Betting to win

The article discusses two new novels by contemporary Russian writers D. Novikov and A. Gelasimov, who, the author suggests, were writing them with a prize in mind. ‘The big political novel’ is a particularly relevant literary form that captures attention of experts and is secure in its place among the trends of the 2010s. It is the form used by Novikov for his Flame Out At Sea [Golomyanoe plamya] and by Gelasimov for his The Wind Rose [Roza vetrov]. However, as Zhuchkova points out, the authors’ desire to anticipate the readership’s expectation proved detrimental to the quality of their work: ‘the inner worlds of the two books are sick with falsehood’, and neither Novikov’s ‘neo-pochvennichestvo’, nor Gelasimov’s political metaphors (including his take on ‘the fashionable topic of the government’s total control over a human being’) do much for the respective novel’s artistic integrity. At the same time, the critic recognizes the authors’ talent, and in her detailed analysis of the two books’ plots and poetics she focuses on their writing strategies, seeking to paint an objective picture of their flaws and advantages. © 2019, A. V. Zhuchkova.