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Теллурия
Новый роман Владимира Сорокина – это взгляд на будущее Европы, которое, несмотря на разительные перемены в мире и устройстве человека, кажется очень понятным и реальным. Узнаваемое и неузнаваемое мирно соседствуют на ярком гобелене Нового средневековья, населенном псоглавцами и кентаврами, маленькими людьми и великанами, крестоносцами и православными коммунистами. У бесконечно разных больших и малых народов, заново перетасованных и разделенных на княжества, ханства, республики и королевства, есть, как и в Средние века прошлого тысячелетия, одно общее – поиск абсолюта, царства Божьего на земле. Только не к Царству пресвитера Иоанна обращены теперь взоры ищущих, а к республике Теллурия, к ее залежам волшебного металла, который приносит счастье.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
173 people are currently reading
3311 people want to read
About the author
Vladimir Sorokin
87 books931 followersVladimir Sorokin (Владимир Сорокин, Vlagyimir Szorokin) was born in a small town outside of Moscow in 1955. He trained as an engineer at the Moscow Institute of Oil and Gas, but turned to art and writing, becoming a major presence in the Moscow underground of the 1980s. His work was banned in the Soviet Union, and his first novel, The Queue, was published by the famed émigré dissident Andrei Sinyavsky in France in 1983. In 1992, Sorokin’s Collected Stories was nominated for the Russian Booker Prize; in 1999, the publication of the controversial novel Blue Lard, which included a sex scene between clones of Stalin and Khrushchev, led to public demonstrations against the book and to demands that Sorokin be prosecuted as a pornographer; in 2001, he received the Andrei Biely Award for outstanding contributions to Russian literature. Sorokin is also the author of the screenplays for the movies Moscow, The Kopeck, and 4, and of the libretto for Leonid Desyatnikov’s Rosenthal’s Children, the first new opera to be commissioned by the Bolshoi Theater since the 1970s. He has written numerous plays and short stories, and his work has been translated throughout the world. Among his most recent books are Sugar Kremlin and Day of the Oprichnik. He lives in Moscow.
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February 3, 2024
First published in 2013, Vladimir Sorokin's Telluria is a novel composed of fifty chapters, some short and some long, each chapter featuring its own set of characters and written in a singular style: fantasy, science fiction, social realism, lampoon, sermon, stage play, epistolary exchange, romance, comic sketch, fundamentalist rant, propaganda pamphlet, historic drama, adventure yarn, absurdist fable - the list marches on. Indeed, this is a novel that refuses to be slotted into any neat category. Perhaps the closest we could come would be Middle-European fantastica in the tradition of Kafka, Gogol, and Bulgakov. And, since I laughed out loud on nearly every page, it's also worth noting that this Sorokin will remind readers of a pair of satirists from his homeland: Mikhail Zoshchenko and Vladimir Voinovich.
The setting is a dystopian, not-so-distant future decimated by holy wars fought between Christian and Islamic fundamentalists. The Taliban has ravaged Russia, Europe, and North America. Countries have splintered into xenophobic fiefdoms and city-states such as Moscovia and California. The devastation is so complete that our current-day global capitalist society has dissolved and disappeared, replaced by a kind of medieval dark age.
In addition to humans from every stratum of society, many other beings grace the pages of Telluria. Oh, the authors and books that may come to a reader's mind. To name a few: biguns, littluns, and zoomorphs (Tatyana Tolstaya's The Slynx), attacking robots (Karel Čapek's R.U.R.), half-men, half-dog cannibals (H.G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau), and, for good measure, one human - a hornswoggled peasant (the tales of Isaac Bashevis Singer). As noted above, Vladimir Sorokin will not be bound or confined to any genre or pigeonhole. There's even a riff on a famous Allen Ginsberg poem at the end.
In the 1965 novel, The Final Circle of Paradise by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, men and women have become addicted to a newly created drug called "slug" that generates an artificial reality decidedly more intense, pleasurable, and ecstatic than our normal waking reality. Vladimir Sorokin has the denizens of this future world craving a very special, very rare metal sharing many of the same ecstatic qualities as slug, a metal call tellurium. Only here, tellurium propels one into a shamanic-like vision quest, where you can visit your long-dead brother, have passionate sex with a perfect lover, receive sudden revelations, or even transcend your mind and body in an explosion of light-infused bliss. Oh, baby. In this blighted new medieval horror show of a world, is it any wonder tellurium is the one constant running through the saga from beginning to end? However, there is a bit of a downside – unless a qualified carpenter is the person who hammers a tellurium nail into your skull at just the right spot, the risk of death is dramatically increased.
