Email this article 
Embedded Narrative and National Discourse: Akunin’s Narrative Strategies in the Detective Story “Jade Rosary”
- Authors: Liu J.1
-
Affiliations:
- Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai, China
- Issue: No 2(870) (2023)
- Pages: 142-148
- Section: Literary criticism
- URL: https://journals.rcsi.science/2542-2197/article/view/353162
- ID: 353162
Cite item
Full Text
Abstract
The article studies the structure of the embedded narrative in Akunit’s detective story “Jade Rosary”. It is shown that the symmetry and mirroring of space and time in the plot-compositional structure, associated with the discourses of Chinese and Russian culture, are accepted as narrative strategies to strengthen the author’s position on the harmonious connection of East and West and on the creation of a new Eurasian national identity. The stereotypical thinking about the image of China is manifested in the national discourse. At the same time, influenced by Western detectives and the tradition of Russian literature, Akunin strives for innovations in the narrative model with the creative use of Eastern culture in order to achieve deep resonance from the reader.
About the authors
Jingjuan Liu
Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai, China
Author for correspondence.
Email: jingjuan1203@163.com
Doctor of Philology, Senior Lecturer
ChinaReferences
- 里蒙-凯南. [Rimmon-Kenan] (1989). 叙事虚构作品[M]. [Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, translated by Yao Ruiqing etc.] 姚瑞清等译. 北京: 三联书店.
- 徐念慈. 第一百十三案•觉我赘语[J]. 小说林. 1906. № 1 = Xu Nianci. The 113th case•repeat the words // Novels. 1906. № 1.
- Kestheyi, T. (1989). Antologiya detektiva. Sledstvie po delu o detektive = Anthology of the detective. The investigation into the case of the detective. Budapest: Korvina. (In Russ.)
- 胡寄尘 [Hu Jichen]. (1923). 我之侦探小说谈[J]. 侦探世界. [Talk about the detective novel. Detective world], 14, 145–148.
- Chernyak, M. A. (2007). Massovaya literatura XX veka = Mass literature of the 20th century. Moscow : FLINT : Nauka. (In Russ.)
- Levin, Yu. I. (1988). K semiotike zerkala i zerkal’nosti = On the semiotics of mirrors and specularity. In: Mirror. Semiotics of mirroring. Works on sign systems XXII. Tartu: Tartu State University. (In Russ.)
- Kovalenko, A. G. (2001). Kovalenko A. G. Princip dvoemirija v russkoj literature XX veka = The principle of duality in the Russian literature of the 20th century. In: Dergachev Readings – 2000 (part 2, pp. 141–146) : Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference. Yekaterinburg: Ural University Press. (In Russ.)
- 刘亚丁. [Liu Yading]. (2010). 回归“哲人之邦”套话——近30年来俄罗斯作家对中国传统文化的利用与想像 [J]. [Back to Stereotype of “State of Philosophers” – Russian Writers’ Utilization and Imagination of Traditional Chinese Culture in the Past 30 Years] 俄罗斯研究. [Russian studies], 5, 22–35.
- Chkhartishvili, G. Sh. (1996). No net Vostoka i Zapada net (O novom androgine v mirovoj literature) = But there is no East and there is no West (About the new androgyne in world literature). Foreign Literature, 9, 254–263. (In Russ.)
- 田洪敏. [Tian Hongmin]. (2018). 鲍阿库宁作品中的中国书写：历史叙事与文化记忆. [China Rediscovered in Boris Akunin’s Works: Historical Narration and Cultural Memory]. 中国比较文学[J]. [Comparative Literature in China], 3, 132–144.
- 周宁. [Zhou Ning]. (2004). 历史的沉船[M]. [The shipwreck of history]. 北京：学苑出版社.
Supplementary files
