This argument contains the implication that Petersburg’s actual appearance in brick and stone could be illusionary, could just be “cerebral play.” But make it a dot on a map, in a book, and the city’s existence is forcefully proclaimed, its buildings and prospects becoming real and tangible. Bely here states that Petersburg’s existence is affirmed by its appearance on a map the map validates the city as more than just the construction of a solipsistic mind. The prologue closes with the idea that “Petersburg not only appears to us, but actually does appear-on maps: in the form of two small circles, one set inside the other, with a black dot in the center and from precisely this mathematical point, which has no dimension, it proclaims forcefully that it exists…”. Let’s go all the way back to the prologue, in which Bely established his earlier theme of narrative instability with his opening question, “What is this Russian Empire of ours?” Bely concludes the prologue by opening up another key theme: the relationship between fiction and reality. The first, which you can read by clicking here or scrolling down for about two seconds, focused on Bely’s use of an amorphous narrative voice to foster an atmosphere of instability. This is Part II (of…II) of our review of Andrei Bely’s Petersburg.
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