Different Layers of Strangeness in the Novels of Joseph Conrad and Leo Vardiashvili

Abstract

The growing significance of exophonic writers, that is, writers who write outside their mother tongue, in shaping world literature urges us to understand this phenomenon better. Writers’ choice to adopt a second language can stem from seve­ral reasons, among which migration is the most common. With increased global mo­bi­lity since the dawn of the twentieth century, more and more writers seek shelter for their thoughts and tales in a language that is not their first. Such was the case with Joseph Conrad and Leo Vardiashvili. Their novels, Under Western Eyes and Hard by a Great Forest, respectively, which this paper examines, are products of exophony and therefore bear a certain resemblance in terms of thematic and textual strangeness.

To conduct a comparative study of the various layers of strangeness in the novels of Conrad and Vardiashvili, this paper approaches the concept through the idea of the Stranger as viewed in works from different disciplines, including those of Georg Simmel, Emmanuel Levinas, Carl Jung, and Albert Camus.

Both exophonic writers achieve a certain degree of strangeness in their texts through different techniques. Conrad, in Under Western Eyes, uses a narrator to crea­te distance between the Western reader and the text. Thus, the narrator of this Russian story is an English teacher of languages. In addition, the novel is sprinkled with calques translated from Russian, which are especially abundant where the nar­ra­tion follows Razumov’s records.

Vardiashvili, meanwhile, infuses the English language with linguistic and cultural foreignness through occasional exclamations, attempts to mimic Georgian swearing, Georgian place names, nicknames, and culturally specific terms. Further­more, the flooding makes his depiction of the world of Georgia appear even more surreal.

The protagonists of both novels suffer from being strangers to the worlds they inhabit. Although their ethnicity makes them partially close to the communities around them, a number of their characteristics render them alien, leading to a margi­nalised existence.

The loneliness and strangeness of the central character of Conrad’s novel form the main frame of his Being, rooted in his profound difference from others. Adjec­ti­ves such as enigmatic and mysterious, characteristics commonly attributed to the Stranger, frequently appear in relation to Razumov.

Saba, the main character in Vardiashvili’s novel, is a stranger in a strange land, even though he was born there. His accent, clothes, and cigarettes all emphasise his strangeness. He comes from afar and seeks shelter, as Levinas understands the condi­tion of the stranger. Above all, however, he is a stranger to himself in the Jungian sense, and the many voices in his head attest to this.

To conclude, it may be argued that both works represent a merger of the familiar and the strange, qualities embedded in their textual fabric, atmosphere, and overall ambience. Conrad’s narrative technique of estranging Razumov’s world from the Western reader and the surrealistic cosmos of Vardiashvili create compelling, exotic texts that are oddly familiar and unsettlingly mysterious, stirring the reader’s interest. Despite the gap of more than a hundred years between them, a comparative analysis of these works reveals textual and characterological strangeness to be a mar­ked tendency of exophonic fiction.