Russian Pulp: The Detektiv and the Way of Russian Crime by Anthony Olcott (review)

Reviews left in human language. She then argues this connection between Barfield and Tolkien on two points: Tolkien's explicit references to Barfield, and the consonance between The Silmarillion and Barfield's theory oflanguage development. Flieger's achievement on the second point is credible and creditable. Further, it is an achievement so far unique in Tolkien scholarship: relating Tolkien's philological speculations to his fiction. Knowing Barfield, the reader agrees with Flieger's analysis ofthe development ofthe Elvish peoples and languages through the First, Second, and Third Ages ofMiddle Earth, and that this development indeed illustrates Barfield's own speculations on the development ofhuman consciousness and language in our world. Flieger's close reading ofTolkien, and her claims regarding not just the philosophical provenance ofsome ofTolkien's deeper intuitions about language and human consciousness, but the intrinsic interest of those intuitions and the explicit discussion and development ofsuch intuitions in Barfield's work, lend a depth, substance, and urgency to her work. Why urgency? Because Flieger's book gets at things that, with each passing year and each new publication ofsource texts, Tolkien scholars have less and less justification for missing or ignoring: the intuition regarding the nature of language that is absolutely central to Tolkien's work and at the heart ofhis thinking. Tracing the literary influences on his work simply does not suffice to capture this fact fully. Flieger's revised work puts this question on the table again, where it awaits a true and close study in the context ofTolkien's vast literary achievements, ¿fc Anthony Olcott. Russian Pulp: The Detektiv andthe Way ofRussian Crime. NewYork: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. 207p. Elena Baraban University of Victoria Russian Pulp is the first monograph about the genre ofdetective fiction in Russia. It is a long-awaited contribution to the field of Russian cultural studies, for the incredible popularity ofdetective fiction in Russia is a phenomenon that has intrigued scholars since its rapid ascendancy after the break-up ofthe Soviet Union. Rather than focusing on the issue ofhow the new Russian defektiv resonates with and express the concerns ofpost-Soviet society, Anthony Olcott takes a more historical approach and documents the continuity between the new Russian defektiv and its Soviet predecessor. Olcott's other task is to compare the Russian defektiv to its Western counterpart. The Russian form is "very rarely a logical puzzle ofthe sort that manywestern mystery readers enjoy" (24); often the villain is known from the very beginning (24) and Olcott offers to interpret the "rare" exceptions to this SPRING 2003 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW + III rule as "self-conscious imitations ofwestern genres" (24). The range of material studied by Olcott in his project is truly impressive. His work covers more than two hundred Russian detektivy and forty-two thrillers and mysteries about Russia written by British and American authors. In comparing Russian and Western detective fiction, Olcott explores the relationship between Russia's legal system and its effects on the actual writing ofcrime fiction. For Olcott, the detective genre is a "rewarding source of insights into the specifics of Rusianness" (10). Olcott's ultimate goal is to explain the values that Russians regard "as most dear" (13) as well as the differences that exist between Russian society and what Olcott refers to monolithically as "theWest." According to Olcott, the defektiv reflects Russians' hopeless irremediable lack ofdistinction between good and evil as well as the tendency to believe that justice may be "found only in heaven" (1 50). The Russian defektiv is a "morality play" teaching individuals to subordinate themselves "to the larger entity of the state" (46) or a "larger community" such as mir, obshchestvo, narod, or Rodina. The Western genre, on the contrary, shows the triumph of the individual (185). The theoretical framework of Russian Pulp is based extensively on Tim McDaniel's study The Agony ofthe Russian Idea, for the point of departure for Olcott on this work is the assumption that there exists an imminent "Russian character," unchanging throughout Russian history. One ofMcDaniel's fairly biased beliefs is the view that Russia is, by cultural and historical constraint, antiindividualistic . Following from this, Olcott argues that Russian detective fiction cannot feature amateur private investigators such as...