Abstract
This 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This article considers the ludic elements of Akunin's trilogy in three different, though related, interpretive spheres: historical reference; intertextual and metatextual reference; and the search for faith.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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 29-56 |
| Number of pages | 28 |
| Journal | Slavonic and East European Review |
| Volume | 94 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2016 |
Keywords
- Novels
- Setting
- Literary criticism
- Narratives
- Narrators
- Intertextuality
- Literary postmodernism
- Caves
- Crime fiction
- Detective fiction
Access to Document
- Whitehead_2016_SEER_Temptation_AM
© MHRA 2015. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. Originally published in The Slavonic and East European Review, published by Modern Humanities Research Association. The final published version can be found here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.94.1.0029
