Western literary prose of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Article one

The article deals with the problem of the Western novel at the turn of the 21st century and investigates its national specificity, i.e. the characteristics of French, Italian, British, Austrian and American novels. The aspects that we single out - from the reality of the novel and consciousness to modernism, postmodernism and poetics - and the analysis of individual works allow us to disclose the underlying aesthetic and ethical sense that determines the specificity of the modern novel. In the first article the works by David Lodge «Thinks…» (2001), Umberto Eco «The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana» (2004) and William Vollmann «Europe Central» (2005) are considered in details.