Fictional worlds of fantasy and "magical" prose as a space for generating supertext

Borunov Artem Borisovich ORCID: 0000-0003-2507-7218 PhD in Philology Associate Professor, Department of History of Journalism and Literature, Moscow State University named after A.S. Griboyedov 111024, Russia, Moscow, highway Enthusiasts, 21 borunov.artem@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Ustinovskaya Alena Aleksandrovna ORCID: 0000-0001-5381-0777 Doctor of Philology Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communication, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education Russian State University of Social Technologies. Losinoostrovskaya str., 49, Moscow, 107150, Russia alyonau1@yandex.ru

One of the options for referring to the supertext format is, as mentioned above, fantasy literature. E.S. Tulusheva links the success of a number of fantasy universes with a tendency to cyclization – it is the synergy of these two vectors that has led to the emergence of extremely successful projects, both from the point of view of commerce and from the point of view of cultural emanations. "The comparison of the two leading trends in world literature – the desire for cyclization and the desire to model a fantastic universe – allows us to point out the reasons for the emergence of interest in these phenomena in the second half of the century. In addition, another factor of cyclization, potentially affecting the work of modern authors, in our opinion, is also the possibility of a film adaptation of the work – so, if the film adaptation of the works of Tolkien and Lewis took place much later than they were created, then, say, in a series of novels by J.K. Rowling, the cinematic principle of metacycle formation is clearly present: sequels appear and prequels, parallel projects written by the author after the creation of the main Harry Potter novels and in the wake of their cinematic success" ^[1].

Many domestic masters of the genre tend to overtexts: for example, the series "Watches" by Sergei Lukyanenko, which includes seven books authored by Lukyanenko and four books co-authored with other writers (as of 2023), the series "Tanya Grotter" (16 books for 2023) and "Methodius Buslaev" (19 books for 2023) Dmitry Yemts, the Wolfhound series by Maria Semenova (6 books for 2023), numerous cycles, trilogies and tetralogies by Alexey Pekhov, cycles and series by Karina Demina, etc.

In our opinion, the tendency towards the formation of supertexts in the fantasy genre is explained, first of all, by the creation of a certain artistic world in the work, which often differs significantly from reality. A detailed study of this world, coupled with the commercial success of the first novels in the series, encourages the author to continue the cycle, which often grows spontaneously.

Analyzing Russian children's fantasy, E.Y. Dvorak notes the following characteristic features: "1) The space of "secondary worlds" is based on the concept of "matryoshka worlds".

2) The plot is based on the principle of two worlds, based on the motive of the quest. At the same time, it is necessary to note the attraction of each of the fantasy plots to cyclization, that is, to the formation of a supertext in which the same chronotopic and magical-ontological patterns operate.

3) The manifestation of a heroic complex in the main character, whose goal is to save the world, help the oppressed and unfairly offended, restore harmony in the fantasy universe. The hero is an ordinary teenager, in whom his best qualities are manifested during the plot unfolding of adventures: courage, generosity, fortitude" ^[2].

The fantasy hero has a lot in common with the superheroes of the fantasy universes of films and comics, which allows you to endlessly reproduce the situation that consumers love: evil forces arise in the hero's universe (often personified in any particular character of the fictional world) - the hero fights them and wins in the final. In the next work of the cycle, the forces of evil are embodied in the role of another antagonist, and the situation is played out anew: in fact, such a pattern can endlessly develop anew and allows you to repeat the plots of the series according to the same scenario. Analyzing the cyclization of modern fantasy novels, M.A. Dvorak points out that "the works included in the cycle, as a rule, also have some completeness, but a single text has one key characteristic – integrity. The cycle automatically implies an understatement in one single text, whereas a single novel is eventually assembled into a complete picture, invented in advance by the author" ^[2]. The variant of children's fantasy disposes to cyclization and prolonged development of events, since the hero can be shown in development, from childhood to adolescence and adulthood. The same variant is used in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series of books and in Clive Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series.

