Types of narrators in A. Slapovsky’s cycle Foggy Alleys

The article deals with the study of the narrative aspect of the cycle of stories by A. Slapovsky Foggy Alleys. The author uses narratological method of analysis developed by the Russian and foreign specialists in literature. The research is aimed at studing different types of narrators in A. Slapovsky’s cycle. The typology is based on the binary opposition: there are non-diegetic and diegetic narrators in the cycle. The non-diegetic narrator of A. Slapovsky’s stories is characterized by implicitness, by the focus on the character’s point of view. The non-diegetic narrator produces the character’s type of narration, prevailing in the realistic prose of the 20th century. The type of diegetic narrator is presented in different ways: as a narrator-observer, as a narrator-repeater, as a mask of the author-creator, as a storyteller. The first three types are united by the theme of creativity. The subject of the narration introduces himself as a writer, takes the position of an observer or repeats the character’s story. The mask of the author-creator is the fictional double of a biographical writer and the result of the postmodern game of A. Slapovsky with the border between the text and extra-text reality. The narrative experiment of the writer is the tale, the imitation of someone else’s speech. A. Slapovsky copies the principle of “verbatim” based on the word-for-word retelling of a documentary story. The storyteller is a narrator, who differs from the author-creator in the level of culture and intelligence, age, nationality and gender. The subject of the tale in many stories of the cycle is a female character. Narrators of different types enable A. Slapovsky to structure the polyplot “caravan of stories“ of Foggy Alleys and to implement the author’s artistic concept of love.