TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER FQUR
and future, time is not a continuum. a
flow of uninterrupted succession; it is
broken in the middle. at the point where
"he" standsl and "his" standpoint is not
the present as we usuallv understand it
but rather a cap in time which "his"
constant fiehtinc. "his" makine a stand
aeainst past and future. keeps in
existence (53).
Rjepnin is trvine to maintain a sense of who he has
been, who he is now, and what he oan expect to be in the
future.
However. as he approaches the time of his
suicide, the different times of his life become more
confused in his mind. and the "cap in time" which .is the
present encompasses his whole life, which then seems to
be undifferentiated and emptv.
The orchestration of voices in Roman 0
Londonu is
a compositional desien which hichliehts the issues of
identitv and beinc in time faced bv Rjepnin.
He is
confronted bV .the transience of experience in Which he
finds no comfort for his present position.
He reflects
on his inabilitv to control the transformations which
his life has taken.
He distineuishes.various wavs of
viewine the past, present, and future. and embodies them
in the names of Barlov. ~im.
John. and Napoleon.
Ultimatelv.he is none of these.
With no established
sense of self. he is left to comment on his predicament
in the third person. as if he were discuss inc someon.e·
else.
In the final paces .of the novel he remarks "On
jelud. Taj Rus" ("He is mad. That Russian" 54). The
remark is delive.ed in the third person.
Howeve., this
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