In addition to fantasy literature, the literature of magical realism tends to cyclize and generate supertexts. In the dissertation research by E.S. Tulusheva, dedicated to the latest trilogies by Dina Rubina "The Russian Canary" and "Napoleon's Wagon Train", the two mentioned trilogies are considered, which also adjoin the earlier trilogy "People of the Air", and describes the modern writer's attraction to large forms: novels are replaced by a more extensive text, which, in principle In the case of "People of the Air", it represents three independent texts united by common motives, and in the case of "The Russian Canary" and "Napoleon's Wagon Train" - a prolonged narrative, representing the development of a single story with the same characters. As E.S. Tulusheva notes, "the trilogies of Dina Rubina "The Russian Canary" and "Napoleon's Wagon Train" are organized as meta-combinations of texts using a system of leitmotifs. These are plot and figurative leitmotives related to the objective, material world of the trilogy, heroes and atomic plots. Each trilogy has semantic keys to the leitmotivs that permeate the entire architectonics of both the individual parts and each trilogy" ^[1].

The transition from completed novels to the supertext format, in our opinion, is partly due to Dina Rubina's entry into the space of magical realism. In the study by A.G. Silcheva ^[3], it was noted that since the 2000s the writer has been working in the method of magical realism, forming reality with elements of magic, and at the same time relying on binding motives.

The authors turned to the study of this pattern in the study of the motive of "someone else's child" ^[4], conducted on the material in the latest trilogies by Dina Rubina – in the history of families, the motive of adoption constantly arises, the upbringing of a non–adopted child. The trilogy "People of the Air" opens with a scene of adoption: "Leonardo's Handwriting" is the story of Anna Nesterenko, adopted by a childless married couple, Maria and Anatoly. Life in this foster family is the first rejection and the first misunderstanding in Anna's life: the foster mother hardly accepts the girl's unique talent, her obsession with mirrors and amazing features of perception of the world.

"The White Dove of Cordoba" is the story of Zakhar Cordovin, whose roots can be traced back many centuries. The genealogy of the Cordovin-Cordover family dates back to the time of King Solomon: "a well–known, very branched family, the origin of the Spanish name is, as you know, from Cordoba, although the roots of the family go back to the ancient wilds – after all, Jews appeared on the Iberian Peninsula under the Romans - and even lead to the Jerusalem Temple, and not the Second, and the First One" ^[5]. Cordovin learns about the ancient history of his family only in adulthood, in childhood he was raised as the illegitimate son of an illegitimate daughter: his mother, Rita Cordovina, was the illegitimate daughter of Zakhar Cordovin Sr., and she gave birth to his full namesake from an unknown father: "Took a few steps to the couch, looked at the child and froze. In front of him lay the same damned Zakhar, Zakhar again and only Zakhar, as if this dead scoundrel was this gopnik! – somehow managed to make a child of his own daughter!" ^[5]. The hero of the novel finds his true family only in Spain, in the city of Cordoba, having finally learned the whole history of his branched family. In this sense, he himself is a "stranger", an abandoned child.

In "Petrushka Syndrome", the theme of children introduces a tragic line into the family history of Peter and Lisa. Lisa suffers from a genetic disease, due to which she can give birth to boys with Angelman syndrome (Parsley syndrome) and healthy girls. The main characters are legally married and raise their own children, but the truth about the tragic genetic disease in their family's ancestral history is revealed to them by a professor, the adopted son of one of those women who received dangerous heredity due to a curse.

Thus, in "People of the Air", the motif of the adopted child becomes binding for textual unity, and, like many other motifs in this trilogy, receives a "female" version of the implementation in "Leonardo's Handwriting", a male one in "The White Dove of Cordoba", and a special, unusual (in this case, peripheral, implemented in in the image of a minor character) – in the "Parsley Syndrome".

In the Russian Canary, for which the theme of family relations and the interaction of a child with his ancestors is also key, the main character is an illegitimate child who, like Zakhar Kordovin, does not rightfully bear the family name, but becomes one of the most prominent representatives. Leon Etinger – "the last Etinger" - is also born of a father whose full name is revealed only in the finale of the story, and Etinger acquires not only the family of his mother, whose surname he bears, but also the family of his father.

