V. Pelevin and D. Cronenberg: points of intersection of domestic and Western postmodernism

INTRODUCTION. Both Victor Pelevin and David Cronenberg are accomplished masters of their genre. No matter how critically reviewers respond to their work, the Canadian director enjoys the title of the king of biological horror, and the domestic postmodernist has repeatedly been called one of the most popular writers of modern Russian literature, and both artists have long found devoted admirers. In 2015, D. Cronenberg debuted with the novel “Consumed”, which allows us to compare the artistic worlds of famous creators in the literary plane. Despite the fact that, at first glance, V. Pelevin and D. Cronenberg have nothing in common, a detailed study reveals artistic principles typical of both writers. The purpose of the study is to search for similarities and common ideological and aesthetic solutions characteristic of domestic and Western postmodernism.

MATERIALS AND METHODS. The empirical base is the great prose of V. Pelevin (works published from 1996 to 2023) and the novel by D. Cronenberg “Consumed”. Structural, motive and comparative methods of analysis were used.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. The emphasis is on the fabulation and poetics of otherness, as well as on the understanding of capitalism as a cultural and economic basis of the modern world and criticism of consumer society as signs of postmodernism. Special attention is paid to the study of the image of the protagonist, whose distinctive features include mosaicism, fragmentation and liminality, corresponding to the topographic organization of the text.

CONCLUSION. The analysis reflected similar artistic solutions, including motives and topographic organization in the works of Pelevin and Cronenberg the writer, allowing us to talk about points of convergence and commonality of Russian and Western contemporary literary postmodernism.

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