De-Aesthetic Motives in the Mortality Topic System of the Novels by Antoine Volodine

Anotace: The article is devoted to the study of motives and characters of the de-aesthetic in the novels by the French writer Antoine Volodine (born in 1950), "Minor Angels", "Dondog", "Bardo or not Bardo". Repetitive motives of disgusting transformations and human death, olfactory (unpleasant smells), object (dirt, dust, swamp) and coloristic (blackness, grayness) characteristics are detected. They form an atmosphere of disgustfulness and horror, a susceptible sense of the end of human existence, and create a total metaphor for death. The artistic structure of the works of this "triptych" revealed the movement of the reflection from the instigation of negative social tendencies ("Minor Angels") through the statement of the failure of civilization development concepts ("Dondog") to the searching for the way of mankind survival ("Bardo or not Bardo"). The analyzed motifs and images as an element of the mortality topic not only determine the specifics of the artistic space of the novels by Antoine Volodine, but also actualize the problems of the end/death, appear as a causative factor in postmodernist dystopia and is an instrument for realisation of the "post-exotic" writer’s project.