The Rise of the Russian Novel

Overturning the standard view of early Russian prose fiction as a pale imitation of European models, Gasperetti locates the origins of the Russian novel in indigenous writing. He shows how Russian writers used elements of a native-inspired subculture -- folklore, pulp fiction, and the entertainment of carnival -- to subvert the conventions of foreign literature, thus establishing an independent course for prose fiction in Russia. Linking the prevailing trends of literature in the age of Catherine the Great to the novels of Dostoevsky, Gasperetti provides one of the most thorough explications to date of the carnivalesque in Russian literature.