Book 49: "The Clay Machine-Gun" by Victor Pelevin
Monday, July 14th, 2008 19:01![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittiwakeDespite the revolting ugliness of each of its component parts, viewed as a whole the city looked extremely beautiful, but the source of this beauty was beyond all understanding. That's always the way with Russia, thought Maria, as she ran her hands up and down the cold steel - when you see it from afar, it's so beautiful it's enough to make you cry, but when you take a closer look, you just want to puke.
What is real? Is it Pyotr's experiences as an intellectual masquerading as an officer in the Red Army just after the Russian revolution? Or is he really an amnesiac patient in a mental hospital after the fall of communism, who can’t cope with the stresses of the new regime? Or is nothing real, as Chapaev and the Black Baron claim? Characters and events from one reality bleed into another, the stories of Pyotr's fellow patients fit into the jigsaw somehow, and although you may think you have it all sorted out in your mind, the last words of the book may make you think again.
I had never heard of this author before picking this book up for 30p in a library sale, but after reading this one I will be definitely be adding his other books to my wish list. When I looked Victor Pelevin up, I discovered that Chapaev is a revolutionary folk-hero, and that he and his comrades Anka and Petka are the subjects of numerous Russian jokes. I've just lent "The Clay Machine-Gun" to my father who is interested in Buddhism, and used to learn Russian at evening classes.
'My dear Pyotr', said the Baron, 'there are quite incredible numbers of invisible elephants wandering around us all the time, please take my word for it. They are more common in Russian than crows.'
What is real? Is it Pyotr's experiences as an intellectual masquerading as an officer in the Red Army just after the Russian revolution? Or is he really an amnesiac patient in a mental hospital after the fall of communism, who can’t cope with the stresses of the new regime? Or is nothing real, as Chapaev and the Black Baron claim? Characters and events from one reality bleed into another, the stories of Pyotr's fellow patients fit into the jigsaw somehow, and although you may think you have it all sorted out in your mind, the last words of the book may make you think again.
I had never heard of this author before picking this book up for 30p in a library sale, but after reading this one I will be definitely be adding his other books to my wish list. When I looked Victor Pelevin up, I discovered that Chapaev is a revolutionary folk-hero, and that he and his comrades Anka and Petka are the subjects of numerous Russian jokes. I've just lent "The Clay Machine-Gun" to my father who is interested in Buddhism, and used to learn Russian at evening classes.
'My dear Pyotr', said the Baron, 'there are quite incredible numbers of invisible elephants wandering around us all the time, please take my word for it. They are more common in Russian than crows.'
