Essays
How to use dystopian spaces: Catherine Mavrikakis, Christian Guay-Poliquin and David Calvo
Petr Kyloušek
; Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Abstract
In Québécois literature, dystopias seem to be an extension of apocalyptic narratives. Several common points are noticeable: a vision of the end of time; an axiology that oscillates between evil, redemption and salvation; an inquiry about the relationship between the individual and the social. However, the functioning of cultural memory and the role of the „actual world“ are different from apocalyptic narratives. The fact is indicated by several recent dystopian novels: Oscar de Profundis (2016) by Catherine Mavrikakis, a kind of rewrite of Joris-Karl Huysmans' À rebours; Le Fil des kilomètres (2013) and Le Poids de la neige (2017) by Christian Guay-Poliquin, a diptych opposing the road novel to the roman du terroir; Toxoplasma (2017) by David Calvo, a cyberpunk dystopia, inspired among others by David Cronenberg's films. The comparison will focus on spatiality, which exploits the specifically Québécois and Canadian connotations and whose organization and meaning seem to outweigh temporality. Mavrikakis's aestheticization of Montréal space, Calvo's mythologization of the city of Montréal and Guay-Poliquin's theologizing transcendence of landscape and nature seem to offer three distinct aspects of the specificity of Québec dystopias.
Keywords
Québécois literature; dystopian narratives; spatiality; Catherine Mavrikakis; Christian Guay-Poliquin; David Calvo
Hrčak ID:
228952
URI
Publication date:
26.11.2019.
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