Day of the Review
May. 9th, 2011 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
So I recently finished up Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin and translated by Jamey Gambrell. It's an interesting book, a sort of meditation on the best and worst of Russian culture.
As you might expect, the book follows a day in the life of Andrei Danilovich Komiaga, an operichnik to the new czar. Yes, the new czar because this is 2028 and in a fit of nationalistic pride, Russia has turned back the clock to Imperial times. The new czar like Ivan the Terrible has his henchmen, the operichnik who go around and enforce Imperial will on the nobility and generally carry out his bidding.
Kominga rushes from the ritual killing of a disgraced noble to a customs dispute that offers a lot of graft to his organization, to a clairvoyant who gives fortunes to the czarina and to Kominga himself and back to Moscow for drugs and sex and murder.
The book is interesting in that Kominga is a jackbooted thug if ever there was one who does terrible things to enforce a stifling regime. And yet, his heart burns with pride in his country and his heritage and you see the ideal of Russia imprisoned in this dystopian cage. Because it's more of a slice of life and meditation on the many facets of Russia through history it doesn't have much in the way of plot. But it was an interesting read. Fair warning -- there's a scene of state-sponsored rape near the beginning (Kominga, not a nice guy), but past that there's some imaginative writing.
later
Tom
So I recently finished up Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin and translated by Jamey Gambrell. It's an interesting book, a sort of meditation on the best and worst of Russian culture.
As you might expect, the book follows a day in the life of Andrei Danilovich Komiaga, an operichnik to the new czar. Yes, the new czar because this is 2028 and in a fit of nationalistic pride, Russia has turned back the clock to Imperial times. The new czar like Ivan the Terrible has his henchmen, the operichnik who go around and enforce Imperial will on the nobility and generally carry out his bidding.
Kominga rushes from the ritual killing of a disgraced noble to a customs dispute that offers a lot of graft to his organization, to a clairvoyant who gives fortunes to the czarina and to Kominga himself and back to Moscow for drugs and sex and murder.
The book is interesting in that Kominga is a jackbooted thug if ever there was one who does terrible things to enforce a stifling regime. And yet, his heart burns with pride in his country and his heritage and you see the ideal of Russia imprisoned in this dystopian cage. Because it's more of a slice of life and meditation on the many facets of Russia through history it doesn't have much in the way of plot. But it was an interesting read. Fair warning -- there's a scene of state-sponsored rape near the beginning (Kominga, not a nice guy), but past that there's some imaginative writing.
later
Tom
