THE GENIUS OF THE MAZE OR THE MAZE OF A GENIUS
(SOME FEATURES OF C. R. ZAFÓN’s LITERARY STYLE)

Ekaterina Zvereva¹, Kamo Chilingaryan²*
¹Associate Prof. Dr., RUDN University, RUSSIA, frakatr@yandex.ru
²Mr., RUDN University, RUSSIA, chili1@yandex.ru
*Corresponding Author

Abstract

The topicality of the research is due to the fact that under the conditions of high-speed development of information technologies and theory of information the text evokes growing interest of researchers as a traditional and reliable source.

The article proposes a research hypothesis that reveals the nature of the text, disclosing its internal structure, functional and communicative characteristics. The leading approach to the study of the problem was the method of linguistic analysis of the text. In this paper, linguistic analysis is combined with literary analysis and is understood as a linguistic semantic analysis.  The method of complex text analysis used in this article includes an analysis of a set of factors that distinguishes a specific text from other types of text.
Zafón’s works are samples of magical realism, in whose aesthetics the reality of reality itself is put under question. His novels are polygenic; the style codes are eclectic: tracing the unique chronotope and the spatial dominant, providing an extensive linguistic material that allows to elicit the features of psychological architecture and personification of architectural images.

The idea of the labyrinth is considered as a metaphorical concept of the writer's view of the world and the features of the structural organization of works. The works analyzed belong to the gothic aesthetics and the polygenic and eclectic character of the author’s style codes is justified. The authors characterize it as a hybrid style, which is a sum of motifs, symbols and obsessions, constantly recurring from novel to novel. The authors trace a unique chronotope and spatial dominant, providing extensive linguistic material that allows us to reveal the features of psychological architecture and the personification of architectural images. The authors come to conclusion that the notion of the labyrinth is both a structural feature of constructing the texts, as well as an ideological basis of creativity and a vital position of the author.

The materials of the article can be useful for subsequent translations of Zafón’s works, describing the artistic effect, to decode the author's metaphorical picture of the world that could help the interpreter to bring the appropriate psychological effect on the reader.

Keywords: gothic novel; individual style; magical realism; metaphor; maze; labyrinth of thoughts