In the network (of images, intrigues and conspiracies) – on the margins of the literary representation of the 19th century in prose »Dominový effect« by Václav Vokolka

Abstract

The subject of this article is an analysis of the representation of the nineteenth century in Václav Vokolek’s multithreaded prose work Dominový efekt. The work can be regarded as a specific continuation of the work Cesta do pekel, especially if the pictorial perspective and the conviction that humanity is in a network of secret organisations, conspiracies and, nowadays, various systems are regarded as common points. In this text, the focus is mainly on the reconstruction of the figure of Ernst Gustav Doerell, a 19th-century landscape painter of Northern Bohemia, whose paintings reflected the changes taking place in the natural landscape of the region. Using the historical prototype in part, Vokolek offers the reader a postmodern game through which he can take the conviction of the omnipotence of the secret systems that rule the world to our present day and even look into the near future.