Dovlatov’s dialogue with Hemingway
A farewell to The Zone
Alexandr Zaytsev | Sechenov University (Russia)
Nataliya Ogurechnikova | RUDN University (Russia)
This paper focuses on three chapters about captain Yegorov and Katya Lugina in Sergei Dovlatov’s novel entitled
Зона (The Zone: A Prison Camp Guard’s Story). The intertext shown and discussed in the paper
suggests that the three chapters may be viewed as a ‘modified version’ of Ernest Hemingway’s WWI novel A Farewell to
Arms. We then use the intertext as the basis for the discussion of Dovlatov’s dialogue with Hemingway and the value
of Hemingway’s personality and works for Dovlatov. We analyze two aspects of Dovlatov’s dialogue with Hemingway: (1) Dovlatov’s
emotional response to Hemingway’s novel and (2) Dovlatov’s contemplation of esthetics of art. In the end, we discuss the notion of
tradition in connection with Dovlatov’s dialogue with Hemingway.
Keywords: Dovlatov, Hemingway, intertext, dialogue, reader, emotional response, horizon of expectations, memory, background knowledge, author, esthetics of art
Published online: 04 September 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00068.zay
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00068.zay
References
References
Bakhtin, Mikhail
Barthes, Roland
Boseman, Julie
2012 “To Use and Use Not.” New York Times, July 4 2012 https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/books/a-farewell-to-arms-with-hemingways-alternate-endings.html?_r=1
Cohen, Hermann
Dovlatov, Sergei
Herman, Judith L.
von Humboldt, Wilhelm
Iser, Wolfgang
Jauss, Hans R.
Juvan, Marko
van der Kolk, Bessel
Kuritsin, Vyacheslav
Mannheim, Karl
[ p. 269 ]
Marková, Ivana
Mika, Bogumiła
Müller-Wood, Anja
Piegay-Gros, Nathalie
Popper, Karl R.
Riffaterre, Michael
Seliverstova, Olga
Sell, Roger D.
Tyutchev, Fyodor
Villard, Henry S. and James Nagel
Vysevkov, Pavel
[ p. 270 ]