О жанровых особенностях «oдесской» главы повести К. Г. Паустовского «Золотая роза» «Случай в магазине Альшванга»

Abstract

This article focuses on a fragment of a book by Konstantin Paustovsky entitled „The Golden Rose” (1995). The problem of a writer's work, which is central in the book, was one of the essential themes for Paustovsky. The chapter „An Occurrence in Alischwang's Shop” dedicated to the language of a work of art, illustrates an idea uttered by Paustovsky about a point which, if put on time, exerts an astounding effect upon a reader. Moreover; it gives an insight into the peculiarities of the literary life of Odessa in the 1920s. The author sees the task of this study in determining a genre of the „Odessian” chapter of „The Golden Rose”. In the author's opinion, there are some telling reasons why „An Occurrence in Alischwang's Shop” may be referred to the category of semidocumentary genres and be defined as an essay on the life of Odessa in the 1920s. Veracious facts, events, the outward are what is brought to the fore; the writer names genuine surnames of real individuals and describes real localities of the events narrated, with a keen attention to the actual atmosphere and setting. At the same time, there can be seen no less weighty reasons why „An Occurrence in Alischwang's Shop” may be classed as one of properly epical genres, or rather a short story. And, given the pointe in it, this is a novella. There is nothing strange in such genre ambiguity of „An Occurrence in Alischwang's Shop”. The writer himself could not define the book that comprises this chapter. Furthermore, it is known from the literary criticism that a genre, by its nature, runs to integrity, i.e. synthesis. It embraces the aspects related to both form and matter. „An Occurrence in Alischwang's Shop” is grounded on the same principle: a personal perception of the outward by its author and his striving for reconstructing the genuine events as precisely as possible takes on its artistic form. A genre synthesis allows understanding the inter-genre interaction of novella and essay in the works by K. Paustovsky. In the writer's fiction world the interaction of genres is determinate and is attributed to the author's peculiar intellection.