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
1030 Views
I'll have my full thoughts up in a few hours
- 16/05/2010 04:33:54 PM
690 Views
Could you give me a better reference as to where that was in the book?
- 17/05/2010 03:09:16 AM
673 Views
Chapter 5, just before Kocurkin appears for the first time. *NM*
- 17/05/2010 02:34:30 PM
311 Views
In Russian it says "succubus" became the Russian "suka" or "bitch" *NM*
- 17/05/2010 02:49:03 PM
382 Views
Ahh, so the English version is closer.
- 17/05/2010 07:38:35 PM
716 Views
This reply is mostly empty of thoughts. 
- 16/05/2010 05:37:54 PM
686 Views
- 16/05/2010 05:37:54 PM
686 Views
I'll wait until it is substantially empty but nominally full, then. 
*NM*
- 17/05/2010 03:09:52 AM
342 Views
*NM*
- 17/05/2010 03:09:52 AM
342 Views
OK, here's what I wrote for the OF Blog on this book
- 17/05/2010 02:22:18 AM
720 Views
I like the way your review is an un-review.
- 17/05/2010 03:08:20 AM
639 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
737 Views
I wouldn't term it "fantasy".
- 18/05/2010 02:24:40 PM
664 Views
Perhaps
- 18/05/2010 02:36:13 PM
731 Views
My thoughts.
- 17/05/2010 02:16:11 PM
718 Views
Pelevin isn't a real Buddhist, he's a superficial pop-culture Buddhist.
- 18/05/2010 02:33:37 PM
734 Views
Re: Pelevin isn't a real Buddhist, he's a superficial pop-culture Buddhist.
- 18/05/2010 10:37:36 PM
673 Views
It is apparently called Clay Machine Gun in the UK.
- 17/05/2010 02:41:41 PM
681 Views
It's Čapajev a Prázdnota (Chapaev and Emptiness) in Czech
- 17/05/2010 07:46:14 PM
708 Views
In Russian prazdny or prazdnost' would mean "lazy, inactive" *NM*
- 18/05/2010 02:21:42 PM
334 Views
Bah. No bookshop in Edinburgh has it. Amazon will have to be my saviour.
- 18/05/2010 12:56:28 PM
587 Views
I like this passage about 10 pages from the end of the book on Russia
- 17/05/2010 02:56:49 PM
702 Views
I think the pseudo-Buddhist bit is not as good as the Russian vodka psychology.
- 18/05/2010 02:35:07 PM
681 Views
Perhaps
- 18/05/2010 02:38:24 PM
633 Views
All and none. Russia is a paradox, but one that can be explained.
- 19/05/2010 03:30:58 PM
691 Views
Re: I think the pseudo-Buddhist bit is not as good as the Russian vodka psychology.
- 18/05/2010 11:12:10 PM
730 Views
And I still don't have a copy of this book!
- 17/05/2010 07:37:35 PM
732 Views
I'll bet you could find a Russian version online if you searched rambler.ru. *NM*
- 18/05/2010 02:35:49 PM
346 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
825 Views