PHILOSOPHICAL, ETHICAL, AND MOTIVE-THEMATIC UNITS IN I. MCEWAN’S NOVEL “AMSTERDAM”

Abstract

In the paper, the Ian McEwan’s novel “Amsterdam” is analyzed as a work, which demonstrates the transformation of postmodernism into post-postmodernism. The dynamics of correlations between postmodernism and post-postmodernism in the contemporary British novel has been determined. The concept of “pre-post-postmodernism” is proposed for the characteristic of the historical and cultural situation in which the visualization of the motives and the themes that will become clear in the novels written after 2000-s is represented. The expediency of the use of post-postmodernism and the validity of “Amsterdam”, which determines the emergence of a new literary trend in the contemporary British literature, is substantiated in the research. The thematic and problematic units, represented in the novel of the British writer, have been determined. The outlook and philosophical specificity of a work presented through a set of key themes is defined: the awareness of the supreme senses in the reality, the belief in the supreme (not recognizable by mind of the human beings) regularity, the impossibility of recognizing which of the constructed realities around the characters is real, etc. I am focusing on the forms of the re-actualization of philosophical problems that have been adopted in the discourse of classical German philosophy, which, according to the views of B. Shalahinov, was substantially explicated in the discourse of European literary modernism. The concept of beauty and sublime as the realm of the existence of supreme esthetical senses (teleological aspect) is the essential for the German philosophical system. The genre specificity of the novel is described in the aspect of the genre pattern of the novel outlining this genre as a story about the contemporary life. It is spotlighted, in what way the involvement of the ironic mode of perception of events, phenomena, and others is embodied in the novel. Besides, it is discussed whether irony ceases to be the key form of interpretation of events and the attitude of characters to the world. I describe the poetic specifics of Ian McEwan’s "Amsterdam, the model of post-postmodern outlook as a combination that irony with an immanent desire to seek the truth, to understand simulacra images in media or politics around the protagonists, hypothesizes to assume the existence of supreme (ontological) senses of life. It is emphasized on the revision in the novel the topics related to the concept of great narratives in the discourse of post-postmodernism.