents, polite and acted in accordance with the social customs. In short, her personality was dominated by ”Me”  self concept. On the other hand, when she moved to the city (Kyoto), she was portrayed as a wild girl  no longer controlled by the social customs. She was  firm and determined totake decisions of  her won  for her future without considering what other people would say about her. She did not want to be treated as object. To put it in another way, her personality is more dominated by the ”I” self concept.

Wacana Kolonial dalam Novel Max Havelaar: Sebuah Kajian Poskolonial

Metahumaniora ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 411
Author(s):  
Abu Bakar Ramadhan Muhamad
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Voice

AbstrakHegemoni kolonialisme dalam budaya poskolonial merupakan alasan penelitian inikemudian mengkaji wacana kolonial dalam novel Max Havellar (MH) khususnya dampakditimbulkannya. Dampak dimaksud adalah posisi keberpihakan pemikiran tersirat darikarya tersebut. Hasil pembahasan menunjukkan, secara temporal maupun permanen MHmenyuarakan ketidakadilan dalam kondisi-kondisi kolonial menyangkut penindasan sangpenjajah terhadap terjajah. Hanya saja, upaya mengatasnamakan atau mewakili suarakaum terjajah terbukti mengimplikasikan ciri ideologis statis kerangka kolonialisme(orientalisme); yakni cara pandang Eropasentris, di mana “Barat” sebagai self adalah superior,dan “Timur” sebagai other adalah inferior. Dalam konteks poskolonialisme, MH dengan sifatkritisnya yang berupaya “menyuarakan” nasib pribumi terjajah, justru menampilkan stigmapenguatan kolonialitas itu sendiri secara hegemonik. Artinya, “menyuarakan” nasib pribumidimaknai sebagai keberpihankan kolonial yang kontradiktif, di mana stigma penguatankolonialitas justru lebih terasa, ujung-ujungnya melanggengkan hegemoni kolonial. Tidakmembela yang terjajah, tetapi memperhalus cara kerja mesin kolonial.AbstractThe hegemony of colonialism in the culture of postcolonial society is the reason this studythen examines the colonial discourse in the novel Max Havellar (MH) in particular the impactit brings. The impact in question is the implied position of thought in the work. The resultsof the discussion show that, temporarily or permanently, MH voiced injustice in the colonialconditions regarding the oppression of the colonist against the colonized. However, the effort toname or represent the voice of the colonized has proven to imply a static ideological characterin the framework of colonialism (orientalism); ie Eropacentric point of view, in which “West” asself is superior, and “East” as the other is the inferior. In the context of postcolonialism, MH withits critical nature that seeks to “voice” the fate of the colonized natives, actually presents thestigma of strengthening coloniality itself hegemonicly. That is, “voicing” the fate of the pribumiis interpreted as a contradictory colonial flare, where the stigma of strengthening colonialityis more pronounced, which ultimately perpetuates the hegemony of colonialism. No longerdefending the colonized, but refining the workings of the colonial machinery.

A Compact Embodiment of Pluralities and Denial of Origins: Atwood’s The Year of The Flood

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Rana Sağıroğlu
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Near Future

Margaret Atwood, one of the most spectacular authors of postmodern movement, achieved to unite debatable and in demand critical points of 21st century such as science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism in the novel The Year of The Flood written in 2009. The novel could be regarded as an ecocritical manifesto and a dystopic mirror against today’s degenerated world, tending to a superficial base to keep the already order in use, by moving away from the fundamental solution of all humanity: nature. Although Atwood does not want her works to be called science fiction, it is obvious that science fiction plays an introductory role and gives the novel a ground explaining all ‘why’ questions of the novel. However, Atwood is not unjust while claiming that her works are not science fiction because of the inevitable rapid change of 21st century world becoming addicted to technology, especially Internet. It is easily observed by the reader that what she fictionalises throughout the novel is quite close to possibility, and the world may witness in the near future what she creates in the novel as science fiction. Additionally, postmodernism serves to the novel as the answerer of ‘how’ questions: How the world embraces pluralities, how heterogeneous social order is needed, and how impossible to run the world by dichotomies of patriarchal social order anymore. And lastly, ecocriticism gives the answers of ‘why’ questions of the novel: Why humanity is in chaos, why humanity has organized the world according to its own needs as if there were no living creatures apart from humanity. Therefore, The Year of The Flood meets the reader as a compact embodiment of science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism not only with its theme, but also with its narrative techniques.

La transposition profane de l’Exode dans Moïse fiction de Gilles Rozier

2013 ◽  
pp. 174-183
Author(s):  
Piotr Sadkowski
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Jewish Origin ◽  
French Writer ◽  
The World ◽  
Jewish Writers

Throughout the centuries French and Francophone writers were relatively rarely inspired by the figure of Moses and the story of Exodus. However, since the second half of 20th c. the interest of the writers in this Old Testament story has been on the rise: by rewriting it they examine the question of identity dilemmas of contemporary men. One of the examples of this trend is Moïse Fiction, the 2001 novel by the French writer of Jewish origin, Gilles Rozier, analysed in the present article. The hypertextual techniques, which result in the proximisation of the figure of Moses to the reality of the contemporary reader, constitute literary profanation, but at the same time help place Rozier’s text in the Jewish tradition, in the spirit of talmudism understood as an exchange of views, commentaries, versions and additions related to the Torah. It is how the novel, a new “midrash”, avoids the simple antinomy of the concepts of the sacred and the profane. Rozier’s Moses, conscious of his complex identity, is simultaneously a Jew and an Egyptian, and faces, like many contemporary Jewish writers, language dilemmas, which constitute one of the major motifs analysed in the present article. Another key question is the ethics of the prophetism of the novelistic Moses, who seems to speak for contemporary people, doomed to in the world perceived as chaos unsupervised by an absolute being. Rozier’s agnostic Moses is a prophet not of God (who does not appear in the novel), but of humanism understood as the confrontation of a human being with the absurdity of his or her own finiteness, which produces compassion for the other, with whom the fate of a mortal is shared.

scholarly journals Rat Cities and Beehive Worlds: Density and Design in the Modern City

2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 722-756
Author(s):  
Jon Adams ◽  
Edmund Ramsden
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Social System ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Efficient Operation ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

Nestled among E. M. Forster's careful studies of Edwardian social mores is a short story called “The Machine Stops.” Set many years in the future, it is a work of science fiction that imagines all humanity housed in giant high-density cities buried deep below a lifeless surface. With each citizen cocooned in an identical private chamber, all interaction is mediated through the workings of “the Machine,” a totalizing social system that controls every aspect of human life. Cultural variety has ceded to rigorous organization: everywhere is the same, everyone lives the same life. So hopelessly reliant is humanity upon the efficient operation of the Machine, that when the system begins to fail there is little the people can do, and so tightly ordered is the system that the failure spreads. At the story's conclusion, the collapse is total, and Forster's closing image offers a condemnation of the world they had built, and a hopeful glimpse of the world that might, in their absence, return: “The whole city was broken like a honeycomb. […] For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and, before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky” (2001: 123). In physically breaking apart the city, there is an extent to which Forster is literalizing the device of the broken society, but it is also the case that the infrastructure of the Machine is so inseparable from its social structure that the failure of one causes the failure of the other. The city has—in the vocabulary of present-day engineers—“failed badly.”

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