Literary-documental narrative in the fictional autobiographic novel “My Secret History” by Paul Theroux

Abstract

This article raises the problem of differentiation between authorial fiction and factual information in the fictional autobiographic prose that interfere with each other. The object of this research is the fictional autobiographic prose as a peculiar type of text with structure containing system codes of diverse narrative nature. The subject of this research is the characteristics and features of the literary-documental narrative in a fictional autobiographical text. The goal consists in demonstrating the dual nature of the fictional biographic prose on the example of literary-documental novel “My Secret History” (1989) by Paul Theroux. The following conclusions were formulated: 1) fictional autobiographic narrative as a variety of literary-documental narration is characterized with descriptiveness and aptitude to imitation of objectivity studying the personality of the hero; 2) the text in question contains the signs of realization of paradigms of fiction and actuality. The scientific novelty is consists in application of narratological approach towards analysis of the text, which demonstrates the specific constituting spheres associated with simultaneous implementation of the strategies of fictionalization and documental stylization of the material. It is determines that the fictional autobiographic material is characterized with subjective processing of represented data, and thus, it is essential to interpret the prose in question based on the accessible to audience contextual information (suggested authorial context and historical context).