GENRE PECULIARITIES OF H. L. OLDIE’S “SHERLOCK HOLMES VS. MARTIANS”: BETWEEN MASHUP AND CROSSOVER

As mass culture becomes an important part of the contemporary literary process, one cannot ignore it. New forms and genres of mass literature and culture could often be regarded as reaction to the changes in the social and public life. The most striking examples of those genres are mashup and crossover fiction, which are based on the multiple references to already existing texts. Mashup literature is a combination of classic text with a dominant storyline and new plot details added by modern authors. Crossover (according to Jenkins) relies on pre-existing texts, “breaking down not only the boundaries between texts but also those between genres, suggesting how familiar characters might function in radically different environments”. An example of the combination of mashup and crossover is the novel by Russian-speaking Ukrainian writers Henry Lyon Oldy “Sherlock Holmes vs. the Martians” (2014). Henry Lyon Oldy is the pseudonym of science fiction writers Dmitry Gromov and Oleg Ladyzhensky. The composition of the novel is a “story in a story”; mutual integration of various levels of text takes place, which makes it possible to speak of metalhepsis. The title of the novel suggests that the main characters come from the famous books by Arthur Conan Doyle and Herbert Wells. the main characters come from books by Arthur Conan Doyle and Herbert Wells. However, Oldie do not focus on just two authors. They also include references to other literary texts, cinema, music and painting, by these means creating a unique text, in which pre-existing plots and characters intertwine, uncovering a completely new narrative form.