Homodijegetički roman Borislava Pekića: početak srpske postmoderne

Abstract

The paper starts from the genre definition of “homodiegetic novel” as a narrative type based on the specific position of the narrator in the text. The significant role of Borislav Pekić as an author who, together with Danilo Kiš, participated in the transformation of modernist Serbian literature during 1960s and 1970s is pointed out. In particular, the specific narrative submodel Pekić used in his early novels is analyzed ‒ the homodiegetic narrator who records his own narration. The implications of the applied narrative “strategy of the found manuscript” are examined on the example of the novel Hodočašće Arsenija Njegovana [The Pilgrimage of Arsenije Njegovan], the first in a series of four Pekić’s homodiegetical texts. The interpretation of the effects of the narrative procedure used in the novel, as well as the complexity of the meaning of the text, indicate the author’s opposition to the modernist artistic paradigm which was dominant in the Serbian literature of the period. The analysis of the applied narrative-technical solutions in the novel reveals that the inversion of the implied relationship between text and reality is a key element of Pekić’s postmodern creative approach.