The plot of the novel is as follows: the narrator inherits from his uncle a large box full of old books and brochures on esotericism, learns meditation, grows a third eye and becomes a clairvoyant. Cyclops - that's his name now - stands guard over world harmony. Day after day, he infiltrates the minds of ordinary people, forcing them to make, apparently, small and insignificant decisions that actually determine the fate of the universe: he tells the conditional Annushka to pour sunflower oil. Along the way, Cyclops discovers that the world is arranged as a game of Angry Birds, where evil demons with bird heads are trying to destroy the Creator of all things - a green pig - and for this they use people as living projectiles. Then he foresees the future fate (in one of the possible parallel worlds, of course) the system administrator Kesha, in whose mind he is embedded in a neighborly way especially often.
Kesha, an employee of the opposition website Kontra.ru and a troll by vocation, spends all his time on the Internet, where he “uses the energy of public excitement like a wave surfer”, that is, he throws what is known to the fan, enjoys the result and philosophizes:
“After all, what idiots around. They believe that the system is Putin. Or Obama<…>And the system is a luminous screen at a distance of sixty centimeters from the eyes. With whom we fuck, consult and wonder what news will be for us today<…>We think that half of the screen is controlled by us, and the other half by the special services, but in fact the screen itself has long been controlling both us and the special services. That's what the system is. And how, one wonders, to deal with it, if we read about the struggle with the system on the same screen?
In Keshin's possible future, this metaphor is reified. Humanity is packaged in anti-gravity cells above the filthy earth, in which they float like embryos, on the umbilical cords of tubes and wires implanted in the brain, supplying food and illusions - a virtual reality that has replaced them real life and from which there is no way out.
It can be understood what long years the author is tired of telling us the same thing no less than we are listening, and finally decided to speak out frankly: in his new book, fiction is a completely boring formality, which, under the guise of a preface to a parable, allows one to devote a third of the novel to a meticulous retelling of each damned yellowed page from uncle's box. Since Pelevin is still a professional writer, sometimes weak remorse makes itself felt: “what I will devote the next few pages to may seem like a common place to someone” (not like the previous one hundred and fifty should, apparently, be understood), but in this way "my story will have at least some theoretical basis."
However, from the point of view of the reader, God bless her, with a theoretical base, there would be only a story. There is such a vile principle of the Soviet table of orders: in order to buy a scarce sausage, you need to buy sticky pasta along with it. The writer can find the correct ratio of ingredients intuitively, the main thing, in case of success, is not to confuse what exactly in this order is sausage and what is pasta. The reader readily accepts wisdom as long as it is presented to him in a funny form, and once Pelevin was a master at this. But when the reader is caught with dubious satirical bait to feed a box of waste paper from the Way to Yourself store, he feels cheated, and not at all in the way the author might think. In Pelevin's novel, people are computer appendages who constantly press the lever, like laboratory rats, in order to get a new portion of pleasure. Pelevin, who over the years has cultivated for himself a huge loyal audience of paranoids who willingly succumb to the author's manipulations for the pleasure of solving them, decided to have a heart-to-heart talk with the reader, as if he expected that the rat, deprived of encouragement, would continue to press the lever for exercise.
There is a sure sign by which one can determine that the writer has lost touch with reality and is hanging, entangled in wires, in his virtual bubble, surrounded by imaginary readers: he begins to praise his characters like a street peddler his goods.
Literary convention traditionally allows a writer to declare a hero a handsome man, a hero, or a wise man: the reader willingly takes his word for it, because this assumption is a necessary engine of the plot. It doesn't take much to justify this credit of readers' trust, but all you need is a good story.
But for this convention to work, praise must be neither too insistent (suggesting that the author is trying to convince himself first of all) nor too specific. They should leave room for the imagination so that the reader can pull on the hero their own ideas about beauty and other things, just as Pelevin's Kesha in the virtual future pulls on his living "social partner" the digital image of a pornographic Japanese schoolgirl.
In Love for Three Zuckerbrins, Pelevin ingenuously and non-stop admires the depth and wit of the clone characters and, worse, does not skimp on examples. This is imprudent. Well, if it is stated that a certain “work was supposed to inscribe his name in golden letters in the history of world philosophy, therefore Rudolf Sergeevich polished every word in it,” it is more prudent to refrain from citing this work, especially if people in their own author’s text are “rotten by unpleasant entities” (apparently, from the word “nit”), trains “depart to an infinite number of different addresses”, and metaphors like this: “There is such an anecdote about blind people feeling an elephant, - here I am<…>mastered a similar approach to ancient human wisdom<…>the friendly trunk that touched my suffering lips was actually the wet tail of the drug culture of the sixties going into oblivion, ”the irony is simply not readable.
