The narrative intrigue in the T. Pynchon’s novel Inherent vice

Statement of the problem. The playful substratum of Thomas Pynchon’s postmodernist novel Inherent Vice (2009) questions the relevance of the category of intrigue within the analyzed text. The resolution of the paradoxes of external eventfulness lies in the non-event-oriented narration, which reflects the enigmatic intrigue of the work. The purpose of the article is to reveal the mechanisms of classical narrative intrigues in the novel, to explain their ultimate subversiveness, and to prove the dominance of the non-event-oriented narration over event-driven one. A review of the scientific literature on the problem. Narrative intrigue is one of the least researched categories of modern narratology. It is studied by Russian scholars: Valery Tyupa, Galina Zhilicheva, and Olga Grimova. We find the origins of this category in the works of Paul Ricoeur. There have been no studies of T. Pynchon’s novel concerning the stated problem, which explains the scientific novelty of this work. Methodology. Narratological, structural-typological and hermeneutical methods of research were used in the work. Research results. The following intrigues were identified in the researched novel: love intrigue (going back to cyclic intrigue), detective intrigue (realizing cumulative-detective intrigue), comrade-police intrigue (liminal intrigue), ‘Coy’s’ (liminal) and enigmatic intrigue. The first four intrigues demonstrate ‘failures’, provoking us to a more thorough investigation of the last, enigmatic intrigue.