The most important advice I can offer: surrender any expectations regarding traditional narrative and plug into the author's exuberant, energized language. You'll be carried away. You'll feel as if the novel itself provides you with multiple hits of tellurium. Experience the bliss, the literary ecstasy. A special shout-out to Max Lawton for a marvelous translation, a daunting feat considering the novel's many voices, idioms, registers, tones, and writing styles.
And that's exuberance as in frolicsome fun. “A singular landscape had been dragging on outside the window for three hours already: a mixed forest touched by spring on the right and the ruins of the Great Wall of Russia on the left.” Nothing like a little alternate history where Russia is the country with the famous Great Wall.
This is a dystopia that lives at the extreme of the extremes. “Danube, an enormous bay horse eight and half meters tall at his withers, with a short-cropped mane, a tail trimmed at the root, powerful, shaggy hooves, and clomping about in place, snorted and shook his head which was the size of a seven-seater car.” Ah, I recall giant horses in another fine Sorokin novel: The Blizzard.
Do you remember the oprichniks from Day of the Oprichnik? Well, comrades , those odious oprichniks are back! “Yes, of course, everything worked out, but still, you know . . . my parents didn't want to move there for some reason. All this talk of the oprichniks, of their red cars and brooms . . .” It isn't critical, but an exposure to the author's other novels will make reading Telluria a richer experience.
As cellphones have become an indispensable part of our everyday lives, so in the world of Telluria, it is almost unthinkable to be seen without your smartypants, a futuristic floppy iPhone with spectacular abilities - to note just one: aid a carpenter when pinpointing the perfect spot in the skull to pound a Tellurium nail.
“Oh brothers in Christ! Oh knights of the order! The enemies of the Christian world have not yet been laid to rest! Crushed by us in Marseille, they retreated, spilling their black blood onto the earth. But their hatred for Christian Europe did not run dry. Having escaped from captivity, Ghazi ibn Abjallah is again gathering troops to attack us. As before, our enemies shall endeavor to enslave Europe, to destroy our temples, to trample our shrines, to impose their faith with iron and fire, to establish their cruel regime, and to turn all of Europe into an obedient pasture of slaves.” Uh-oh. Sounds like another religious war is at hand. Perhaps a few million more bloody deaths will solve the world's problems.
Vladimir Sorokin has been characterized as something of a prankster and literary terrorist. One critic even judges Sorokin as a pissed-off, postmodern Stanisław Lem. However, by my reading, our Russian literary bad boy can also be seen as a contemporary mystic, a spiritual writer in the tradition of the great Gregory Palamos. In point of fact, the author's epigraph to his Ice Trilogy, a quote from Gregory Palamos, could also be used for Telluria: “And so, brethren, let us lay aside works of darkness and turn to works of the light.”
Let there be light. Read Telluria.
Translator Max Lawton. The good news: Max has also translated Vladimir Sorokin's Their Four Hearts. And Max has three more translations of the author's books scheduled for publication in early 2024: Blue Lard, Red Pyramid, and Dispatches from the District Committee.
Russian author Vladimir Sorokin, born 1955
January 28, 2023
"Telluria" is an amazing addition to the "Sorokin-universe". Those who have read "Day of the Oprichnik" will definitely enjoy the references made to it in this book. Set in a same dystopian future, Russia, Europe and China have collapsed and returned to a map which highly resembles their maps of the middle ages.
And the middle ages did not only return in cartographical form: Horses have again become the preferred method of transportation for many, harems have again become fashionable among the ranks of the rich and powerful and universal standards of measurement have become practically non-existent. However, there is one thing which is universal in this world where Ivan the Terrible meets Blade Runner: The love for the psychedelic drug Tellurium which has to be inserted in the back of the head in the form of nails by specialized "craftsmen".
(I remember Tellurium being on the periodic table of elements when I had chemistry and physics in high school, but was never taught about its psychedelic qualities. Is something being hidden from us?)
The book consists of fifty chapters which for the most part aren't that interconnected and show this new world through the perspectives of members of the nobility, zoomorphic creatures, tourists, etc. It is said about Sorokin that he is the Russian equivalent of Thomas Pynchon. I would like to add that his style of writing also reminds me just a tat bit of Michel Houellebecq, though the nihilism expressed by Sorokin to a certain extent relieved by the distant undertone of Orthodox Christianity.