If the hero is described as a “gifted troll” whose “ruthless but precise words” are “especially remembered” by the author, then any words of his inevitably turn out to be ruthless, first of all, in relation to the author himself (the rule is general, and in this case the words are: “In In Kiev, unknown people in the form of Ukrainian policemen were noticed who changed rubles for hryvnias. Truly, such is you, man, and all your deeds under the sun ... "). Let the Pelevin reader be ready to see hidden wisdom in everything, but for this he expects that at least the joke will speak for itself. Pelevin’s funniest joke is this: “Today the word“ handshake ”means that a polite stone guest has already left for your address.” I won’t even repeat the rest, because it wasn’t worth inventing them the first time. But the main thing is that the wisdom in “Love for Three Zuckerbrins” is too frank, it is interpreted using the example of Angry Birds, it is interpreted with the help of a Soviet cartoon, it appeals to the ten commandments, and more, and again, and again, and when the author writes on the last pages : "If I felt in myself the makings of a preacher ..." - it's even scary to think what would have happened then, if he still doesn't feel it now.
Perhaps part of the secret of this dull sermon novel is revealed to us by the philosopher Kesha: “Drama, you know, only works when the viewer forgets that he is watching a drama. When he thinks about it, only nausea remains. What kind of mediocrity write scripts for dream movies ... Yes, and for the whole reality too. Apparently, Pelevin is right, and reality is a dream, because when he tries to wake us up, we all really feel sick.
- publishing house "Eksmo", Moscow, 2014
Love for Three Zuckerbrins Victor Pelevin
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Title: Love for Three Zuckerbrins
About the book "Love for Three Zuckerbrins" Viktor Pelevin
The incessant reasoning and fantasies of book authors and film directors on the topics of the near future of mankind are becoming more and more realistic. The main idea of many authors is the widespread computerization, cyborgization and the complete transformation of a person into an ordinary biomass, the most valuable component of which will be the brain and consciousness, which will also be controlled by machines. And if a few decades ago, such writings could be considered complete nonsense, now, in fact, this is a really possible model of the not so distant future of people's lives. Terrible, incomprehensible, embarrassing. How? Who? Why is he trying to turn us, HUMANS, into some cells of a huge matrix? Yes, actually, no one. According to many analysts, the development modern society began to happen spontaneously. Which in turn, sooner or later, will lead us to self-destruction. Recall at least the well-known cult film "The Matrix".
Perhaps the most extraordinary and mysterious writer of the Russian literary galaxy, Viktor Pelevin, never ceases to delight his readers with new original works. With the release of each of his books, readers who follow Pelevin’s work notice from time to time that the author’s worldview, attitude and style are changing and continue to develop at a rapid pace. One gets the impression that the writer has achieved enlightenment, and the true essence of things has been revealed to him. So his books acquired a characteristic content. And him new novel"The Love for Three Zuckerbrins" was no exception.
This time we will do without spoilers, they will be superfluous in the description of this novel. It's just worth saying about the essence of the book, this is another allegory of the matrix. Let not so harsh and merciless, but it does not cause optimism either. And Pelevin does not cease to pose more and more new questions about the purpose, meaning of life and the world to his reader. modern man. Using excellent satire, the author skillfully notices the latest trends in people's lives, gradually ridiculing them and showing the true danger that lurks in seemingly completely harmless things. The instinct of general security blinds the eyes of the layman and, in the end, he is no longer able to make a choice on his own. Someone or something decides for him. All reality has become virtual, and man ... what has man become?
Be sure to read Victor Pelevin's new novel "Love for Three Zuckerbrins", think about the eternal, because the book is about this, reconsider your views through the prism of the author's views. Happy reading to you.
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Quotes from the book "Love for Three Zuckerbrins" Victor Pelevin
God can be killed in only one way - to forget him completely ...
The universe is made of stories, not atoms.
What helped me, in particular, was the fact that I clearly understood that in Russia the “restoration of desecrated dignity and honor” quickly leads to bunk beds in a small smelly room where many dignified people have gathered to now slowly compare them with each other. I never wanted to keep them company because of the chimera they were trying to install in my mind.
And here is Cyclops advice for you: if you notice a world around you that you don’t like at all, remember what you did to get into it. Maybe you're not even a war criminal, but just watch too much friend tape or TV. Then, of all the habits, it is enough to change only this one.
We cannot travel by rocket from one parallel universe to another. But we can… become it.
For us, all the trains of fate are unreal - until we personally ride one of them, because reality is ourselves.
The world is arranged in such a way that sometimes passengers can not only move from car to car on the train of their destiny, but also change from train to train. They do not need to be stuntmen for this - just, passing through the most ordinary vestibule, they leave one universe and find themselves in another.
I remember thinking that the purpose of beauty is to torment and torment, because by its very nature it is simply a promise of the impossible, and it has no other essence. But if one can still come to terms with this obviousness in relation to human beauty, it is already more difficult to attribute the same simple thought, for example, to sunset (the sky sparkled with purple imperial lights).
