Typology of Appearance and "Appearance of Typology" in the Novel "Faserland" by Christian Kracht

Santrauka

Literary critics described the novel "Faserland" (1995) by Christian Kracht as a narration about the world of brand goods. The task of the article is to analyze the representation of relation to clothes and the body, which reflexes practices of modern daily occurrence as a whole. The narrator builds a serniotic system, consisting of four parts: clothes, things, outward appearance and smells. He regularly finds such qualitative features as trade mark, colour or rnaterial of object and it allows typifying personality with different criterions. The narrator "envisages" meaningful inforrnation for himself and for modern culture under the codes: an occupation of a person, his/her participation in a subculture, his place of living, inclination to some trade mark, body practices, improving his/her appearance. The "cult of typology" gradually becomes interior, ontological foundation of the text. Now the basic reader's interest comprises invariable passages from one dress-, look-, thing-, and brand-code to the other.