The modernists in search of uncertainty: towards a typology of quasi detective story

It has been noted long ago that Modernist writings often mimic some methods of a detective story. An investigation of the works by Bely, Proust, Joyce, Platonov and Nabokov reveals a conscientious pattern of playing with riddles, which is common for all of these quite dissimilar authors; this is the basis of a particular mode of narration which we call a detective story modified, or a quasi detective story. Their devices for creating riddles are also similar and often identical, such as lack of openness, passing of the important for unimportant, narrative inversion, obscure answers and invisible questions. Also common are ways of providing keys, namely, incongruities between elements of the text give the reader a hint that he has been fooled. Those are greatly diverse, from a simple incompatibility of statements to a hidden contradiction between various dimensions of depicting the same subject (e. g. a general view is in conflict with details).