03.06.2019
On Saturday, June 1, we opened the only summer book festival. As a result of an incredible chain of events that took place in this way and not in any other way, I ended up in the center at that time and took some pictures of what was happening. The rarity of book festivals/blog shows is due to my dislike of mass gatherings, but it's good to step out of your comfort zone sometimes.
By the time I came to the beginning of Dmitry Bykov's lecture about Fazil Iskander. I can’t say anything about the lecture, but Bykov, it seemed to me, had lost a lot of weight after the recent sad events. The audience was listening. The guy opposite furiously whispered in the girl's ear, "This is Bykov, you know?".
The organization of the festival has remained the same as in previous years. Tents of various themes, inside which books of the publishing house are sold. There are smaller tents between them, where meetings with authors, interviews, and lectures are held. You can just come to wander, you can look at the program and go directly to a meeting with the author.
There were a lot of people, but if you have time to start, you can safely sit on a folding IKEA chair. At the beginning of the conversation between Mikhail Nozhkin and Gennady Ivanov, the half-empty tent filled up with listeners before my eyes.
All major and even small publishing houses are represented at the festival, as well as some large bookstores— Biblio-Globe, Read-city. Biblio-Globus gave a discount card with any purchase. Book publishing houses donated bags (probably not all of them, but I saw a few of them).
I stood for a long time and sadly in front of the counter of the Sinbad publishing house, but the toad firmly grabbed my neck and reminded me of the shelves of unread books at home. As a result, I did not buy the Knausgaard that was finally published from us, which I later regretted. It is not yet for sale anywhere.
The festival was lucky with the weather.
Neat Rick and Morty volumes are waiting for their owners.
Book prices vary everywhere. Somewhere higher than online, especially if you take into account any bonuses, etc. Somewhere lower. People go more for the atmosphere and communication with the authors. Some in a frenzy rowed books just in piles. It’s still easier for me to order and pick up from a point closer to home. But Knausgor...
The festival will close on Thursday. Next year, I think, I won’t go to it on purpose - there are few really interesting meetings and authors that I would like to see.
31.05.2019
“...To be honest, the dead have never scared me.
I'm truly afraid of the living.
The dead are much more predictable and forgiving.”
Sue Black
I enjoyed reading Sue Black. Professor (-ka?) Black turned out to be the most pleasant lady. "Lady" in this case is not a polite designation of gender, but the most serious title of "Lady Commander of the British Empire", which Sue was awarded by the Queen for services to anthropology.
Technical side
Some facts about the author:- was born and studied in Inverness (the same one where Claire Randall from gets into the past);
- Black has been a forensic anthropologist since 1987;
- in 1999 she became the lead anthropologist for a team of investigators from the UK in Kosovo, investigating mass graves;
- in 2003, she twice went to work in Iraq (but for some reason there is no mention of this in the book);
- in 2005, she helped to identify the corpses of those who died after the tsunami in Thailand;
- constantly helps the police solve cases and prove the guilt of criminals. One of the brightest cases: in 2014, she helped the Manchester police arrest and prove the guilt of a 34-year-old man who abused a child and filmed it. Black proved that it was him, although the video shows only the hands of a pedophile.
Already from these dry facts it is clear that Susan Black is an extraordinary person. In the book, she describes her scientific and research work in simple language.
Professor Black with his daughter
The first 5 chapters are devoted to memories of the beginning of her journey (she worked in a butcher's shop), her studies at the university, memories of the death of her parents. To be honest, these chapters seemed redundant and even superfluous for the book to me. Those who start them and get stuck are seriously tempted to quit. In this case, I advise you to go directly to the 6th chapter "Those Bones" where Black finally takes the bull by the horns.
The author describes in sufficient detail how killers usually dismember corpses (but they do it wrong, and she won’t tell us how right), what the stages of post-mortem change of a corpse are called and look like, ways to preserve bodies for scientific purposes after death (one of them Black herself improved and introduced at her university), what the work of a forensic anthropologist “in the fields” looks like - under an awning, in the mud, under the scorching sun or monotonous rain, in a protective suit and rubber boots.
Professor Black's humor is quite dark and dry, which is absolutely justified. However, this and descriptions of the dissection of corpses scared some girls from my reading club from reading. I would not recommend the book to the squeamish, and you definitely won’t read it while eating.
For horror, I was interested in how the remains are identified even 30-40 years later, the appearance is recreated several centuries (!) Later, how anthropologists are involved in police work, and, finally, how a person does not go crazy from everything he sees. With the roof, everything turned out to be simple:
“Compartmentalization”, or separate thinking, is a kind of cognitive choice that you have to accustom yourself to. I don't consider myself indifferent and cold, I'm just sane. At work, I deliberately get tough, doing my best to keep my emotional response and involvement to a minimum by opening an imaginary door to a separate, professional “room” in my head.
