Tuesday, November 1, 2011

"Pkhentz" by Andrei Sinyavsky

Post questions below. Try to connect this reading to the more recent critical pieces we've read by Shklovsky and Sontag, if you can.

11 comments:

  1. Shoklovsky and Sontag suggest that we should defamiliarize objects and take on the point-of-view of a alien in a new world. In what ways does Sinyavsky in Pkhentz follow their suggestion through his non-human character?

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  2. What effect does the defamiliarization of the sexual encounter with Veronica have on the audience's perception of sex?

    -Fanny

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  3. The author waits until the end of the piece to introduce the other-worldly aspect of the alien. Taking this into account, the author describes that both hump-backs and aliens are "alien" to the norms of the world in which the story is set. What is the difference between these two perspectives as created by the author by the lateness of the alien's true character?

    -Jesse

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  4. How does “Pkhentz" manifest the cultural and historical framework of the time?

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  5. Why does the author reveal that Andrei Kazimirovich is an alien much later in the story? That is how would the reader's experience with his description of sex and the female body have changed had we known he was an alien beforehand?

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  6. How does the defamiliarization in "Pkhentz" relate to Sontag's idea that art is trying to express silence? Also could the defamiliarization simply be a result of censorship? Is this a hidden benefit of censorship?

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  7. With an alien narration to view Veronica's body as revolting (though a human description would likely be the opposite), how does Sinyavsky's usage of defamiliarization express Shkolvsky's point in "Art as a Device"?

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  8. "I'm not a freak, I tell you! Just because I'm different do you have to be rude? It's no good measuring my own beauty against your own hideousness." How do the concepts of beauty and normality relate to Shklovsky's argument of defamiliarization?

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  9. Kazimirovich describes very human things in an incredibly strange way, rendering them alien to the reader too. How does this defamiliarization of normal things relate to Art as a Device?

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  10. How is it significant that Sinyavsky reveals Andrei's true nature after his encounter with Veronica? Does the use of defamiliarization allow the reader to relate to Andrei more?

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  11. When Veronica is talking to Andrei toward the end, the only things that Sinyavsky includes from her speech are things that relate to "man" or "human," then it becomes a jumble of the letters that make up those words. Is this in order to question the meaning of words? In particular, what it takes to be "human"?

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