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dc.contributor.authorWhitehead, Claire Eugenie
dc.date.accessioned2018-01-19T00:30:44Z
dc.date.available2018-01-19T00:30:44Z
dc.date.issued2016-01-01
dc.identifier15508286
dc.identifier04842b8b-d065-4f1b-8818-e37d1e2479ac
dc.identifier84962068654
dc.identifier000368252800002
dc.identifier.citationWhitehead , C E 2016 , ' The temptation of the reader : the search for meaning in Boris Akunin's Pelagia Trilogy ' , Slavonic and East European Review , vol. 94 , no. 1 , pp. 29-56 . https://doi.org/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.94.1.0029en
dc.identifier.issn0037-6795
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0003-3712-2223/work/51943784
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/12513
dc.description.abstractThis article discusses the games that Boris Akunin's Pelagia trilogy (2000–03) plays with the reader's attempts at interpretation and meaning-making. Most critics agree that detective fiction in this ‘whodunnit’ mode is a genre that invites the active participation of its reader in order to uncover a hidden truth. What Akunin's trilogy does, however, is simultaneously to invite this participation and playfully frustrate it by thwarting or disrupting the reader's various attempts at solving its puzzles. This article considers the ludic elements of Akunin's trilogy in three different, though related, interpretive spheres: historical reference; intertextual and metatextual reference; and the search for faith. It concludes that the Pelagia trilogy is best viewed as an example of postmodernist metaphysical detective fiction, which poses provocative questions about the nature of knowledge, the status of meaning, as well as the act of reading.
dc.format.extent28
dc.format.extent519008
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofSlavonic and East European Reviewen
dc.subjectNovelsen
dc.subjectSettingen
dc.subjectLiterary criticismen
dc.subjectNarrativesen
dc.subjectNarratorsen
dc.subjectIntertextualityen
dc.subjectLiterary postmodernismen
dc.subjectCavesen
dc.subjectCrime fictionen
dc.subjectDetective fictionen
dc.subjectPG Slavic, Baltic, Albanian languages and literatureen
dc.subjectBDCen
dc.subjectR2Cen
dc.subjectSDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutionsen
dc.subject.lccPGen
dc.titleThe temptation of the reader : the search for meaning in Boris Akunin's Pelagia Trilogyen
dc.typeJournal articleen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Russianen
dc.identifier.doi10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.94.1.0029
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.date.embargoedUntil2018-01-18


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