S. Nosov, D. Danilov, V. Pelevin, I. Shipnigov, A. Sekisov, M. Elizarov
This paper examines the role of characters’ and narrators’ philological perspectives in constructing the meta-level of contemporary Russian novels. Analyzing works by A. Bitov, O. Strizhak, S. Nosov, V. Pelevin, D. Danilov, M. Elizarov, A. Sekisov, and I. Shipnigov, the study identifies several key regularities. In twentieth-century philological novels, which actualize convergent communication, interdiscursivity aids the search for adequate interpretations, depicting the philologist as a highly competent reader and guardian of meaning. By contrast, twenty-first-century narratives rely on a divergent, provocative communicative model that introduces the figure of the “unreliable” philologist. The characteristic “blind spot” of such heroes – their failure to recognize literary structures in real-life circumstances – problematizes the possibility of reconciling scholarly and existential experiences. Nevertheless, both models allow readers to compare their interpretations with the proposed reading, developing their own identity through an active response. The interaction between philologist-characters and literary texts also evolves: from attempts to engage in dialogue, decipher, and interpret, toward total immersion in another author’s work, style, or biography. This shift is reflected in the narrative structure, where exegetical insertions (the hero’s texts, footnotes, commentaries) are replaced by the integration of theoretical concepts into the diegetic sequence of events. Ultimately, the dominance of interpretive intrigue in contemporary prose extends the philological intention beyond the philological novel into mass-market literature.
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