THE LANGUAGE OF MINORITY NOVELS IN OTTÓ TOLNAI’S GOGOL HALÁLA [GOGOL’S DEATH] AND VIRÁG UTCA 3 [3 FLOWER STREET]

Abstract

In Ottó Tolnai’s literary work of experimental nature, all genres are characterized by his testing of the characteristic rules of the genre, traditions and expectations, and the suspension of the constraints of the genre. This entails a sense of awareness of the genre and the activation of the expectations that have just been questioned, as well as a search for the authenticity and a unique form of the narrative. His two volumes of prose Gogol halála [Gogol’s Death] and Virág utca 3 [3 Flower street], which followed the sequel novel Érzelmes tolvajok [Emotional Thieves] (1965) published in Új Symposion [New Symposion] and the novel Rovarház [Insect House] (1969), are chains of short prose held together by motivic connections beyond the act of juxtaposition. The connection between the two books became even more obvious from Ottó Tolnai’s afterword in their 2016 joint edition. Virág utca 3 was already designated as a novel in its first edition, while the author’s afterword in the 2016 edition suggested the possibility of considering Gogol halála also to be a novel. Their classification as novels provokes the genre, and therefore these works without a narrative centre fit into the line of Tolnai’s experiments with the language of prose through their metaphorical connections. In the afterword of the 2016 edition, touching upon the structure of the volume, Tolnai also discussed the rhizome theory of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. With the same validity, we can activate the conception of minority literature present in the literature of these French theorists. According to Kafka: Toward Minor Literature, “minority literature” is a fight for liberation from a clear boundedness to a territory, a clear meaning, and meanings “bounded” to something: “To make the sequence vibrate, to open the word to unheard-of inner intensities – in short, an asignifying, intensive use of language”. Tolnai’s experiments in literary language and genres fulfill the co- author duo’s requirements related to an intensive use of language, linguistic means which “stretch the limit of a concept or [...] go beyond it”. Gogol halála and Virág utca 3 are on the borderline of the novel genre, without expressing a sense of home, being “nomads” of the genre. The presentation deals with the characteristics of this minority language of novels within the genre.