The book relies so much on drugs and insanity that I would classify it as sci-fi if I had to, but not as fantasy. Still, I would put it in a category with other drug literature as a specific genre called exactly that - drug literature.
But I think an emerging "weird fiction" categorization might be fitting as well, since there's this sense that the setting/world is not as it should be, that something "weird", either it be character, events, or setting, is occurring, but yet nothing is really explicitly impossible.
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
Russian Book Club: Chapaev and Pustota or Buddha's Little Finger
- 16/05/2010 03:42:07 PM
1069 Views
I'll have my full thoughts up in a few hours
- 16/05/2010 04:33:54 PM
725 Views
Could you give me a better reference as to where that was in the book?
- 17/05/2010 03:09:16 AM
709 Views
Chapter 5, just before Kocurkin appears for the first time. *NM*
- 17/05/2010 02:34:30 PM
330 Views
In Russian it says "succubus" became the Russian "suka" or "bitch" *NM*
- 17/05/2010 02:49:03 PM
398 Views
Ahh, so the English version is closer.
- 17/05/2010 07:38:35 PM
756 Views
This reply is mostly empty of thoughts. 
- 16/05/2010 05:37:54 PM
722 Views
- 16/05/2010 05:37:54 PM
722 Views
I'll wait until it is substantially empty but nominally full, then. 
*NM*
- 17/05/2010 03:09:52 AM
360 Views
*NM*
- 17/05/2010 03:09:52 AM
360 Views
OK, here's what I wrote for the OF Blog on this book
- 17/05/2010 02:22:18 AM
764 Views
I like the way your review is an un-review.
- 17/05/2010 03:08:20 AM
676 Views
That's what I wanted to convey, since it's hard to be definitive with such a work
- 17/05/2010 03:16:19 AM
771 Views
I wouldn't term it "fantasy".
- 18/05/2010 02:24:40 PM
704 Views
Perhaps
- 18/05/2010 02:36:13 PM
771 Views
My thoughts.
- 17/05/2010 02:16:11 PM
771 Views
Pelevin isn't a real Buddhist, he's a superficial pop-culture Buddhist.
- 18/05/2010 02:33:37 PM
773 Views
Re: Pelevin isn't a real Buddhist, he's a superficial pop-culture Buddhist.
- 18/05/2010 10:37:36 PM
711 Views
It is apparently called Clay Machine Gun in the UK.
- 17/05/2010 02:41:41 PM
718 Views
It's Čapajev a Prázdnota (Chapaev and Emptiness) in Czech
- 17/05/2010 07:46:14 PM
747 Views
In Russian prazdny or prazdnost' would mean "lazy, inactive" *NM*
- 18/05/2010 02:21:42 PM
349 Views
Bah. No bookshop in Edinburgh has it. Amazon will have to be my saviour.
- 18/05/2010 12:56:28 PM
624 Views
I like this passage about 10 pages from the end of the book on Russia
- 17/05/2010 02:56:49 PM
743 Views
I think the pseudo-Buddhist bit is not as good as the Russian vodka psychology.
- 18/05/2010 02:35:07 PM
722 Views
Perhaps
- 18/05/2010 02:38:24 PM
671 Views
All and none. Russia is a paradox, but one that can be explained.
- 19/05/2010 03:30:58 PM
731 Views
Re: I think the pseudo-Buddhist bit is not as good as the Russian vodka psychology.
- 18/05/2010 11:12:10 PM
766 Views
And I still don't have a copy of this book!
- 17/05/2010 07:37:35 PM
768 Views
I'll bet you could find a Russian version online if you searched rambler.ru. *NM*
- 18/05/2010 02:35:49 PM
363 Views
Re: I know a weird "lending library" sort of site that can give you the English version.
- 20/05/2010 12:48:57 PM
871 Views