In "Napoleon's Wagon Train", the motive of the adopted child is revealed through the tragic love story of Nadezhda and Aristarchus: Nadezhda, pregnant with Aristarchus, learns about his relationship with her sister and attempts suicide. Nadezhda, who survived but lost the opportunity to have children forever, is approached by her sister, offering to adopt Aristarchus's child. Nadezhda agrees, and raises Alexey as her son, without dedicating him to the story of his birth. Just as Zakhar Kordovin Jr. looks like an exact copy of Zakhar Kordovin Sr., so Alexey is born extremely similar to his father Aristarchus, so that he identifies himself even in Alexey's photo: "I did not understand. Where am I? When? She opened her eyes with an effort and squeezed her eyes shut against the light of the lamp: he was standing at the table and holding a photo in his hand."^[6] As E.S. Tulusheva notes, "The story that originally happened in the family of Aristarchus is duplicated in the family of Nadezhda: the adopted child is hidden, his surname is changed, any ways of identifying him with blood relatives are destroyed. And just as Aristarchus does not have time to see his own grandmother, whose existence he learned from his dying mother, so Alexey sees his own father only after death and does not learn the whole intricate history of the family inheritance: "the connection of time has broken" ^[6].

The reproduction of appearance and habits in generations represents the characteristic features of magical realism, deformed relative to the reality of the artistic space.

Supertexts based on magical realism are also characteristic of the modern writer Mikhail Elizarov. Mikhail Elizarov's novels "Pasternak" (2003) and "Librarian" (2007) are, in our opinion, a classic "reader's" cycle, that is, a dilogy without the author's intention to combine novels into a cycle. This is evidenced by a number of motional and structural-compositional echoes that arise in the reader's mind. This system of intertextual relationships has become the subject of the study of this article.

The first and perhaps the most important point uniting the two novels was the idea of the word as a mystical – and sometimes magical – phenomenon that is somehow capable of changing reality. It was the concept of such a word that became the conceptual basis of both novels, from which the plots themselves unfold.

In the novel "Pasternak", the poetic texts of Pasternak and the poet himself become representatives of the magic word, who appears as a terrible demon that penetrates into consciousness and changes the essence and appearance of a person. Cf. an example of such a transformation, from which the text of the novel begins:

"Pyotr Semyonovich looked around. A terrible smile lit up his mouth:

– We have won, Boris Leonidovich! We have won!

Nothing about him resembled a disgraced intellectual anymore. His appearance was filled with some kind of ancient triumph, like that of a demon in a medieval engraving… In the darkness, webbed wings opened <...> Pyotr Semyonovich stretched out his arms to the creature, as if asking for an embrace. The wings closed around him with a thunderclap, as if a book opened in the middle had slammed shut, then opened again — and Pyotr Semyonovich was no more" ^[7].

In the novel "The Librarian", the books of the half-forgotten Soviet writer Gromov have such a transformative power. To the person who has read them, they give the opportunity to possess one of the types of psychic energy, each of the books carries its charge: The Book of Power, the Book of Power, the Book of Rage, the Book of Patience, the Book of Joy, the Book of Memory, the Book of Meaning. Being filled with this or that energy also transforms the human personality, takes it beyond its limits. Cf.: "He read the Book of Joy, it is also Narva. According to the memoirs of his ex-wife, Lagudov suffered a violent euphoric state, did not sleep all night, said that he subjected existence to universal analysis and he had great thoughts on how to benefit humanity..." ^[8]. The epigraph to the novel from Andrei Platonov's short story "The Doubting Makar" is indicative: "a working man must deeply understand that buckets and locomotives can be made as much as he wants, but song and excitement cannot be made. A song is more expensive than things."

However, the concepts of word/text presented in the two novels turn out to be axiologically opposite, which again brings back the idea of a dilogy: in two novels, the same theme is "played out" in internally related, but antinomic registers.

