Research on three images - an old woman, an old man, and a dog - in three collections of Ivanka Hergold’s
short stories - Pasja radost ali karkoli (Dog’s Joy or Whatever), Vse imaš od mene (You’ve Got Everything from Me),
and Pojoči oreh (The Singing Walnut) - has revealed many thematic and narrative innovations. Among the
themes, the suggestive images of a grandmother, grandfather, mother, and dog near death are the most effective, and at the narrative level it is fairytale or fantastic logic, scripting, and lyricism. Lyricization as a dominant
digressive process in the six narratives discussed - "Pravljica o dečku in dedku" (The Tale of the Boy and the
Grandfather), "Prazna hiša" (The Empty House), »Pes Alfonz« (Alphonse the Dog), »Ko pride ura« (When the
Hour Comes), »Tretji sin« (The Third Son), and »Pojoči oreh« (The Singing Walnut)-is characterized by rhythmicization and condensation of descriptions into polysemous aesthetic images. Among the images of the old
woman, the old man, and the dog, the story »Pojoči oreh« (The Singing Walnut) from the collection of the same
name stands out for its innovative suggestiveness, in which the image of the grandfather merges into the
(sound) image of the singing walnut. The empathy and sublimity of the images once again proves the quality
of the author’s oeuvre, which calls out for appropriate canonization.
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