If I'm examining decaying human remains, I go into a room that doesn't smell. If I work with murder, dismemberment or trauma, then I choose the one where peace and security reign. If I'm investigating patterns related to crimes against minors, I go to the far end of the room to get away from sensory information and not to transfer what I see and hear from this alien space of unimaginable cruelty into my real life. In these rooms, I try to be just an outsider, putting my ideas into practice. scientific knowledge, and not a participant in events, emotionally involved. The real me stays outside the room, shielded and protected from the psychological bombardment going on inside.Sorry for the long quote, but this is very curious.
I wonder if all doctors use such “doors”? Surely, after all, dentists are not enthusiastic about picking in canals with decaying dental nerves, and surgeons are not very happy to cut the stomach of a living person, and sequentially push apart skin, fat, muscles, internal organs, etc. Proctologists, too, I suspect, are not easy to work every day.
Summary
Definitely the book will interest fans of thrillers and true crime. For those who have to lie in hospitals, it's probably better to skip - there are too many chances to trigger some kind of injury. Although I like to pick off the crusts and see what happens next.
"All that's left. Notes of a Pathologist and Forensic Anthropologist, Sue Black. "All That Remains: A Life in Death", Sue Black.
16.05.2019
With a slight delay, I return from the “vacation” and continue the new post format. You can see the previous month
I read
- "The Amazing Journey of Edward Rabbit" , Kate DiCamillo. iconic in good sense children's book about the formation of the character of a toy rabbit. He was very handsome and very empty in every sense - a head made of porcelain and full of a sense of his own superiority. He would have remained so if fate had not decreed otherwise. NB! When reading, everyone weeps, adults and children. To understand my callousness, I didn’t cry when reading “White Bim”, but here I had to. Good for the age of 8-10 years, still not for elementary grades.
- “Freedom, equality, sisterhood. 150 years of women's struggle for their rights" , Martha Breen. The book made a mixed impression. Yes, it's beautifully written and easy to read. But the level of introduction to the topic of feminism/equality is right for teenagers. I would even say the book is designed for a reader of 12 years old, if not for one “but” - an 18+ recommendation on the cover. Therefore, it is somewhat difficult to recommend it, despite the general enthusiasm. If you already spend a thousand rubles, then it’s better to buy a book by Pelenope Bagier
- "Manifesto. From woman to woman, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I was advised to read this book by a friend from the "mom" forum. A friend has a son, but this did not stop her from reading a book with 15 tips on "how to raise a daughter as a feminist." Chimamanda writes lightly and with humor, "manifesto" is too serious a word for content. Rather, this is a reflection on. I want to buy the book and give it to everyone I know with children of both sexes, because the author writes about universal things that everyone notices, but not everyone analyzes.
- "Cat's Eye" , Margaret Atwood. This book of 1998 (!) has not been translated or published in our country. To my great regret, because the book is worth reading. I would call her a classic in Atwood's work, because she has everything that a writer is loved for: intricate language, pain and suffering, a sarcastic view of the world, honest and sometimes unpleasant observations of others. I'm planning a detailed review.
I read
- "Year of the Flood" Atwood, the second book in the "Mad Addam"/"MaddAddam" trilogy. I read the first part of "Oryx and the Corncrake" in May, so it did not get into the books read above. The second part reads worse than the first, but I do not lose hope.
- "All that's left. Notes of a pathologist and forensic anthropologist" , Sue Black. The name speaks for itself. I read in Russian, because I don't understand the anatomical details in English. It will not work for the squeamish, but for lovers of detective stories, that's it.
I plan to read
Links
In search of Russian publications, I came across an extremely interesting blog of the translator of books Margaret Atwood into Russian. The author writes about the difficulties of translation, mistakes and editorial work. As it turned out, in the Russian edition of Oryx and Corncrake, the editor notably censored the contents of the book, in particular, “everything related to 'pedophilia' and 'drugs' was thrown out.""Sorry, honey. Only trying to help." Sorry honey, just wanted to help. It says a little higher that it is a sultry female voice whispering to him. And in the translation some Georgian came out: “Yzvyny, daragoy ...”
Most people don't do that because we've been taught since a very young age at school and at home that we start what we finish… It's the author's job to convince you to read the book. It "s not your job to convince yourself that you need to read the book.”
An endless list of 11 books about kids, parenting and parenting from a mom of supposedly three kids (I can't count exactly on her Instagram) who looks like a Vogue model. I am, perhaps overly optimistic, hoping to avoid my own mistakes by learning from others, and relying on parents with more experience to choose books. I have already started reading one book from her list and I don’t understand why the other 10 are needed. It is not available in Russian.