So, in the novel "Pasternak", the word undoubtedly has a demonic essence. This demonism correlates with a system of liberal views, the quintessence of which is the poet himself. Pasternak is a collective image of the devil, the tempter, who leads people on a false spiritual path. Interestingly, the cult of Pasternak in the novel is associated with a large number of false sectarian practices associated with the New-Age era and the twentieth century in general: these are the most diverse sects, from Blavatsky to alternative branches of Christianity, called in the text "shells of Christianity" ^[7]. Cf. in this context, the idea of the book: "In that world, the danger came even from the book. So, Satan was broadcasting through a chosen shell. The book imposed his vision of the world on human eyes, spoke in Satanic language inside human words and thus converted him to faith" ^[7].

As for the novel "The Librarian", here the idea of a transformative word is closely intertwined with the "Soviet project", which includes an attitude towards unity, collectivism and human brotherhood.

Let's pay attention to the fact that the liberal and Soviet ideologies are not just different, but – within the framework of the dilogy – diametrically opposed. This axiological opposition is played out in books: It's as if Elizarov is exploring the possibilities of every axiological system.

The novels are also united by the theme of secret knowledge, which naturally stems from the concept of the mystical-magical word. If there is some kind of secret power, then, accordingly, characters appear who wish to possess this secret power. And here both novels enter the genre sphere of fiction: both in The Librarian and in the novel Pasternak there are extremely many fantastic elements.

B.A. Khanov notes that "formally, the plot of The Librarian tends to the popular format of the cryptological novel today. In the work, groups hostile to each other secretly hunt for the surviving books of the socialist realist writer Gromov, unknown to the general reading public" ^[9].

It is curious that the motive of searching for a book in the Librarian echoes some of the motifs in Elizarov's songwriting. Thus, the search for a magic book becomes the basis of the lyrical plot of the song "Necronomicon". This book, wanted by a lyrical subject, has infernal-demonic connotations, as indicated by references to Lovecraft.  In the context of Lovecraft's work, the Necronomicon is a fictional book of the dead, or a textbook of magic. In this sense, Elizarov's "Necronomicon" seems to be more correlated with the semantic space of the novel "Pasternak".

Thus, the main fantastic assumption in novels and the basis of the construction of their artistic world is the idea that the word/ book / the author himself can influence the physical world. The element of meaning changes the parameters of reality in both cases. 

Another characteristic feature of Elizarov's novels is the embodiment of a carnival-grotesque complex: physiological motives, the accentuation of images of the bodily bottom, the most vivid description of death, the destruction of human physicality – all these features are found in the texts of the novels. E.A. Pogorelaya notes this aspect: "In the case of Elizarov, we are dealing with a layer of raised, reinterpreted — and reinterpreted in a new way of carnival culture. The fact that Sorokin, Pelevin and other "militant postmodernists" imitated the rite and were furnished with appropriate decorations: cardboard swords, cranberry juice, the triumph of the "corporeal bottom" marking virtual abysses — in Elizarov's novels becomes overgrown with flesh and requires not an abstract worldview, but effective intervention, in other words— participation in the rite" ^[10].  

This carnivality in both Elizarov's novels is associated with scenes of fights and battles. It must be said that the harsh – conflict – confrontation of different forces of being, manifested in the analyzed texts of Elizarov, determines another of their common thematic features: one of the main motives of these novels is the motive of aggression and harsh rejection of other axiological positions.  It seems that the theme of destructible physicality in these scenes allows us to reconstruct the foundations of Elizarov's artistic world – conflicted and disharmonious. O.R. Temirshina believes that "there are elements in the artistic text that are more closely related to the model of the world than the rest. It seems to us that the image of human physicality can act as one of such elements" ^[11].

