Literary Space and the Tradition of Dystopic Discourse
This essay discusses some aspects connected to the profound relationship established between contemporary novel and various forms of spatial representations especially as far as Margaret Atwood’s book Oryx and Crake is concerned. Some sort of cunning experiment becomes more and more obvious within the recent creations of Atwood, whose books (especially the above-mentioned novel) is, at some level of interpretation, an excellent
dystopia implying both the images of chaotic urban culture and its own literary tradition, whereas it also fully embodies an exquisite interpretation of the metaphoric significance of a different kind of „brave new world”, placed under the sign of literary atmosphere. The same may be more or less true as far as some other contemporary novels are concerned, but Atwood excellently uses the significance of an entire literary tradition, proving the
validity of a widely quoted essay of Philip Roth, who expressed contemporary novelists’ sense of being intimidatedby the extravagance of a reality that outdistances their wildest fantasies.
Keywords: contemporary novel, dystopic discourse, literary tradition, aesthetic experiment, imaginary worlds
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3. Margaret Atwood, Oryx şi Crake. Traducere, note şi prefaţă de Florin Irimia, Editura Leda, Bucureşti, 2008, p.40.
4. Margaret Atwood, “Writing Oryx and Crake”, in Writing with Intent. Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose 1983 – 2005, Carroll and Graff, New York, 2005.
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7. Mariana Neţ, O poetică a atmosferei, Editura Univers, Bucureşti,1989, p. 17.
8. Margaret Atwood, Oryx şi Crake, ed. cit., p. 247.
9. ibid., p 115.
10. ibid., p. 43.
11. Mariana Neţ, O poetică a atmosferei, ed. cit., p. 23.
12. Margaret Atwood, Oryx şi Crake, ed. cit p. 27.
13. Mircea Eliade, Mitul eternei reîntoarceri. Traducere de Maria şi Cezar Ivănescu, Editura Univers Enciclopedic, Bucureşti, 1999, p. 13.
14. Margaret Atwood, Oryx şi Crake, ed. cit., p. 79.
15. Margaret Atwood, Orxy şi Crake, ed. cit., p. 561.
