Literatura prze-słuchana przez owce, czyli o pożytkach z lektury

Abstract

This article deals with the intertextual games Leonie Swann plays with the readers of her two whodunits: Glennkill (English transl. Three Bugs Full; in the Polish version Sprawiedliwość owiec) and Garou (Polish transl. Triumf owiec). In the German author’s novels the reader keeps track of the actions of a sheep detective Miss Maple, “quite possibly the cleverest sheep in the whole world”. Obviously it means that the readers are confronted with a new incarnation of a model of a detective novel codified by The Queen of Criminal stories – Agatha Christie. Sheep heroes of the novels are passionate listeners of literature to be read to them by a shepherd George, literature mainly representing a genre which the sheep naturally refer to as “Pamelas”. Glennkill starts with a scene of finding George’s corpse with a shovel stuck in his abdomen. This is the starting point of Miss Maple’s investigation. The two novels, which are sophisticated entertainment for erudite readers (there are – among others – references to Hamlet, Wuthering Heights, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Silence of the Lambs) – are in this article the pretext for a reflection on modes of the reception of literature.