Thus, the similarity of Elizarov's novels "Pasternak" and "Librarian", which allows them to be combined into a kind of "unassembled" diptych, is found at the conceptual-semantic (axiological) and plot-narrative levels. Thus, the conceptual basis of these novels becomes the idea of the book and the artistic word as a whole – as a substance that changes reality. Understanding this concept in diametrically opposed philosophical and political registers only emphasizes the semantic connectedness of these texts. In the narrative aspect, the unifying element is the "cryptographic plot" itself, which involves the search for true knowledge.

Text and cinematic fantasy universes, like comic book universes, are often associated with the mythologeme of a superhero, the author's myth of a hero / heroes endowed with superpowers. This raises the question of author's myths in modern literature, which needs a separate detailed study.

By creating a unique artistic world and using a myth, the author does not set himself the task of retelling or preserving it: the myth acts as a source and material, but at the same time the author has the right, within the framework of the artistic world of the work, to interpret the myth according to the objectives of the artistic text and the author's intention. Myth as a told story becomes a "raw material" for various genres and literary trends ^[12], including actively used by postmodernism.

Let us turn to the interpretation of myth as such in philology and, further, to the study of the author's myth in the postmodern novel, to which the author's next work was devoted ^[13]. So, there are many interpretations of the concept: A. F. Losev, Yu. M. Lotman, Ya. Golosovker, F. H. Cassidy, E. M. Meletinsky, M. M. Bakhtin, as well as K. G. Jung, R. Barth, K. Huebner, R. Kayua, E. Kassirer, K. Levi-Strauss and many others studied the question of defining the myth, combining the concept with literature, art in general, culture, politics, economics, psychology, sociology, linguistics. Thus, E. M. Meletinsky in the article "Myth and the twentieth century" defines myth as a "description of the model of the world" ^[14]. The philologist notes that the main form of the myth is narrative, that is, the myth is a story in which the characters are clearly defined, their unambiguous characteristics are given and the roles are presented.

The main task of the myth, regardless of the interpretation of the term and its type, is to offer an understandable, stable complete picture of the world in which roles and functions are clearly defined and which explains the surrounding phenomena, events, etc. As A. L. Barkova notes, the myth is based on the perception of reality based on emotions, i.e. it is a deeply subjective, but at the same time a social phenomenon ^[15].

Literary trends realize the mythology of the peoples of the world in the artistic world in different ways. For example, ancient mythology was an aesthetic model for classicism ^[12]. Postmodernism, being, on the one hand, the development of a literary tradition and, on the other hand, its transposition and transformation, works with myth in a different way from the previously accepted ones.

In the article "The author's myth as a genre of modern literature" by V. A. Pyanzina, the following definition of the author's myth sounds: "The author's myth is a narrative created with the help of myth, both from the point of view of structure and from the point of view of content" ^[16]. It should be noted that the author's perception becomes an important element: the myth is an emotionally connected set of facts, the connection is built by the author. At the same time, the logic of this connection may not be obvious, which refers us to such a fundamental concept of postmodernism as a game. The author "plays" with the reader, freely disposes of cultural codes (including referring to mythology), substitutes concepts, including various references in the text that the reader needs to guess in order to fully enjoy the work. Getting pleasure from the text for an intelligent reader is precisely the result of playing with the author ^[17].

In postmodernism, the myth retains its function and contains a complete picture of the world. And if we say that a myth reflects a certain image of reality, but is not an objective reality, then such an attitude in postmodernism is brought to the point of absurdity.

In the article "The problem of studying mythologism and the plot of myth as an element of the plot structure in Russian prose of the late twentieth and early 21st centuries", T. A. Rytova and E. A. Shchipkova note that the postmodern author's myth loses its ability to be a descriptive model standing above reality, therefore, to the fore of working with myth, as we note further in the article, The game, carnivalization and deconstruction are coming out ^[18].

Russian Russian novels of the 1930s and 1950s ^[19], in which the main patterns of the origin and development of author's myths, their artistic functions and connection with historical sources and archaic prototypes are identified on the basis of the widest material of Russian novels of the Soviet period, are very significant for us. V. Soldatkina's work "Mythopoetics of the epic text (based on the material of Russian prose of the 1930s and 1950s)" ^[19]..

