Communication Crisis in the Kolyma Tales by V. Shalamov: On Narrating the Transcendent

Abstract

The main concern of the paper is communication in the Kolyma Tales by V. Shalamov, with a specific focus on communication failure when Shalamov’s heroes face something relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses, supernatural, which is not to be rendered, namely when a hero is standing between life and death. In other words, it is a metaphysical communication barrier. In narratology there are two new terms: “unnarrate” and “unnarratable”, that is a narrator refuses to tell about something due to some reasons. The analysis of Shalamov’s prose calls for adding to Robyn R. Warhol’ system of unnaratable a new category: a narrator refuses to narrate something due to something relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond human experience. Refs 11.