Oneiric Poetics of Anna Starobinets’s Novel «Shelter 3/9»: Alakrez as a Principle of Connecting Reality and Unreality

The aim of this article is to analyze the oneiric poetics of the novel by A. A. Starobinets «Shelter 3/9». The relevance of the study is due to the active interest of modern domestic and foreign literary studies in borderline phenomena in the sphere of literary genres and in phenomena in the sphere of artistic reality, which can be created, among other things, through dreams and various oneiric states. The novelty of the article is determined by the absence of works devoted to this novel, in particular — in the aspect of analyzing its structure and the dreamlike basis of its artistic world. The main principle of the book’s construction and the method of organizing the plot, composition, characters’ images actively used by the author is alakrez, which is originally a photographic technique consisting in using a mirror in order to obtain a reflection inscribed in a real perspective. In «Shelter 3/9» alakrez combines reality and unreality, reality and sleep, stratifies the images of the characters and creates their multiple appearances (implementing the principle of cardinal numbers). The seam, the border between realities, designated in a dream/in dreams, reveals the physical and mental trauma of the characters and their moral and existential errors. In addition, the article examines the specifics of the relationship between the writer and the characters and the nature of creativity in «Shelter 3/9». Starobinets’ novel is presented as a metatext, and the writer is the one who creates a magical reality.