In the article the parameters of the crime novel and crime story that were used by the postwar German novel of the investigation were highlighted and analyzed. The transformation of the range of problems of criminal literature in the new conditions is showed on the material of such works as ‘Aula‘ Kant, ‘Der Fall d’Arthez‘ G.-E. Nossack ‘Buridan’s ass‘ G. de Breun, ‘Gruppenbild mit Dame‘ G. Boell, ‘Black ass‘ L. Rinzer et al. It is demonstrated which formal elements that organize (...) the system of images, time-space and the intersection of ‘voice streams‘, the texts succeed from the twentieth-century enlightenment ‘postpitaval’s‘ prose. Traditions of Schiller, Goethe and others expressed through the ideological setting of the novel of the investigation, the duality of its structure and the relationship of narrative plans. The narrators of investigation novel work for underlining their detachment; they are out of the events and cherish their independence. Masks and aliases are actively used with the view of creating of the effect of ‘non-presence‘. Authors play with the grammatical forms: I am - you are - he is. Therefore, the novel of investigation adopts the social agenda and coherence with the historical period from the tradition of a criminal novel. Ethical measures used by narrators to evaluate the events described are succeeded from tradition as well. Some elements, which stay relevant, are used as productive. (shrink)

Playing with the reader is one of the main characteristics of V. Nabokov’s creativity. His books is a ‘literary crossword puzzle‘, charade, and mystification that demand parity, intellectually equal, and with the similar art preferences reader. Reader equally participates with author in an esthetic process. The reader follows the writer-‘wizard‘ in the text, and first, enters game process to take esthetic ‘pleasure from the text‘; second, he is getting involved in the ‘composite games by rules‘. The main means of the (...) organization of literary game in Russian-language novels of V. Nabokov is a play with ‘someone else’s word‘. V. Nabokov addressed to someone else’s texts to mock social writers or to degrade a certain hero in parodic and ironic ways. The writer in ‘someone else’s word‘ did not mock predecessors similar to his own spirit, but discredited a modern person who disappeared from the world of the real culture. One of the important composition elements of game in V. Nabokov’s novels is symbolics of key. The theme of keys obviously or indirectly sounds both in the debut Nabokov’s novel ‘Mashenka‘, and in later books: ‘Invitation to execution‘, ‘Luzhin’s Protection‘, ‘Feat‘, and ‘Gift‘. A number of motives is connected with the theme of keys and the closed doors: wandering, homelessness, downtime, initiation, and crossing. The process of searching for those keys is an attempt to find answers to ontological questions, and this is essential for V. Nabokov. (shrink)