A novel about the reader as a case of a meta-novel

Abstract

The problem of the article is the justification of such a genre form as a novel about the reader. The problem is posed for the first time. The question of the genre unity of texts forming this paradigm is solved on the material of narrative texts from the literature of the early Middle Ages to the literature samples of the 21st century. Comparative and immanent methods are used. The type of the plot organization that distinguishes the novel about the reader is analyzed in detail. A nomination is introduced for its designation: a “reading plot”. Within the framework of this plot, several permanent elements are singled out, which obviously correlate with the elements of the cyclic story about initiation. Specific motifs distinguishing the narrative about the reader are revealed. Among them, special attention is paid to the motive which completes the scheme of the reading plot. This is the motive of the reader's transformation. It can have both positive and negative incarnations in the text of the novel about the reader. The author of the article offers the most expressive illustrations. The article is devoted to a polemic concerning the issue of the name of the selected genre paradigm. The term “novel about reading” is rejected as insufficiently expressing the specifics of the genre in question. The notion of the “novel about the reader” is substantiated. Also, the article contains reflections on the typology of the novel about the reader. There are two varieties of this genre. The first type is a novel reflecting on its reading. Here the subject of the image is the process of reading the novel which is the material of direct perception on the part of the real recipient. Such a novel necessarily contains the text of the work read by the character (at least in the form of a fragment). The second type is a novel depicting reading as an event. Such a novel reflects on the results of the reader's meeting with the text. It portrays the reader as a bearer of literary behavior. The study concludes that the reader's novel is a specific type of a meta-novel. It develops problems similar to those of a meta-novel: the question of the relationship between art and reality. But the novel about the reader reflects on the relationship between literature and life on the material of the reader's work (not the author, as in a classical meta-novel). Also, the novel about the reader is a special genre form of a meta-novel due to the fact that it is distinguished by the unity of structural and semantic features: the unity of the problems, the type of plot, the type of the central character, the narrative organization and the addressee. The article outlines the prospects for further research on this genre: the study of the question of the specifics of the subject organization of the novel about reading and the question of the difference between the novel about the reader and the novella about the reader. © 2020 Tomsk State University. All rights reserved.