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This thesis investigates how Mircea Cărtărescu, in the novel Solenoid, makes use of a wide spectrum of literary techniques to create a multifaceted, complex, and boundary-defying representation of reality. By interweaving realism and surrealism, fact and fiction, as well as autobiographical and autofictional elements, a narrative emerges that constantly challenges the reader’s comprehension. Cărtărescu shifts between various narrative perspectives and temporal layers, employs an abundance of descriptions and details, and constructs a multi-layered plot through multiple embedded narratives, thereby placing the reader in an active role where interpretation becomes a creative act rather than a mere process of decoding.

The analysis shows how these techniques enable the author to exploit, amplify, and contrast traditional narrative patterns, instead allowing the text to serve as a reader’s laboratory for investigating human experience and perceptions of reality, the reader’s own life journey. In confronting this complexity, the reader is released from the demand for conclusions and achievements, and is encouraged to experience the text intuitively, exploring its profusion of information and numerous layers from an introspective perspective.

When the base of reality in the work cracks, the reader is set free to construct meaning independently. The contrasting narrative strategies offer ample room for interpretation. The fantastic, surrealistic, and metatextual approach challenges traditional storytelling patterns and illuminates existential themes such as time, fear, identity, and the perception of reality. By the end of the novel, the reader finds no simple explanations or definitive resolution. The case that was meant to be solved through the clues of the plot has instead been transformed into an open interpretation, where personal experiences and insights play a decisive role in shaping the overall impression. The alternative and alternate life journey.