| Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of the chronotope, a shifting intersection of time and space in the novel, takes on a particularly interesting dimension within narratives of historical catastrophe. In the aftermath of war or revolution, the post-apocalyptic state creates the chronotope of life as continuous death, wherein teleological time is disrupted but temporality persists. This chronotope is characterized by liminality, which is displayed through the effects of trauma, the condition of nostalgia and the process of collection-making. While the traumatic event reoccurs without the possibility of assimilation or articulation, the collection of material or metaphorical signifiers is also a form of perpetuated catastrophe. In the three novels which are analyzed, Konstantin Vaginov's The Goat's Song, Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated and Dubravka Ugresic's The Ministry of Pain, the figure of the collector occupies a paradoxically liminal position, while offering a satirical model for survival within the post-catastrophic environment. |