The basic premise is that our current culture is one of disrespect and a lack of authority by parents. Without that parental authority, children don’t care much for what their parents think and they care WAY more about what their peers think about them, and children grow up without gaining the skills to deal with life’s challenges. After the general setup, the book focuses on three main things that parents can do to raise healthy, happy, and self-reliant children.
I love that standard "How's business?" question-greeting. Remember, business is when "Mr. CEO, it seems it's time for our company to go public." And when “Mr. General Director, can I take two books of thirty rubles for fifty dollars, I don’t have enough for travel?”, then this is not a business, this is some kind of ***.The blog is going on vacation for the next couple of weeks of holidays. Then there will definitely be news, reviews and everything in the old mode. As usual, quotes and notes in
This strange book contains three stories (one disproportionately long) - and an explanatory text that connects them into a whole. The binding material (I called it "The Cyclops") can be seen as an additional story, completely documentary - although I admit that it is no good as such: it has a long and detailed introduction, there is a conclusion, but almost no narrative part, instead of which the reader is waiting for a few pages of my shaky reasoning, smacking of sci-fi.
I want to apologize for these shortcomings - but the book could not have turned out differently. I did not go into detail about the work of Cyclops for reasons that will be quite clear. On the other hand, I couldn’t not mention the Cyclops at all either - otherwise my three stories would have lost all connection with each other: it would not be clear what they have in common, by whom they were written and where they came from.
Therefore, please keep in mind: my goal is to tell not so much about Cyclops, but about what Cyclops saw and understood at his post. For much of this seems to me worthy of attention.
In my book, I sometimes use scientific terminology. I want to emphasize that I am not a physicist and do not have any technical knowledge at all. I'm just trying to explain the observed reality in terms that are on everyone's lips, so as not to come up with too many neologisms. A physicist may find inconsistencies and contradictions in my story. In this case, I suggest that he come up with an explanation better than mine - and keep it as a keepsake.
The physical side of the issue is not really important to me. But she's pretty interesting. In the days of Galileo and Copernicus, it was necessary in the introduction to curtsy towards church dogma and correlate all hypotheses and assumptions with it, but today we must bow to scientific dogma in the same way. And if I sometimes talk about “multiverse” and “multidimensionality”, I do it with approximately the same feelings with which Galileo could mention the prophet Isaiah and the Angels of God in his book: with a timid faith that the Holy Scripture was understood by me, a sinful sorcerer , at least partly correct.
There is almost no connection with actual reality in the book. I think that in our time it is rather a virtue than vice versa.
Therefore, I respectfully place at the feet of the Reader and the Reader my modest work.
Part 1. Cyclops
Golem Ileley
The first thing to do is describe the point where all these stories converge - or maybe where they diverge.
Probably, rather, they diverge - because only taking into account this central event, all the twists and turns of the destinies that I traced become clear.
It was like a flash of magnesium that captured the characters in random poses - and sent their photographic prints into the future. I say magnesium because the fire and smoke were real. The iPhone will not give such a flash even on command from the NSA. Although, of course, who knows - I read somewhere that American smartphones can not only eavesdrop, peep and sniff, but also detonate on a signal from the center, piercing the auricle and brain with a directed battery explosion. Probably conspiracy humor.
But in order.
I knew I wouldn't be a Cyclops forever. It is a dangerous, nerve-racking job that is usually done for no more than a year or two. Then the Birds grope in the fabric of our world for the interfering knot with sufficient accuracy to remove it - if necessary, along with the fabric itself. They no longer use random people as weapons. This is how they behave when they act blindly, and Cyclops accidentally appears in their field of vision for a few seconds. If they know exactly where to look for their enemy, they act differently.
How, I'll tell you now.
It was right below me workplace Keshi - young man, the various states and forms of which will be the subject of much of this book. We can say that at that time he was the closest being to me - at least in the spatial sense.
Sometimes I allowed myself immodest, probably entertainment - I tuned in to his mind and began to observe what was happening in the surrounding space through his eyes - and even through the prism of his consciousness. I perceived not only what he saw, but also the voices that were heard in his mind (I will not call them thoughts - because he did not hear half of them himself, and obeyed the other half without thinking).
Sometimes it was interesting, sometimes not so much. If, for example, he turned on his Japanese schoolgirls (this happened when the office was not crowded and Kesha was sure that no one would come up to him from behind), his inner space would be filled with a rude football-like commentary. Kesha, a retired retired bondage/bukkake worker, seemed to be explaining what was going on to the unintelligent laymen who were watching porn with him. I was the only such layman at that moment - but Kesha in his imagination broadcast the signal to a much larger audience. Still, it is amazing to what extent a person is a social being.
