TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER FIVE
by" 51). By avoidin~ the meanin~ of the past the
diarist hides trom selt-knowled~e.
His sense of bein~
as personitied by Raji6 is only ever historical. since
all si~niticance
is locked in an irrecoverable past.
Consequently. Carnojevi6 becomes a Hamlet-type fi~ure
who is unable to act.
The sailor presents an alternative to the repressed
consciousness ot bein~-in-time
as inevitably historical.
His function as in relation to Raji6 was described in
Dedinac's early review ot the novel. althou~h
he
considered Raji6 to be the diarist and Carnojevi6 the
sailor. a result of the deliberate blurrin~
ot identity
in the novel.
Dedinac's descriPtion of the sailor as
the diarist's "double. aovek n;fe~ovih
uzburkanih
misli" ("double. a man of his own anxious thou~hts" 52).
is echoed in this analysis. but also qualitied in that
Carnojevi6's sense of bein~-in-time
is further
tra~mented. The sailor is captured in a mirror ima~e as
part of a dream. written bv an author already resi~ned
to the inevitable loss ot the meanin~
of all experience.
The meanin~ of experience is hidden in Raji6. However.
the critic Radomir Konstantinovi6 considers the sailor
as the product of the diarist's strivin~
for a defence
aaainst the lack ot sense and purpose in the present
when he-writes that "Koliaina aluposti i besmilica
narastala ;fe paralelno sa neminovnom unutarn;fom potrebom
aoveka da se braniff ("The quantitv of nonsense and
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