“The Librarian” TV Series: Postmodernist Interpretation of the Book Theme

The article continues the large-scale and inexhaustible topic “The image of the library and the librarian in fiction and cinema”. This time the attention of researchers was drawn to the recent (2023) 8-series film adaptation of M. Elizarov’s postmodernist novel “The Librarian” (2007), which was awarded the Russian Booker Prize in 2008. The film was made in the genre of urban fantasy and in the style of magic realism. The film’s creators reconstructed the meanings embedded in the interpretation of the book and the library, albeit far from the traditional understanding of the tasks of library activity in society. It is noted that the series is interesting for library specialists from the point of view of the profession image, broadcast to the mass audience, as well as the accents placed by the film’s creators (debunking of stereotypical (and partially outdated) understanding of library work; a sense-bearing and sense-making role of the book, its communicative potential; high moral qualities of the representatives of the reading collectives; inclusion of the book and the library in the structure of nostalgia of the generation that largely determines today’s economic, political and cultural situation in the country. The article analyses the dramaturgical strategies used in the series (hyperbolization and absurdity of the depicted), light and coloristic solution, musical design, and associative lines arising from the postmodern interpretation of the book theme. It is suggested that the film cannot be directly assessed as a source of popularization and promotion of library activities, the goal of the main character — to reveal the power of books to people, to make texts a common property, working for the benefit of society — is quite consonant with the eternal mission of library work.

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