“Incredulous, Like in a Dream.” “Invitation” (1987) by Claude Simon

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Abstract:
The article is devoted to the text of the Nobel laureate Claude Simon “Invitation” (1987), the reason for writing which was the participation of the French writer in the Issyk-Kul Forum organized by Chingiz Aitmatov in the autumn of 1986, at the end of which M.S. Gorbachev received its participants in the Kremlin. Russian and Soviet themes have occupied a large place in his work for fifty years. The writer visited the Soviet Union three times in different years. Of all the experiments in describing Soviet reality undertaken by the writer, “Invitation” is the most unusual. The hybrid genre nature of this text, the unusual foreshortening — a mixture of oniric descriptions in the spirit of a New Novel (one of the brightest representatives of which was Claude Simon) and a travel diary, the lack of an unambiguous author’s assessment of the described geopolitical events and characters — all this did not allow criticism to give an adequate assessment of the various artistic and ideological features of the “Invitation”. This article is an attempt to give a balanced and objective analysis of this brief but complexly organized text against the background of the dramatic events of the beginning of perestroika. The article, along with a review of the opinions of critics, provides, if necessary, a brief description of the main features of the poetics and problems of this text in the context of the New Novel and the entire work of Claude Simon. In conclusion, three translations of the “Invitation” into Russian are briefly analyzed — by Natalia Gorbanevskaya, Ekaterina Lyamina and Marina Arias- Vikhil.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/CM.2949-0510-2025-6-554-577
EDN:
https://elibrary.ru/WUUZWT
Author: Alexey G. Vishnyakov
About the author: Alexey G. Vishnyakov, DSc in Philology, Professor, the Department of Romano-Germanic Philology, State University of Humanities and Technology, Zelenaya St., 22, 142611 Orekhovo-Zuyevo, Russia. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Received: December 4, 2024
Date of Publication: March 24, 2025
Approved after reviewing : November 11, 2025
Publication Type: Research Article
For citation: Vishnyakov, A.G. “‘Incredulous, Like in a Dream.’ ‘Invitation’ (1987) by Claude Simon.” Codex manuscriptus, issue 6. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2025, pp. 554–577. (In Russian) https://doi.org/10.22455/CM.2949-0510-2025-6-554-577
Keywords: Claude Simon, “Invitation”, New Novel, Perestroika, Aitmatov, Gorbachev, the Soviet Union.

REFERENCES

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