Oldal 329 [329]
OCR
ENDURANCE RUNNING AS INITIATION INTO THE MYSTERIES In addition to expressions strongly determined by the history of ideas and rooted in the history of language, Juoksu also contains a plenitude of metanarrative and stylistic references to the mysteries and challenges of the writing process itself. In the following section I will briefly touch on this topic, though I consider it an important area for further investigation in the future. Writers such as Tomas Transtromer, Haruki Murakami, and Imre Kertész have often affirmed in their novels and interviews that, for a writer, the process of writing is “on” all the time. It happens inside the mind of the writer without rest. In the case of Ehrnrooth’s Juoksu, the writing process—the search for the right words, the right metaphors, the polyphony of the aesthetic text, the strides and breaths of the run created by the narrative process—goes hand in hand with the steps, breaths, and the simultaneous joy and agony of the fictional runner. The work consists of 42 chapters—the number of kilometres in a marathon—which are framed and rhythmically cut by the reccurring figure of a gardener. Constructed in this way, the plot line employs multiple, hybrid planes of reality that intersect in the arenas of movement and stasis, outer and inner worlds, and the natural and the transcendental. In addition to the runner’s reflections on his immediate surroundings and inner world, the figure of the gardener triggers a description of the meditative aspects of running. Given that mystical realist literature tends to be read at an intensified level, the reader of Juoksu must also let go of pre-existing ties to conventional exposition, plot advancement, linear time structure, and scientific reasoning in order to be catapulted by an aesthetic experience into a state of heightened awareness of life’s connectedness and transcendental dimensions. Luis Leal articulates this feeling as seizing “the mystery that breathes behind (the) things,” and supports this claim by saying a writer must heighten the senses of the reader to the point of estado limite—a “liminal state,” in which one can catch a glimpse into the multiple levels of reality, most importantly that of mysticism.” In the final third of the run, from chapter 33 on, the runner-narrator detaches more and more from the concreteness of his immediate context, taking longer and longer strides from one word to the next. In chapters 35, 37, 41, and 42, as the empty spaces on the page increase, the text turns into a prose poem. When asked about the mysteries of writing, of the urge to write and put down the words into letters in order to see what they really become, Ehrnrooth explains (cited from his e-mail of 13 November 2015): 4 Luis Leal, Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature, in: Louis Parkinson Zamora, Wendy B. Faris (ed.), Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, Durham, Duke University Press, 1995, 123. + 327 + Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 327 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:27
