Though critics have used Baxtin's concept of carnival and
carnivalized literature in describing Bohumil Hrabal's prose, the
discussion of carnival elements in Hrabal's work has often been
overtly politicized. During the communist era, the term
carnival
often became a means to reinterpret
modernist
or surrealist
aspects of
Hrabal's work as part of the folk tradition. The idea of carnival
became a means to distance Hrabal from the avant-garde. While
published criticism of Hrabal's prose used carnival to characterize
Hrabal's more experimental fiction, the alternative culture considered
Hrabal's more conventional works as inferior or even conformist. In
this context,
This paper will attempt to fill the gap in critical literature on
Hrabal's prose. It will engage Kv&ehachek;toslav Chvatík's and
Jaroslav Kladiva's discussion of carnival elements in Hrabal's
narrative prose. I will suggest that Baxtin's concept of carnival and
carnivalized literature provides more than just another term for the
grotesque or the surreal: it provides a compelling structural model
for double-voiced,
referring
simultaneously to the time described in the narrative and the
authoritarian culture in which their authors lived.
Baxtin's carnival culture has often been interpreted as only a
temporary diversion that allows the existing power structure to
continue. In its conclusion, this paper will discuss to what extent
Hrabal's novel can be said to subvert or support the official culture.
This discussion will engage various interpretations of Baxtin's
carnival, particularly Booker and Juraga's dialogic reading of Baxtin,
in order to show the liberating potential of Hrabal's novel. Finally,
this paper will suggest ways in which humor and subversion are linked
in Hrabal's other fiction, considering the recent publication of
Hrabal's posthumous
Partial Source List:
Baxtin, M.
—.
—.
Booker, M., and D. Juraga.
Kladiva, Jaroslav.
Morson, Gary Saul and Caryl Emerson.