From irony to sincerity: the metamodernist revolution in the prose of Viktor Pelevin

Abstract

This article examines V. Pelevin's latest novel "A Sinistra" (2025), which has been published to date, in the context of the general modern socio-cultural situation. This approach gives the author the opportunity to formulate reasoned objections to the now-familiar accusations against V. Pelevin about his exhaustion of creative resources. This article, on the contrary, suggests considering the "change of registers", which is really characteristic of the current stage of Pelevin's work, as a marker of the writer's preservation of acute sensitivity to the most relevant cultural trends. In particular, those that represent a metamodern cultural reality. In contrast to the rapidly losing dominant position of postmodernism, of which V. Pelevin is rightfully recognized as a "classic". As a result of the research, the author comes to the conclusion that "A Sinistra" is widely represented in the novel, unlike most of Pelevin’s previous works, elements of the metamodern worldview. The relative "Christianization", also previously not characteristic of Pelevin's works, but openly actualized in "A Sinistra", also, according to the author of the article, corresponds to the general metamodern orientation of the novel.