Novák Antaltól Jacob Strane-ig(Kate Elizabeth Russell: Szép, sötét Vanessám

Zsófia Szilágyi

IN: Partitúra Irodalomtudományi folyóirat, Volume XX. , Issue 1, 2025, page 57-74. , ISSN 1336-7307 DOI: 10.17846/PA.2025.20.1.57-74

Abstract:

The debut novel by Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa (2020) translated into Hungarian in 2021 by Judit Bernadett Borbély, focuses on the physical and emotional relationship that develops between a 42-year-old literature teacher and a 15-year-old student. This time, we read the novel in the context of Hungarian school novels featuring teacher heroes who can also be interpreted as victims: examples include Kosztolányi’s The Golden Kite, Nero and the VII. A by Aladár Komlós, Sándor Márai’s novel Baby or First Love, and Ágnes Mészöly’s young adult novel The Darwin Game. The analysis aims to show how much more Russell’s novel is than an investigative newspaper article about a harassment case. The roles of teacher and student, certain parallels (e.g., Nabokov’s Lolita or Britney Spears), the narrative style, and the motif of the dog all serve to confirm this.

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Partitúra is a Hungarian literary journal published in Slovakia twice a year. The first edition was issued in 2006. From 2007 to 2014 its publishers were the Faculty of Central European Studies at The Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra in cooperation with Sambucus Literary Society. Since 2014 the Faculty of Central European Studies at the CPU in Nitra became the sole publisher.

The journal releases peer-reviewed scientific articles, literary studies and art reviews of both Hungarian as well as world literature. It is also a forum for essays on several other arts and intercultural relations. Furthermore, special attention is devoted to the Central European literature and literary studies; the magazine not only publishes the reviews of such studies, but also provides the arena for reflections about them. The journal aims to give an account of the contemporary Hungarian literature of the Hungarian minorities as well as to serve as a cluster for discourses.

As for the structure of the paper, it is usually divided into three main sections. The first part generally deals with the translation of an important foreign abstract literary study. It is followed by the heading of Scientific Studies and the Columns of Critical Analysis. Partitúra regularly publishes thematic abstracts by authors, genres, as well as a literary and artistic phenomenon in focus.