"The author's opinions do not necessarily coincide with his point of view." So writes Victor Pelevin as part of his "author's disclaimer" to this bestselling novel marketed under three different titles in English: Homo Zapiens, Babylon and Generation P.
"Generation 'P' had no choice in the matter and children of the Soviet seventies chose Pepsi in precisely the same way as their parents chose Brezhnev." When asked by an interviewer what the "P" means, Victor indicated the references are multiple but the main meaning is a very rude, obscene word. With this in mind, I think we can confidently translate the "P" as "Pissed On" or "Pooped On" as in an entire generation of Russians covered in layers of Soviet excrement and tossed out of the fortress of communist ideology and into a cultural sub-zero post-Soviet Siberian tundra to fend for themselves. Good luck, comrades! Woops - slip of the tongue. Correct that to: Good luck, people! The novel's main character, one Babylen Tatarsky, could never understand why "it was worth exchanging an evil empire for an evil banana republic that imported its bananas from Finland."
Poor Tatarsky. His country, the USSR, "ejaculated the first sputnik - that four-tailed spermatozoon of the future that never began - into the dark void of cosmic space" when he was a youngster then during his early adult life went completely kaput, belly-up, becoming a mere former nation, a land left to mobsters, sharkers, brutes, thugs and multiple other varieties of no-goodniks.
Oh, former comrades, now that you are reduced to members of the general public aka the ruck aka the great unwashed, the question poses itself: In addition to being at the mercy of all those mobsters and no-goodnicks, according to Tatarsky (and indirectly author Victor Pelevin), where do you stand in the new Russia? Answer: Since all the Lenin statues were carted out of town, "his presence was merely replaced by a frightening murky greyness in which the Soviet soul simply continued rotting until it collapsed inward on itself."
Transition with a vengeance. It's bye bye USSR; hello home grown initiative + American consumerism = Brave New Russia. Thus bye bye Tatarsky the poet supported by state subsidies; hello Tatarsky the writer of slogans and script to make Western consumer goods and products maximally marketable to his fellow countryman.
Rather than expatiating on the plotnick, I'll shift to commenting on a number of my favorite lines and bits of this slam dunk Victor Pelevin best-seller. Here goes:
Tatarsky writes in his journal: "It might make sense to consider infiltrating into the consciousness of the consumer the character 'Nikola Spitov', an individual of the same type as Ronald McDonald, but profoundly national in spirit."
I suspect people in the US would get a chuckle if they saw that famous hamburger clown of the golden arches come on their TV screen with the name Nikola Spitov, a name more Americans would associate with a Soviet cosmonaut or Russian Olympic athlete then Ronald McDonald. Nikola Spitov - get serious, Tatarsky - that Ruski name doesn't even rhyme.
When experiencing his first high on those hallucinogenic magic mushrooms, in a fit of inspiration Tatarsky thinks of a potential advertising concept for these fly-agarics based on the "startling realization that the supreme form of self-realization for fly-agarics is an atomic explosion - something like the glowing non-material body that certain advanced mystics acquire."
Love the black humor here. American commercialism has so conquered the mind and heart of Tatarsky that when he is having his mind-blowing trip, the first thing he thinks of is how mystical realization can be transformed into mass marketing. This mixing of the esoteric enlightenment traditions such as Zen Buddhism with globalization via products and merchandising gives Victor's novel a special tang.
After snorting cocaine in a bathroom stall, Tatarsky takes out his notebook and begins writing, the first lines being: "In itself a wall on which a panoramic view of a non-existent world is drawn does not change. But for a great deal of money you can buy a view from the window with a painted sun, a sky-blue bay and a calm evening."
The new, young Russia of the 1980s meets the new, young financial swingers of Wall Street, USA - both sides fueled by a mountain of money and an even bigger mountain of cocaine.
In working up a marketing sceme for the Gap clothing stores in Moscow, Tatarsky comes up with "a poster showing Anton Chekhov, first in a striped suit, and then in a stripped jacket but with no trousers: the gap between his bare, skinny legs was emphasized in strong contrast, so that it resembled a Gothic hourglass."
You have to admire a former poet who knows when to call on a giant of his country's literature in order to sell a new clothing line.
"Tatarsky knew very well that in the area of radical youth culture nothing sells as well as well-packaged and politically correct rebellion against a world that is rules by political correctness and in which everything is packaged to be sold."
Tatarsky's reflection when spotting a black tee shirt with a portrait of Che Guevara and the inscription 'Rage Against the Machine' underneath. Victor's novel is so hip, he even finds a place for the great Che Guevara on both the physical and metaphysical level.
"In the same way as a viewer who does not wish to watch the advertisements switches between television channels, instantaneous and unpredictable technomodifications switch the actual viewer to and fro."
Thanks, Victor! Letting the next generation of men and women in your country know they have become little more than objects of manipulation in the hands of those in control of mass media and technology.
For those readers living both in Russia and outside Russia, one thing is certain - Victor Pelevin's novel rocks the house.
Victor Pelevin, born 1962
Comments
Post a Comment