When there were too many people in the office to watch porn or play games with the computer, Kesha began to troll gaping citizens on the Internet - like an ace of the Second World War who flew out on a free hunt. The picture on the screen was made completely decent and functional for this time: any media worker today dives through the blogosphere for half a day.
Sometimes Kesha was distracted from the computer, looked at his colleagues in the office - and passed on them the verdict of fate.
He was the least cruel to the girl Nadia, who was engaged in a buffet and landscaping the space - "if he gets his hair cut normally and stops being afraid of people, he will find himself some kind of Azerbaijani." Others he judged more severely. He dubbed the editor-in-chief of the site “Contra.ru” (that was the name of the place where he worked) to himself “shabesgey” (which did not prevent Kesha from fawning over him every day - but life, as you know, is clowning). At the same time, Kesha sincerely believed that attraction to virtual Japanese schoolgirls was the norm, and Chief Editor- pervert.
Accordingly, the information product of Kesha’s home site called himself the word “shabesgon” (he even muttered a dreamy mantra-rhyme during the deadlines “my shabesgon, my shabesgon - how many thoughts he brings”). He divided his work colleagues into “stinkers” and “tired ones” (the former turned into the latter over the years, releasing their own - something like fading stars).
Well, and so on. Kesha was in fact neither homophobic nor anti-Semitic nor a snob. It's just that the assembler of someone else's soul rarely looks attractive when viewed closely. But we'll get back to Kesha - now I'm talking about this, so that it's clear what I was doing inside his head on the day the fateful event occurred. I rested in it, as in a personal cinema - that day they played a rather interesting movie.
The poet Gugin, a barrel-shaped bald man with a triangular red beard, came to the editorial office of "Kontra" (the "behemoth of the apocalypse", as he called himself - but the dark purple color of his face was more suggestive of apoplexy). They did a great interview with him.
There were two TV cameras and three progressive journalists who came to film round table- they were seated in a semicircle in front of a large white shield with the inscriptions "Contra.ru", and Gugin, standing in the focus of this living spotlight, read verses ("poems", as he said) from his new project "Golem Ileley".
It was an ambitious attempt to reflect in verse all the most striking events of the recent past: to compose, as one of the three journalists gracefully put it, the "Google Map of the Age." When Gugin got tired, one of the journalists would start talking, and the cameras would turn on him. Then the inexhaustible Gugin began to recite again.
AT A LITERARY POST
Viktor Pelevin. Love for Three Zuckerbrins. - M.: "Eksmo", 2014.
“And so I wanted to say that this is not good ...”
L.N. Tolstoy. Afterword to the Kreutzer Sonata
Ural magazine began this year with a brilliant review by Alexander Kuzmenkov of Victor Pelevin's "Love for Three Zuckerbrins" 1 . When the critic sent us his review to the editor, I had not yet read this novel, and therefore I had nothing to say. But now I can no longer be silent, because at last I have read Pelevin's novel. And I do not agree with the assessment of our permanent author.
Pelevin always tried to speak with the reader in a simple and understandable language, to explain, literally chew on puzzling esoteric ideas. Nevertheless, Pelevin cannot be read diagonally, his prose is complex and philosophical in its own way. Even retelling the plot of The Zuckerbrins is not so easy. Let's start with the fact that the universe has a Creator (Ancient Boar), kind, but not omnipotent. The Universe consists of many worlds, but these worlds are consistently destroyed by certain Birds. They rebelled against their creator. Their weapons are people whom the Birds try to use for their own purposes: in the second part of the book (" Good people”), this fight of the Birds (or bird-headed gods) with the Boar is presented in the scenery of the iPhone game “Angry Birds”. Only instead of a cheerful and senseless war of funny red birds with green pigs - a gloomy mystery. In the game, the birds shoot at the pigs with a large slingshot. In Pelevin's novel, in place of the slingshot, there is a scaffold with the Headless Cross. The cross is covered with Kabbalistic signs. In place of round pigs - the Creator, the Demiurge. His comic appearance is explained simply: we see the Creator through the eyes of Birds. “The Birds, admittedly, had a dark sense of humor. Above the snout of the Creator, black beads of anxious eyes shone. There was something Stalinist in his thick wheaten mustache. The Creator's mouth moved rapidly. Nicholas realized that the Creator was constantly repeating spells that would renew the world. Reciting his Kabbalah, he repaired the ever-decaying universe.”
Vladislav Pasechnik, who wrote a review of Pelevin's novel in the academic journal Questions of Literature, noted that the image of the universe came to The Zuckerbrins from the writings of the ancient Gnostics. Some sects of the Gnostics actually represented the God of hosts in the form of a large pig, which can be read about in the book of Epiphanius of Cyprus "Panarion".
However, for Pelevin Vepr is not God, the Birds mistake him for God. At the same time, the Vepr is omniscient and omnipresent. His countless incarnations or his countless assistants maintain the world order. One of them is the hero-narrator of the book. His name has not been given. Named, so to speak, the position - Cyclops. According to his position, he will be given a surname with initials: Kiklop O.K.
