NASMIJANO BEZUMLJE U IZVANBRODSKOM DNEVNIKU SLOBODANA NOVAKA

SMILING INSANITY IN OUTBOARD LOG BOOK BY SLOBODAN NOVAKThe paper argues that the starting point of Novak’s novel Outboard Log Book is a“twisted” world based on a paradox, which influences the main elements and strategies of narration. Due to this “twisted” feature of the novel, which is determinedmostly politically and ideologically, the “disturbed perspective” prevails in the text.Since the basic strategy in the novel is the pun, i.e. world play, whose symbolismand meanings interconnect the plot, composition, narration, and the signifiers. Thecharacter of Magistar, transformed into a fool and an outcast in this upside-downworld, can oppose the ideology and language as its main stronghold, only with“silence ideology” (known from previous Novak’s novels We Should Think Further,Southern Thoughts, and It Should Die Logically.), or he can try “to undermine it withthe language itself”. When the world cannot be interpreted by language, almost allits functions are lost. What remains is the poetic function that becomes embeddedin irony. The paradigmatic syntagm a shell that makes a noise embodies the individuality and further justifies literariness. However, it becomes obvious that eventhat “pledge” of art can be both disruptive and contradictory. The protagonist’sreturn to the island signals a circular structure of the key narrative strand, as wellas his journey. Puns, playing with paradoxes, twists and replacements, as well as“the aspiration for logical dying” “are reconciled” at the end of the third part ofthe novel entitled Necropolis, which is visible in the “equalization of the opposingworlds”, and in finding a solution to the problem of temporality.