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| Nourishing Manitou with blood is a cosmic necessity. |
Quite how
I swung away from the banks of Sorrowland and into the rushing, tumescent
waters of Russian dystopian satire is, sadly, lost to the fog of history, but
swing away I did, and it gives me the chance to shamelessly court clicks from those
pugnacious Homo-Sovieticus-ians, thusly:
И снова
здравствуйте, мои русские друзья!
І привіт
усім моїм українським читачам - ти чудово виглядаєш, це взуття нове?
One must
marvel at Google’s translation function, and all technological advancements of
this age (even if Microsoft Word just tried to change the word Google to
the contextually appropriate Gogol, naughty Satya Nadella) and worship
before the altar of progress like good little consumers, and like the sorry
inhabitants of the lower world in this classic dystopian satire: the Orks.
For
context, the Earth is ruined, we’re led to believe, America and China are no
more, and with the remaining inhabitants of the landmass formerly known as
Russia living either in penury in the lower world of Urkaina (the aforementioned
Orks – I read somewhere that urka is a Russian word meaning career
criminal, so make of that what you wish), or in assumed bliss in their Elysium,
the paradise of Byzantion (Big Byz), which is in effect a tethered city, hovering,
Damoclean, over the Urkainans and, as we find out later, the only one left of
several such oases. Big Byz has all the sophistication and tech (and the weapons)
while Urkaina has nothing but hope of one day being permitted to enter Big Byz
and join the revels in the sky.
We’re
introduced to this new world order through the narration of Damian-Landolpho
Damilola Karpov (or Damilola). Something of a repulsive creature, Damilola describes
himself as, “a post-Antichristian lay existentialist, a liberative conserval, a
humble slave of Manitou and simply a free nonpartisan spirit, accustomed to
using my own reason for thinking about everything in the world.” Yes, quite. As
you may have spotted, Pelevin has tinkered with post-apocalyptic neology. His
role is as simple as it is horrific – he’s, “a reality creator.” Put less
bluntly and perhaps counterintuitively, more clearly, he pilots a drone which
is part TV camera and part assault vehicle, filming the poor, barbaric Orks for
entertainment whilst simultaneously causing disturbances to provoke another ‘war’
between the comically mis-matched combatants, which he then films for CINEWS
Inc so they can make another S.N.U.F.F., or Special Newsreel Universal/Feature
Film.
To launch War
221, Damilola has targeted two young Ork lovers to help provoke a scuffle
between the noted discoursemonger from Big Byz, Bernard-Henri, and head Ork,
Torn Durex. After shots are exchanged (Damilola piloting the drone defending
the discoursemonger), Ork Chloe is snatched by Bernard-Henri who has a penchant
for young girls. In Big Byz, the age of consent has been raised to 46 and
sexual gratification finds form either in the films of aging porn stars, who
are also, comically, the stars of the war S.N.U.F.F.s, or via suras,
hyper-realistic female sex dolls. Damilola has one, which he has hacked,
invalidating his warranty in the process, to tweak the personality settings and
push bitchiness to maximum. Kaya appears to hate Damilola, even while
pleasuring him, and Damilola revels in his masochism. However, when Grim, the
Ork lover left behind, finds his way onto Big Byz to pursue the now less-than-enamoured
Chloe, who seems to be enjoying her time in the floating city and enjoy being
apart from Grim, Kaya falls in love with him, leaving Damilola behind and
setting him on the path to a kind of awakening.
It's savage stuff. Gruesome, mocking, viciously satirical, Pelevin spares no-one. Lampooning Western European self-importance and smugness, he also lays bare the Russian inferiority complex and pours scorn on the rampant Capitalist consumerism filling the void left in post-Soviet Russia. It’s also brilliantly funny as we’ve come to expect. In even this long-winded précis I can’t help but feel I’ve not done justice to the breadth of Pelevin’s talent, the craft evident in and the ideas which fill this superb novel. I was put off reading it for quite a few years by my dimly remembered bemusement, a state in which I was left after reading his collection of short stories, The Blue Lantern, but maybe I was just younger and quite a bit dumber back then, because this time I enjoyed it immensely.
And a word of praise for Andrew Bromfield! What a translation! Not even Google could have pulled it off, so maybe the AI apocalypse is still a few years off yet.
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