The story is usual for Pelevin's novels. The common man becomes the chosen one higher powers. A relative dies. The hero, together with an apartment not far from the Garden Ring, inherits a box with esoteric literature, which he studies to the best of his ability, practices yoga exercises and, in the end, acquires the gift of clairvoyance. Once in a dream (and dreams in Zuckerbrins do not differ from reality), members of a certain retinue perform an operation on the hero similar to that performed by the six-winged Seraphim on the prophet Isaiah. Pelevin draws an analogy not with the Bible, but with Pushkin's poem "The Prophet".
He touched my ears
And they were filled with noise and ringing:
And I heard the shudder of the sky,
And the heavenly angels flight,
And the reptile of the marine underwater course ...
Having survived a similar operation, the hero gains omniscience and becomes Cyclops. Its task is to prevent actions that could disrupt the world order. Not crimes, crimes are also part of the world order: a retired judge dismembers an elderly relative in the bathroom “with views of her village house”, the bandits are preparing for a raid, checking weapons. For Cyclops, this is no reason to intervene, because what is happening is in the order of things: “The usual urban nocturne, other days it was even darker around. None of these everyday outbursts of thanatos threatened either the stability of the universe, or personally me.
For the Birds, Cyclops is almost the embodiment of the Boar-Creator himself, but in fact he is “a petty functionary, a mask behind which power is hidden,” which is not clear to Cyclops himself. The birds eventually figure out Cyclops and hunt him down. Therefore, for safety reasons, Cyclops is released from the prophetic gift and returned to the world of ordinary people.
Birds, "wise and terrible engineers of death", not only fight with the Boar on an equal footing, but also destroy world after world. Eventually, they will destroy the Earth as well. But this process is very long. And the Birds are helped here by people who have become miserable and obedient slaves of their gadgets.
The action of one of the five parts of The Zuckerbrins (but the most extensive) has been moved to the distant future. Simple people inhabit residential modules that are stuck to the "anti-gravity platform" several thousand kilometers above the ground. These structures resemble clusters of rotting grapes. But people do not notice the inconvenience. They are almost happy. Instead of friends and neighbors they have internet applications, which you can install or delete, chat with them, swear, wink at them and even flirt.
Wires are implanted in people's bodies. Air, water and food enter through special tubes. Classes come down to wandering around virtual reality and having sex with a "social partner". A partner can be given any appearance: Marilyn Monroe, Yuri Gagarin, Mark Anthony ...
Because of this plot, many readers and even critics have decided that The Love for Three Zuckerbrins is a dystopia. What will happen if people sit all day in in social networks, troll each other on forums, browse porn sites and spend the money you earn on buying virtual ammunition for virtual tanks in the World of Tanks game.
Three suns shine in the sky - three zukerbrins - the hearts of people suspended between heaven and earth are filled with love and tenderness for the three suns. These zuckerbrins are just "Birds clad in their holographic armor". The Zuckerbrins, the suns, are at the same time something like “off-screen guards” that look at a person “through a secretly turned on camera of a tablet or computer.”
However, are they birds? No, the Cyclops narrator tells us, and the Birds are not birds: “Their naked bodies are more like worms or soft snakes,” and their paws, beaks, feathers are just their armor. So, not Birds, but snakes? But then this is another Gnostic image. Birds-Snakes are archons, the spirit-rulers of the universe that enslave a person, instilling in him desires, emotions, taking away his life force.
The very title of the book refers to the names of two media moguls: Sergey Brin (creator of Google) and Mark Zuckerberg (creator of Facebook). The resemblance to a dystopia is even greater because in Pelevin's world there is even an analogue of Orwell's Big Brother - a virtual "little sister" who simultaneously fulfills the wishes of the hero and spies on him.
In fact, Pelevin does not write about the future, because writing about the future is as pointless as finding out what color the hair on the head of a child of a nulliparous woman is. Pelevin only thickens reality, trying to show us not the future, but the present. Show and three possible forms of behavior, three ways.
The first way is to go with the flow, meekly obeying the system established by the Zuckerbreen Birds. This is all the easier because the birds themselves inspire people with thoughts. The idea for Pelevin is not new: “In our time, people find out what they think on TV,” it was written in Generation P. Now they will find out - on an iPhone or a laptop. This is how Kesha, an employee of the Contra.ru website, a journalist, a system administrator and a troll, “goes with the flow”.
The second way is a rebellion against the system, which is arranged by the terrorist Batu Karaev. But the system has foreseen the possibility of rebellion, and the rebellion turns into a farce. The terrorist hides from persecution, taking on the guise of Marilyn, a woman who has become ... Kesha's "social partner". A rebel lives for many years in a sexual relationship with a conformist. Conformism and terrorism turned out to be sides of the same coin.
