J. ROLLINS’ AUTOREFLECTION AND CONSPIRACY NOVEL: ITERSECTION POINTS

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to trace J. Rollins’ self-reflection on the material of the writer’s mass media texts (interviews, reviews and responses to readers).

Methods. The complex methodology is used in the work. The main strategy is a receptive-communicative approach that performs interpretive functions. It is combined with comparative-historical, typological, structural-semantic methods of research.

Results. The conceptual analysis of J. Rollins’ mass media discourse is undertaken in the article. There are some aspects of the category “autoreflection” which are considered for its use as a working definition of the research; there are points of contact between the genre codifications of J. Rollins and the tradition of national literary criticism which are discovered to study the correlation of the “thriller” / conspiracy novel categories; J. Rollins’ self-identification is traced to the paradigm of American adventure literature, in particular in comparison with D. Brown's novels.

It is revealed that the work of J. Rollins continues the adventure tradition of the world literature – Jules Verne, Henry R. Haggard, Herbert G. Wells. In sync, the American writer distinguishes inter-literary communication with the «perfect trio»: Michael Crichton, Caleb Carr, and Dan Brown. J. Rollins’ remarks on the typological similarity of some of his works to D. Brown’s conspiracy novel is noted. There is a correlation between the understandings of the thriller in non-national literary terminology systems that is revealed and allows us to identify the genre structure of J. Rollins’ novel series “Sigma Force” as conspiracy novels.

Conclusions. In J. Rollins’ thrilling works, the conspiracy code is one of the genre-modeling. In this way, the adventurous and scientific discourses of his novels are synthesized with a conspiratorial narrative, structured by such constants: mystery – conspiracy – investigation. They are cross-cutting for such Sigma Force novels as Map of Bones (2005), The Doomsday Key (2009), Bloodline (2012), The Demon Crown (2017). The author creates a new type of the conspiracy novel containing its invariant, but differs in the way of solving artistic problems.