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
967 Views
I'll have my full thoughts up in a few hours
- 16/05/2010 04:33:54 PM
625 Views
Could you give me a better reference as to where that was in the book?
- 17/05/2010 03:09:16 AM
606 Views
Chapter 5, just before Kocurkin appears for the first time. *NM*
- 17/05/2010 02:34:30 PM
279 Views
In Russian it says "succubus" became the Russian "suka" or "bitch" *NM*
- 17/05/2010 02:49:03 PM
356 Views
Ahh, so the English version is closer.
- 17/05/2010 07:38:35 PM
642 Views
This reply is mostly empty of thoughts. 
- 16/05/2010 05:37:54 PM
622 Views
- 16/05/2010 05:37:54 PM
622 Views
I'll wait until it is substantially empty but nominally full, then. 
*NM*
- 17/05/2010 03:09:52 AM
320 Views
*NM*
- 17/05/2010 03:09:52 AM
320 Views
OK, here's what I wrote for the OF Blog on this book
- 17/05/2010 02:22:18 AM
648 Views
I like the way your review is an un-review.
- 17/05/2010 03:08:20 AM
570 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
673 Views
I wouldn't term it "fantasy".
- 18/05/2010 02:24:40 PM
601 Views
Perhaps
- 18/05/2010 02:36:13 PM
661 Views
My thoughts.
- 17/05/2010 02:16:11 PM
646 Views
Pelevin isn't a real Buddhist, he's a superficial pop-culture Buddhist.
- 18/05/2010 02:33:37 PM
666 Views
Re: Pelevin isn't a real Buddhist, he's a superficial pop-culture Buddhist.
- 18/05/2010 10:37:36 PM
592 Views
It is apparently called Clay Machine Gun in the UK.
- 17/05/2010 02:41:41 PM
621 Views
It's Čapajev a Prázdnota (Chapaev and Emptiness) in Czech
- 17/05/2010 07:46:14 PM
659 Views
In Russian prazdny or prazdnost' would mean "lazy, inactive" *NM*
- 18/05/2010 02:21:42 PM
301 Views
Bah. No bookshop in Edinburgh has it. Amazon will have to be my saviour.
- 18/05/2010 12:56:28 PM
519 Views
I like this passage about 10 pages from the end of the book on Russia
- 17/05/2010 02:56:49 PM
645 Views
I think the pseudo-Buddhist bit is not as good as the Russian vodka psychology.
- 18/05/2010 02:35:07 PM
608 Views
Perhaps
- 18/05/2010 02:38:24 PM
560 Views
All and none. Russia is a paradox, but one that can be explained.
- 19/05/2010 03:30:58 PM
614 Views
Re: I think the pseudo-Buddhist bit is not as good as the Russian vodka psychology.
- 18/05/2010 11:12:10 PM
662 Views
And I still don't have a copy of this book!
- 17/05/2010 07:37:35 PM
668 Views
I'll bet you could find a Russian version online if you searched rambler.ru. *NM*
- 18/05/2010 02:35:49 PM
316 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
759 Views