How the heart beats: narrative rhythm and the problem of bodily mimesis (on the novel “The end of days” by J. Erpenbeck)

The rhythm of prose has been studied for decades, but in recent years it has received a new meaning in the works of enactivists (M. Caracciolo, S. Khven, Ya. Popova, etc.). Rhythm is now determined through the interaction of the narrator and the reader, through the reader’s involvement in the rhythmic coordination of the narrative. In this case, in understanding rhythm, the emphasis shifts to the reader’s interaction with the storyworld, to shaping his bodily and affective response. In the article, the author examines the rhythmic organization of the novel “The End of Days” (2012) by J. Erpenbeck. In the novel, rhythmic movement is created by alternations at different levels of narrative organization: compositional (alternation of what actually happened and what could only have happened); narrative (alternation of first person narration and third person narration); graphic (alternation of italics and direct text); sound (alternation of sharp sounds and silence) and on the bodily level (imitation of trembling, vibrations, “shaking”). The combination of several rhythmic lines in the novel creates an affective resonance in the intersubjective interaction of the reader with the narrative, reduces the affective distance between the reader and events in the novel and simulates the pulsating movement of the narrative. The rhythm of the novel, finally, models the bodily response of the reader, through such a bodily “shaking” giving him the opportunity to experience the shocks of the 20th century