The Mystery of Medieval Texts. Don Quixote's Library

Professor Voronov finds himself in a rather strange bind. The classic Spanish literature novel by Cervantes comes to life right before his eyes. In Moscow, the real epidemic begins—an epidemic of self-mutilation by imitation. Following a famous detective writer with the surname Gruzinchik, the world of show business is swept up by a passion for publicly inflicting terrible injuries on themselves, so as to capture the attention of an jaded audience even more, to enchant them with the so-called sacred violence. As one, all the people who are at least a little known start hacking off their right hand. The reason is that Cervantes, too, was deprived of his hand, and in that state he set about writing his great novel. And only Professor Voronov sees a sign in it. It seems that a long-forgotten book gains new life. It becomes a “matrix book” capable of giving birth to countless other texts—and at the same time, to blow up the whole complacent world of shameless profit. It seems—right now— the world should be visited by the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance and, in the heat of a revolutionary impulse, punish all the sins of the world! But do we really need new upheavals, new messiahs? One thing is clear: somewhere in Spain, this resurrected Book, like a vampire, rises from the grave of oblivion and demands new victims. Professor Voronov sets off on a dangerous journey to Cervantes’s homeland together with the fashionable best-selling writer, Gruzinchik. What will come of it? Will the spell be stopped? Everyone who reads the novel “The Mystery of Medieval Texts” to the end will find out…