performative

Yavorov’s experiment to be not himself, to enter the zone of fiction, is a performative act: what we see on the road, on the move, crossing Sofia, coincides with the entry into and exit from the narrative (from the prose). In this compendium text, Yavorov, adopting a role uncharacteristic of him, continually refers to recognizable or hidden gestures of famous writers, demonstrating an ostentatious familiarity in handling them. There is an empathy with Luben-Caravelov’s “physiological sketch”, reminiscences from Aleko’s feuilletons, ironically snide remarks to P. P. Slaveykov, mockery at the poetry of Trifon Kunev. The narrative’s travelogue, the selected Sofia topoi are frankly reminiscent of Vazov’s cycle of stories “Kardashev on the Hunt”. Yavorov’s text abounds with quotations – from the mocking-parody of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and the Gospel to the profane-volgarized belitrization of his own lyrical motifs, i.e. to the seemingly muted self-reference to already published.