Karolina Ferreira (1993) van Lettie Viljoen en Vincent van Gogh se 'Die Nagkafee' (1888): ’n ruimtelik-koherente lesing

Abstract

Karolina Ferreira (1993) by Lettie Viljoen and Vincent van Gogh’s 'The Night Café' (1888): A spatial-coherent reading

Building on the text-linguistic definition of coherence as an intra-, inter-, and extratextual unity the underlying relations in Karolina Ferreira by Lettie Viljoen are explored. Vincent van Gogh’s “The Night Café” is a hidden spatial-visual intertext which can serve as a centre of contemplation regarding the coherence of Karolina Ferreira and that of Viljoen’s oeuvre. Van Gogh’s description of this work in his letters is echoed in Viljoen’s depiction of the billiard room, a space betwixt and between. “The Night Café” resonates intra-, inter-, and metatextually and unlocks the circular or spheric-spatial coherence of Karolina Ferreira, which can be visualized as a (Buddhist) mandala. At the core of this mandala is the billiard table: the meditative object and centre of control with respect to the narrative space (textual space) and the narrated, intertextual, and metatextual spatial dimensions of Karolina Ferreira. Metatextually Karolina Ferreira disrupts the conventional temporality of narrative texts in favour of the suppressed narrative category of space.