The features of fictional space in Clifford Simak’s novels TheCity (1952) and All Flesh Is Grass (1965)
The article is devoted to the time-space organization (known as chronotope) of C. Simak's novels "All Flesh Is Grass" and "The City". The choice of the topic is motivated by the enduring relevance of the existential issues raised by Simak. It seems important to analyze the space features of the fictional world of the author, whose work, despite the popularity both in the author's homeland and in the territory of the former USSR, has practically not been considered by literary scholars. The aim of the work is to study the features of chronotope in the novels "The City" and "All Flesh Is Grass" by C. Simak. Using biographical and comparative methods, the author of the study identifies such basic spatial categories as the topos of the city, the topos of a provincial town and the locus of the country estate, concluding that the enclosed space in the writer's work simultaneously creates the sensation of lack of freedom but security. It is concluded that the enclosed space coincides with the moral drawbacks of the characters and their inability to influence the course of events. The obtained results will contribute to literary criticism, the theory of chronotope, and complement the existing knowledge about soft science fiction.
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