The article deals with the work of the well-known in the 1920s. The avant-garde writer B. Pilnyak. The author of the article sees the prospect of modern reading of the prose of a master in the study of the connection between his formal experiments and ontological problems. In this Pilniak simultaneously continues the tradition of classics and enters into a dialogue with it, destroys the classical form. The emphasis is on the study of art codes that reveal the author's historical consciousness. In the center - Pilnyak's original view on the history of Russia, which determines the style features of his works. The "assembly" composition, the elements of the "brain game", the system of leitmotifs create the image of a "vortical" time. The historiosophical problems are revealed through the metaphorization of the chronotope, the combination of "natural" and "historical" metaphors, the symbolization of headings, surnames and names, the stylization of folklore and Orthodox imagery.