Stylistics of Sasha Sokolov’s Novels “School for Fools” and “Palisandria” (“Astrophobia”): Is It a Tribute Paid to Vladimir Nabokov’s Tradition or Typological Convergence?

Abstract

The paper analyses stylistics of two famous novels by Sasha Sokolov published in the USA: “School for Fools” (1976, 1977) and “Astrophobia” (1985). The first one was highly appreciated by Vladimir Nabokov who saw a close affinity of its poetics with his own style of writing though before emigration Sokolov couldn’t gain access to his books. However the insane marginal hero fully immersed in his own fantasy and hallucinations, numerous double-characters, repeated key-words and symbolic details creating metaphoric style of writing, the multi-layered intertextuality, literary allusions, etc. – all these artistic means happened to be just similar typical features of their novels. But as the author of the article states, such poetic similarity manifests only their multiform typological convergence. A grotesque parody on “Lolita” and “Ada” – “Palisand­ria”, written in exile, on the contrary carries the peculiarities of Nabokov’s poetics to the point of absurdity by means of the same creative approach – postmodernism.