PHENOMENON OF THE MODERN BESTSELLER (“CLEOPATRA AND FRANKENSTEIN” BY COCO MELLORS, 2022)

Abstract

The article focuses on the analysis of the modern variant of rom-com genre which is presented in one of the latest literature bestsellers, the novel by Coco Mellors “ Cleopatra and Frankenstein”, 2022. The success of the rom-com genre in the 21st century, although its sources are in the past, in the 20th century, is due, as the research convinces, to certain vectors of innovation of the problematic as well as poetological plans, – all that responds to the world perception of modern people in their mistrust in reality and in themselves. The new variant of rom-com makes obvious its polemics, opposition to the genre sterotypes in its projection of the topical problems of modern life – feminism, gender, sexual relations, drug addiction, psychological breakdowns, racial, ethnic and national divergences, and the endless loneliness of a human being in the society and the world. The desired clip form of the presentation of reality and a human in it coincides with the expectations of the modern reader/viewer due to which an aura of the world in the form it is known in reality is created. This is the authentic world where the illusion about it is always ruined in the confrontation with reality. All that makes a hero (more often a heroine) be in a constant search of oneself and one’s own way to happiness. However, the problem concerns the very understanding of this happiness in reality. The writer tries to answer these questions but again with the typical for the new rom-com uncertainty in his thoughts which may be only illusions about the world and humans in it.

Keywords

• rom-com
• genre matrix
• bromance
• womance
• clip form
• ironic/ skeptical pathos
• philosophy of mistrust