Dementia as a Narrative Strategy: An Oxymoron?

• In Event: Crafting Memory: Where Writers [don’t] Meet Readers

Abstract

Memory as a motif runs throughout Liudmila Ulitskaia's prose. In Kazus Kukotskogo (The Kukotsky Enigma) Ulitskaia went so far as to entrust almost a third of the novel's narrative to Elena Kukotskaia, who suffers from dementia. Based on her real-life experience of caring for a relative with Alzheimer's disease, Ulitskaia's bold experiment with narrative memory has yet to be fully appreciated by critics and has evoked the frustration of readers. This paper, presented by the novel's translator, addresses the strategies Ulitskaia used, the problems they raised for readers, and the uniqueness of the albeit highly confusing narrative that resulted.

Author

• Diane M. Nemec Ignashev, Carleton College