Article is devoted to identification of an archetypic basis of the novel of M. Yelizarov "Librarian". She contacts the medieval myth about Sacred Graal.  Numerous subject similarities between W. von Eschenbach's novel "Parzival" and the novel of the modern Russian writer are found. Because of the made observations semantic functions of ancient layer in a modern narrative become clear. The conclusion that because of comparison of books of the Soviet writer D. Gromov to Graal the modern novelist deconstructs the Soviet myth about salutariness of literature is drawn, insisting on inhuman pathos of the book idea of the Soviet culture. The drawn conclusions allow to bring definiteness in disputes on pathos of the novel of Yelizarov, and also to raise a question of ideological character of a sacralization of literature and reading – both in Soviet period, and in the urgent present. In the latter case this tendency is found in the popular literature narrating about the reader and also in a scientific and publicistic discourse about advantage of reading. The explanation of this tendency is offered.