O. Anisimova in the article "Appeal to myth in modern literature" notes that the task of referring to myth as a tool in creating a work of art and constructing the artistic world is to build a connection with the world literary tradition ^[20]. A number of authors (D. Weston "From Ritual to Novel", G. Merey "The Formation of the heroic Epic", etc.) note the genetic proximity and continuity of ritual, myth and literature, therefore, the use of myths in the structure of a work of fiction in modern literature does not seem deliberate, but allows you to build a connection with the culture of various peoples at a deeper level.

In postmodernism, the figure of the author creating the original work is erased. The direction is based on the belief that the author is just a reteller or narrator of stories invented earlier, therefore, building a relationship with culture is a fundamental task of referring to mythological material.

V. A. Pyanzina identifies the following features of the author's postmodern myth:

1) the author's myth does not take into account the traditional "evil – good" dichotomy;

2) the truth is mosaic: the category of "truth" is disappearing, the author's position is on the periphery of the reader's attention: "... for the author's myth, it is not the reliability of the facts that is important, but how they are depicted";

3) inversion, due to which there is a decrease in emotional perception and traditional values are often devalued;

4) the catharsis experienced by the heroes of both myth and fiction, as well as by readers, is timeless and non-situational ^[16].

Thus, the myth acts for the postmodernist author as a "raw material", a material that allows the author to express his position and build an artistic world. In postmodernism, the figure of the author as the original creator is secondary or disappears altogether: the author uses existing structures to create his work, the myth "sinks" into the context needed by the author.

As V.A. Emelin notes, "The terms "postmodern" and "postmodernism" are formed using the prefix "post-". This way of forming philosophical concepts, as well as concepts beyond philosophy, became widespread at the end of the twentieth century. The terms formed in this way (poststructuralism, postpositivism, postindustrialism, postcommunism, etc.) are paradoxical, since they do not directly indicate their essence, their subject, but only fix the connection with the content of the immediately preceding concept. As a rule, this connection is a kind of negation, which, unlike dialectical or negative negations, consists in the fact that it does not overcome the previous form, but limits its meaning. Based on this, we can conclude that concepts starting with the prefix "post" do not imply the absence of previous states – rather, we are talking about a transition to a new qualitative level while preserving the achievements of the past, and the latter is already losing its right to inclusiveness and exclusivity.

Postmodernism is a technological phenomenon, and the influence of the latest electronic technologies on the life of society and the individual is so great that an attempt to abstract from them when considering any area of life in the 21st century hardly seems reasonable. Postmodernism seeks to comprehend and bring to life the technological nature of the new reality. It is chronological uncertainties combined with terminological ambiguities that create the main difficulties in interpreting postmodernism. An objective assessment of postmodernism is complicated by the fact that it is fundamentally incomplete, and cannot be completed due to the fact that it expresses the worldview of the present time" ^[21].

The author's myth is a narrative and represents an emotionally connected set of various elements, while the connection is due to the author's vision, not logic. The author's myth is a kind of superstructure over reality within the framework of an artistic work. It is appropriate to compare the author's myth with the frame: the myth is a certain model of reality containing the roles distributed among the characters. Traditional values are often presented in a postmodern work through sarcasm, and the reader's emotional perception decreases.

The postmodern author's myth contains a complete picture of the world, but does not follow the "good–evil" dichotomy. The category of truth is not fundamental: the characters strive to find it, but it is beyond the scope of the literary text.

Thus, in the second half of the 20th century, at the intersection of two trends – the general literary tendency to cyclize and write large poetic and prose forms and the general cultural one, widespread in popular culture, cinema, comics and creolized texts – there is a tendency to form a supertext. Conventionally, a supertext should be defined as a complex textual structure that includes a large number of interrelated elements, each of which at the same time represents a complete text and can be perceived separately. All texts included in the supertext are elements of a single system, connected using the object world, chronotope and character system. The center of the system in many literary, cinematic and comic book projects is a superhero (or superheroes) – a person (being) endowed with supernatural abilities, innate or acquired.