The genre features of Maik Yohansen’s “The Adventures of MacLayston, Harry Rupert, and Others” as a first Ukrainian print series

Abstract

The article considers the research results of Maik Yohansen’s “The Adventures of MacLayston, Harry Rupert, and Others”. The work is adventurous with the inherent intricate storylines, fast-paced events, exotics, ect. in this genre. The universal element of the novel is the travels. The novel was published in separate editions by the author’s plan, and it gives reason to determine this work as a first Ukrainian print series (a feuilleton novel, a novel with a sequel). The article states the defining feature of an artistic text is its intermedia, that manifests in the orientation at the methods or the silent movie not only at the level of the text structure, the features of the modeling heroes, the use of plug-in elements, the teasers and trailers that are not peculiar to the literary works. There are a lot of cinematic techniques in the novel, in particular, each section is perceived as a separate series, which is based on the cinematic principle of the parallel editing of the different storylines’ episodes. The graphically highlighted messages, document texts, announcements, fragments of notes to the song and even constructivist pictures of Vadym Meller are embedded in the text in M. Johansen’s novel. A cinematic combination reception when a detail in an episode makes the switch to another storyline (series) is an interesting artistic find in the text.

The article studies the dialogues in the novel which are very shot like the silent movie scripts. A big part of a novel is descriptions of the actions of the heroes, but without detailing them so the product is perceived as a set of libretto, themes, ideas that would be rendered by the movie master. The writer introduces a new living space and unusual characters for Ukrainian literature (a rich heiress who travels incognito; her mentally defective brother who enjoys dressing women’s dresses; ethiopians, carters, sailors, detectives, prostitutes, hunters of exotic animals, etc.) who are in different countries and on different continents (America, England, Africa, France, Ukraine). There is no detailed portrait description of any of the characters in the work, a separate detail, in which the hero is different among the others, is noted. The characters are not clearly described which can be interpreted as a play with the canons of the silent cinema which scripts were created to order by a director for a specific actor.