And let me get some Gogol for dessert! Sergey Arno

Abstract

The article is devoted to the prose of the fantasy writer S. Arno and considers its principal motifs, images, and stereotypes. The scholar and literary critic E. Shcheglova focuses her analysis on the novels A Novel about Love, and Also Dunces and Drowned Girls [Roman o lyubvi, a yeshchyo ob idiotakh i utoplennitsakh] (2012), A Straitjacket for Geniuses [Smiritelnaya rubashka dlya geniev] (2012), and The Dead Know Why [Myortvie sami znayut otchego] (2020), etc., which display the characteristics of the classical Petersburg text, on the one hand, and are peppered with the aesthetics of theatrical postmodernism, on the other. Therefore, Arno’s works cannot be considered serious literature. Noting that virtually all of Arno’s plotlines and characters draw on the preexisting constructs of the Petersburg prose shaped by Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoevsky, the critic finds that, more than the continued existence of such artistic constructs in modern literature, Arno is fascinated with the fate of those contemporary writers unable to keep a straight face when confronted with literary goings-on. As a result, various fairies and demons swarm with gusto in Arno’s novels, while the living appear dull and unconvincing.