family chronicle

The paper explores the genre and compositional features of Paul Auster’s 4321 being the fusion of Bildungsroman, family сhronicle, social and psychological novel, love story, as well as Kunstlerroman and non-fiction. The analysis of the central aspects of poetics and the problems raised in the book reveals the ways of actualization and parodying the traditional genres in a postmodern novel.

The article identifies and analyzes the elements of the parable inherent in L. E. Ulitskaya’s novel Jacob’s Ladder. It is noted that the parable spirit permeates both individual fragments of the text and the entire novel. The parable is manifested on the levels of content, range of philosophical issues and the style of the text: the language of the work is notable for the simplicity of expressive means.