Hello. My name is Cole Robinhood, host of First Fiction,
a blog and YouTube channel dedicated to discussing notable works of
contemporary literature. Today, I'm joined by online book reviewer Glenn
Russell, and together we'll be discussing Vladimir Sorokin's 2017 short
story, White Square, a 33-page gem translated into clear, accessible, hip English by Max Lawton, and published in Red Pyramid, Selected Stories by New York Review Books.
CR: Welcome, Glenn. Let's get right to it. What makes White Square so special?
GR:
Vladimir Sorokin is know for shattering the boundaries of conventional
storytelling and genre fiction in outlandish ways. And there's no
clearer example than this amazing short story.
CR: Fantastic. How does he do it?
GR: Let's go through White Square step by step. The story opens with a TV show, White Square,
where the host and four guests sit around a white square table and talk
about hot topics in front of a live audience. The topic for today is
“What image does Russia call forth?” Vladimir Sorokin laces hefty
amounts of black humor in the four guests' answers and exchanges with
this upbeat clown of a host. But in brief, for Irina, a state employee,
Russia looks like a song; for Yuri, a military officer, it is an
endless, dark, mysterious cave; for Pavel, a businessman, a struggle for
survival; and for Anton, a theater director, it is a monstrously large
louse that's in deepest hibernation and completely frozen. Again, much
detail is provided, including how the host tears into Anton for his
unflattering portrayal. He asks Anton why a louse and not a bear, an
animal that looks a bit more like Russia. Anton answers, “A bear is an
image from a fairy tale. The Gulag Archipelago is not a fairy
tale." Then, as a grand finale, the audience gets to vote on which guest
came up with the best answer. It's no surprise, Irina wins and Anton
only gets 4% of the vote, provoking scoffs from the host.
CR: Over the top, but recognizing the goofiness of much TV, still realistic.
GR: Yes, but what happens next is anything but what would happen on any TV show in front of a live audience.
CR: Which is?
GR:
An alarm goes off, announcing “The Hype is here.” The host proclaims,
“It's time for the White Hype!” Four luscious looking nurses enter the
studio, each carrying a tray with a syringe, a tourniquet, cotton swab,
and rubbing alcohol. After they shoot up the four guests with new,
improved WH-4, the nurses exit. The host explains WH-4 is an improvement
over the current WH-3 so popular among the Russian people and supported
by the government. This serves as a spot-on zinger since there's an
actual White Square in Moscow, a downtown business center housing
multinational corporations. Among these corporations, a number make
millions by hooking people on their powerful drugs.
CR: I bet the conversation really takes off.
GR:
You bet it does. The audience applauds when the host says their
discussion will begin to operate on a higher level, another example of
how the greatness of Russia is that it can shock us every day.
Ironically, the host himself is in for the biggest shock.
CR: Oh.
GR:
High on the drug, the four guests turn on the host; they call him
names, punch and kick him. The host calls out for security but when two
guards walk on the set, Yuri, the military officer, fires off a few
pointed questions and then orders them to leave. Forever the flunkies
accustomed to obeying commands, the pair trudge off. This scene goes on
for a number of pages. One of the highlights of the entire story is
Anton's speech, including this sentence where he cries out, “I can crush
old junk, crush it, shatter it into a new, prospective something that
shall shine out a way for the new icy louse!” Anton calls for applause.
The audience applauds.
CR: I was wondering how the audience reacted to the brutality.
GR:
Vladimir Sorokin shows keen insight. The author knows what happens here
is a sign of our current world culture. Of being Americanized. An
audience is forever an audience; they're there to be entertained. And if
violence is part of the show, so much the better.
CR: The brutality continues?
GR:
You bet it does. Irina, Yuri, Pavel, and Horst use belts to bind the
host's hands and feet to the corners of the table. Yuri takes out his
knife and flays the host alive, nice and proper, like a true Russian.
Meanwhile, the four guests proclaim their love for one another.
CR: Wow!
GR:
And Irina winds up on the table, naked. In a fit of ecstasy, she begins
to spin on the tabletop and finally, hands to her groin, shakes and
sings out as she reaches orgasm.
CR: Well, she did say a song is the image of Russia!
GR:
After the three men carry Irina out of the studio, a voice on the PA
system tells the audience the show is over and they're to leave. Not
long thereafter, a small group enters the studio, lead by the Managing
Director, Assistant Director, and the Director of the Show. Everyone,
especially the Managing Director, is elated at the rousing success of
what they just witnessed. Turns out, these higher-ups used not WH-4 but
an even more powerful drug, which exceeded their expectations. The
Managing Director orders a guard to roll up the host's skin into a tube.
This done, the Managing Director shapes the tube into a ring and uses
his gold tie pin to fasten both ends together. He then places the ring
around the Director of the Show's neck.
CR: How bizarre.
GR:
Everyone leaves except the Director of the Show who takes the ring from
around his neck and places it on his arm and starts spinning the ring.
The ring spins and spins, so fast it flies off his arm and out the
window.
CR: It seems like the weirdness escalates.
GR:
Curiously, at this point, the tale switches registers and we have a
dozen or so pages of realism in the spirit of a short story by Turgenev
or Chekhov. A crow plucks up the flayed skin ring as a first step in the
skin's adventures with a truck, a dog, a cripple, beggars, and a host
of other poor Russians, until it finally finds its way into an old
couple's cabbage soup.
CR: So it is realism to the end?
GR:
Just when a reader has settled in the rhythm of realism, the story
shifts again, this time to the fantastic. It so happens the old couple
with their cabbage soup turn their TV on and tune into White Square
at the point where the host speaks the same exact words as he did on
the opening page. Then, when he's about to start asking the guests what
Russia looks like, there's a cut - all movement stops. Everyone freezes
and Alex and two droogs from Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange walk on the set.
CR: Nothing like a little literary reference to spice up the show!
GR:
You bet. Toward the conclusion of Sorokin's tale, Alex begins moving in
reverse, as though someone pressed the rewind button. What happens to
Alex from here on out I'll leave to each reader, but what I can say is
we get to see our Clockwork Orange protagonist with the skin ring, with White Square, Red Square, and zoomorphs on Victory Day.
CR: Incredible!
GR:
Sure is. We're left to ponder an entire bouquet of questions. Things
involving not only Russian history, Russian politics, and Russian culture, but the very
nature of our of lives as individuals and our place in modern society.
And since art is one of my prime interests, having read this Sorokin
tale, I continue to ponder the relationship between the White Squares in
White Square with Kasimir Malevich's famous painting, Black Square.
CR: Great way to end. Thanks, Glenn.
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