Poetics of the anti-world in prose by Ch. Palahniuk

The article deals with poetics of the anti-world in Ch. Palahniuk's dilogy: two related novels Damned and Doomed. The analysis proves that the creation of the two worlds is Ch. Palahniuk's typical artistic technique. The two worlds of his dilogy are the world of the living - the real world, and the world of the dead - the irreal world or anti-world. The phenomenon of the two worlds is also defined as a cultural feature associated with the worldview issues. In these novels Hell is presented as an anti-world which is the world of games, parody and carnival. The author's laughter cancels fear and creates the anti-world itself. This kind of creativity borders on randomness and engenders the world of broken relationships, free from conventions and morals. The world of Hell opposes the real world and has its own laws, orders and such essential elements as setting (the general locale and the time), characters and language. Each of these elements is a paradoxical one, distorted to be absurd. The setting of the anti-world is a reflection of the current environment, revealing its weak points and problem areas. It is implicitly indicated in the titles of the novels Damned and Doomed. Hell is full of elements of different epochs and the variety of styles and trends in culture and architecture, but everything is mixed here and presented in the form of absurd and useless obsolete structures. The flow of time is rather specific in the anti-world. E-mail and twitter as a social network on the Internet used by its inhabitants produce the impression of simultaneity of communication. In Hell everyone tries to keep and adhere to the habit of the earthly course of time, but time in the anti-world is difficult for calculation, because there is no division into days and nights, hours, minutes, seconds. The characters of the novels by Chuck Palahniuk are antiheroes who do not commit anything heroic. The author shows that the dead are changed only physically, but their perception of the world and their moral principles are the same. Hell becomes the only true world for the characters preaching the alternative history of the world. The disadvantaged, sociopathic and unsociable teenagers in the new setting appeared to be one consolidated team. The artistic world in the novels by Ch. Palahniuk is harmonic, though provocative. Rude lexis, slang, simplified speech patterns used by the characters in Ch. Palahniuk's novels reflect the contemporary reality, which explains the success of his novels especially among young people over the age of eighteen. Ch. Palahniuk transforms the world of reality and creates the irreal world which is full of contradictions, impediments and its own principles.

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