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
1036 Views
I'll have my full thoughts up in a few hours
- 16/05/2010 04:33:54 PM
697 Views
Could you give me a better reference as to where that was in the book?
- 17/05/2010 03:09:16 AM
681 Views
Chapter 5, just before Kocurkin appears for the first time. *NM*
- 17/05/2010 02:34:30 PM
317 Views
In Russian it says "succubus" became the Russian "suka" or "bitch" *NM*
- 17/05/2010 02:49:03 PM
384 Views
Ahh, so the English version is closer.
- 17/05/2010 07:38:35 PM
721 Views
This reply is mostly empty of thoughts. 
- 16/05/2010 05:37:54 PM
694 Views
- 16/05/2010 05:37:54 PM
694 Views
I'll wait until it is substantially empty but nominally full, then. 
*NM*
- 17/05/2010 03:09:52 AM
347 Views
*NM*
- 17/05/2010 03:09:52 AM
347 Views
OK, here's what I wrote for the OF Blog on this book
- 17/05/2010 02:22:18 AM
728 Views
I like the way your review is an un-review.
- 17/05/2010 03:08:20 AM
646 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
744 Views
I wouldn't term it "fantasy".
- 18/05/2010 02:24:40 PM
672 Views
Perhaps
- 18/05/2010 02:36:13 PM
736 Views
My thoughts.
- 17/05/2010 02:16:11 PM
731 Views
Pelevin isn't a real Buddhist, he's a superficial pop-culture Buddhist.
- 18/05/2010 02:33:37 PM
740 Views
Re: Pelevin isn't a real Buddhist, he's a superficial pop-culture Buddhist.
- 18/05/2010 10:37:36 PM
678 Views
It is apparently called Clay Machine Gun in the UK.
- 17/05/2010 02:41:41 PM
689 Views
It's Čapajev a Prázdnota (Chapaev and Emptiness) in Czech
- 17/05/2010 07:46:14 PM
716 Views
In Russian prazdny or prazdnost' would mean "lazy, inactive" *NM*
- 18/05/2010 02:21:42 PM
336 Views
Bah. No bookshop in Edinburgh has it. Amazon will have to be my saviour.
- 18/05/2010 12:56:28 PM
592 Views
I like this passage about 10 pages from the end of the book on Russia
- 17/05/2010 02:56:49 PM
711 Views
I think the pseudo-Buddhist bit is not as good as the Russian vodka psychology.
- 18/05/2010 02:35:07 PM
691 Views
Perhaps
- 18/05/2010 02:38:24 PM
640 Views
All and none. Russia is a paradox, but one that can be explained.
- 19/05/2010 03:30:58 PM
697 Views
Re: I think the pseudo-Buddhist bit is not as good as the Russian vodka psychology.
- 18/05/2010 11:12:10 PM
738 Views
And I still don't have a copy of this book!
- 17/05/2010 07:37:35 PM
739 Views
I'll bet you could find a Russian version online if you searched rambler.ru. *NM*
- 18/05/2010 02:35:49 PM
347 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
836 Views