The Biblical Code in the Novel «Windows on the World» by Frédéric Beigbeder

The article represents the interpretation of the novel "Windows on the World" by the modern French writer Frédéric Beigbeder from the point of view of the biblical code. The author of the article distinguishes two levels of the presence of biblical components: explicit and implicit. The author inventories the Old Testament and New Testament images and motifs marked in the work, and she determines their functionality. The author proves that it is the components of the biblical code that perform content-creating and form-creating functions in the novel. The biblical code defines the structure of the novel as parabolic and deepens its dystopian content, giving it an eschatological dominant. The author pays special attention to the transformation of the biblical story about the Tower of Babel in the novel. The author proves that the Old Testament motifs of creation and destruction, which are associated with the image of the Tower of Babel, characterize the consequences of economic and cultural globalization in the novel by Frédéric Beigbeder and acquire an apocalyptic dimension. The writer assigns a special role in the process of globalization to marketing as a means of promoting mass culture, which produces a profaned image of the world and brings humanity closer to its end. The author analyzes the novel’s intertextual connections, which are related to its biblical code. The image of the Catcher from the novel "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. David Salinger deepens the semantics of the biblical code in the novel "Windows on the World." The writer demonstrates that the messianism of the "broken generation" of America, which was represented by JD Salinger, later turned into "superheroism", and the path of spiritual ascent was profaned by the construction of skyscrapers. The author proves that with the help of the biblical code, the writer builds his own eschatological vision of the world, which deviates from the metanarratives of Christianity and globalism and takes away humanity’s last hopes. The apocalypse that Frédéric Beigbeder recreates in the novel "Windows on the World" provides redemption, but it does not guarantee salvation. His "Savior" reminds mankind only of death and it does not promise eternal life to anyone.