Abstract

The networked narrative complexities of Bodor texts are achieved by variations and iterations, and this is especially the case with the intricately written Sinistra körzet. This allows for the kind of alinear reading that makes possible the cross-referencing of the different textual levels (e.g. a plot point, a description, or a phrase uttered by a character) as well as the self-reflexive correlation of textual elements and speech events that otherwise appear in separate contexts. This means that the text opens itself up to additional semantic possibilities and self-representational shi”fting. The character and landscape descriptions in Bodor oft”en have the marked effect of blurring the lines between humans, animals, plants, and objects, thereby creating a rich field of metaphorical relations and modulations that venture into the ironic and the grotesque. Humans are substituted/reattributed as animalistic via the act of naming, in order to garner a sense of uniqueness, of the unknown, of the alien, but at the same time this substitution brings about both the annihilation and the familiarization of what is human. is paper explores the textual semiosis of Bodor texts through close readings, focusing on characterization (e.g. “vörös kakas”) and on soundscape descriptions which include the mixing of biophonic and antropophonic sounds. e narrative is “unreliable” and the speech events are idiomatic, resulting in a performative textual worlding and a grotesque-absurd modality that never quite become thetical. In Bodor, the transitions/transformations resist being allegorized.

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