The third way is to simply ignore the system and be yourself.
Critic Irina Rodnyanskaya once remarked: “Pelevin draws into himself and lets any information rubbish into deep processing.” In Zuckerbrins, litter is not only swearing by “creakles” with “quilted jackets” on Facebook, computer games with birds, pigs or tanks. There is something more interesting. In the twenties of the last century, the two-step "Girl Nadia" was popular. Several frivolous songs have been written to its melody. But in all variants, the first three lines are necessarily repeated:
Girl Nadia,
What do you need?
Do not need anything…
Maybe that's why Pelevin called his "positive" heroine the name of Nadia. Girl Nadia. Of course, Nadia is Hope, hope for the reader, but it would be too easy for Pelevin to dwell on this.
Nadia works in the same office as Kesha, but is not interested in politics, information wars, or even porn sites. Not flirting, not interested in anything. Just planting flowers. She is eternally in “spiritual serenity” and meditates, not even knowing what meditation is: “her thoughts did not disturb her, because they had nothing to cling to in her.”
After death, she gets a happy share: Nadia becomes the angel Spero. But ordinary people, remaining slaves of passions, and therefore slaves of the zukerbrins who gave rise to passions, are embodied in the bodies of animals. The poet Gugin becomes a hippopotamus, Batu Karaev - a python, and Kesha, of course, a hamster. So the philosophical novel is reborn into an instructive one. The literary text turns into a sermon.
Of all the methods, the author chose the worst. Discarding artistic conventions, explain to the reader how the world works, how to live in this world: “I tried to depict the whole dark metaphysics of the struggle of the Birds with what they took for God, in the simplest and even caricature form. If it is more difficult to formulate, you get a theological treatise. The treatise didn't work, but neither did a good novel.
Pelevin was not the first to step on this mine. In the nineties, the authors of Our Contemporary (Rasputin, Belov, Bondarev), once popular and beloved by the reader, left prose and switched to journalism. And the reader left them. What is Rasputin and Belov when Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy himself could not resist the temptation: “The conclusion, which, it seems to me, is natural to draw from this, is that there is no need to succumb to this delusion and deception,” we read in the “Afterword to the Kreutzer sonata".
Approximately in this spirit, Pelevin explains. Of course, it is not Viktor Olegovich Pelevin who leads long monologues in The Zuckerbrins, but Kiklop. How does it compare with the author? The hero-narrator is not always the alter ego of the writer. For example, the banker Styopa, the hero of the novel "Numbers", is not Pelevin at all, nor is Kesha. These creatures have a very primitive mental organization. But among Pelevin's heroes one can indeed find the author's alter ego. It is not very difficult: “they are all poets,” Irina Rodnyanskaya once remarked. Peter Void from Chapaev, Vavilen Tatarsky from Generation P. There are even two poets in " zukerbrins". But the Behemoth poet Gugin, "Kohochubais of Russian verse", is not suitable for this role. Readers recognized Dmitry Bykov in it. The red beard that the author gave to his hero did not save either. Pelevin's thoughts are expressed by Cyclops himself. Cyclops is a poet. His work is akin to the calling of a prophet, and the author himself likens the prophet to a poet.
Pelevin has been writing for a quarter of a century about the same thing: about the illusory nature of the world. But it was not preaching that brought him success, but literature. This time, it seems, neither the sermon nor the composition succeeded.
"The Love for Three Zuckerbrins" still lays claim to " big book", But in the reader's vote, Pelevin is somewhere in the middle, yielding to Dina Rubina, and Valery Zalotukha, and Anna Matveeva, and even the debutante Guzel Yakhina, who unexpectedly took the lead.
Newspaper and network criticism has been scolding Pelevin for more than a year. Tired. How much can you denounce and ridicule the virtual world? As if the image of Pelevin, the satirist, the exposer of social vices, the Russian Swift, has faded. Hipsters noticed that Pelevin does not know the life and customs of hipsters. Gamers found that the writer beats a long-outdated version of Angry Birds in the book. The praise of ordinary readers is unlikely to please the author: “what funny garbage Pelevin wrote,” one reader remarks. “The sprouts of good continue to grow,” concludes another.
The author of The Zuckerbrins has read many serious books, from George Orwell's 1984 to the first and second Books of Jeu written by Egyptian Gnostics in Coptic in the 3rd century AD. But his own novel turned out to be too edifying, dreary and not at all exciting. Pelevin, through the mouth of Cyclops, appeals to common sense, and common sense almost always loses to emotions, inclinations, feelings. And Pelevin's readers will still, buried in smartphones, "feed the growing zuckerbrins".
1 See Alexander Kuzmenkov. Cyberpunk in search of satori. // "Ural". 2015 No. 1.