I have to add that certain chapters are written in very heavy slang and/or do not contain any form of punctuation, which can make the reading experience a little frustrating in minor parts of the book. All in all "Telluria" is a truly entertaining, hilarious and perhaps (hopefully not) prophetic reading experience!
And the middle ages did not only return in cartographical form: Horses have again become the preferred method of transportation for many, harems have again become fashionable among the ranks of the rich and powerful and universal standards of measurement have become practically non-existent. However, there is one thing which is universal in this world where Ivan the Terrible meets Blade Runner: The love for the psychedelic drug Tellurium which has to be inserted in the back of the head in the form of nails by specialized "craftsmen".
(I remember Tellurium being on the periodic table of elements when I had chemistry and physics in high school, but was never taught about its psychedelic qualities. Is something being hidden from us?)
The book consists of fifty chapters which for the most part aren't that interconnected and show this new world through the perspectives of members of the nobility, zoomorphic creatures, tourists, etc. It is said about Sorokin that he is the Russian equivalent of Thomas Pynchon. I would like to add that his style of writing also reminds me just a tat bit of Michel Houellebecq, though the nihilism expressed by Sorokin to a certain extent relieved by the distant undertone of Orthodox Christianity.
I have to add that certain chapters are written in very heavy slang and/or do not contain any form of punctuation, which can make the reading experience a little frustrating in minor parts of the book. All in all "Telluria" is a truly entertaining, hilarious and perhaps (hopefully not) prophetic reading experience!
March 17, 2021
Fünfzig Kapitel, fünfzig Perspektiven – Telluria ist polyphones Chaos. Eine Handlung im klassischen Sinn gibt es nicht. Der ganze Roman besteht aus einzelnen Episoden, die jeweils in einem anderen Stil verfasst sind. Quer durch alle möglichen literarischen Gattungen und Textsorten zieht Vladimir Sorokin alle Register seines Könnens. Er persifliert Nabokovs Lolita ebenso mit leichter Hand, wie er Michail Bulgakows Hundemensch neues Leben einhaucht. Das Endprodukt ist ein grandioser satirischer Spaß. Eine Welt, in der Zukunft und Vergangenheit, sowie Mythologie und Science-Fiction miteinander verschmelzen. Darin sind Zwerge, Riesen und dreistöckige Pferde so selbstverständlich, wie transgene phallische Organismen. Der gezeigte Einfallsreichtum beeindruckt, wenngleich dem Roman eine alles verbindende Idee fehlt. Was man allerdings auch als treffende Zustandsbeschreibung der aktuellen Lage deuten kann. Telluria ist gleichermaßen witzige Zukunftsvision, wie beißende Gesellschaftskritik. Sorokin hat eine fantastisch-skurrile Welt entworfen, die sich in gewisser Weise als Verlängerung unserer Gegenwart entpuppt. Sehr amüsant und kurzweilig. (Gleich acht Übersetzer haben das Buch ins Deutsche übertragen!)
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August 16, 2022Video about this and other Sorokin works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edtVH...
October 24, 2013
Если сравнивать новый роман Сорокина с книгами современных западных фантастов (культовых, с претензией, но все еще в мэйнстриме), то книга у “живого классика” – “на троечку c минусом”. Вторично, неровно, попросту халтурно. Россия опять куда-то катится, все её обитатели от посглавцев до кентавров общаются исключительно на карамазинском суржике, а самые просветленные – опять чем-то долбятся.
Признаюсь честно, для меня “Теллурия” – всего лишь третье большое знакомство с Сорокиным. Так вот, в первой книге долбили “норму”, во второй – лёд, в третьей – теллуриевые гвозди. Ох.
С другой стороны, если сравнивать новый роман Сорокина с межавторским сборником рассказов по постапокалу от писателей-дебютантов (например, с коллекцией фанфиков по Сталкеру), то это уже где-то “тройка с плюсом”. В сборнике заявлено 50 новелл: из них реально работают около дюжины, остальное – откровенный шлак. Представьте на минутку, что зарисовки про гномиков и pro тесто написал неизвестный вам офисный работник из Перми и, поверьте, они мгновенно потеряют свои прелесть, значимость и глубину.
Но перед нами, увы, не западная фантастика и не сборник литературных дебютов, а “великий роман от великого писателя”. Поэтому падите ниц и внемлите каждому слову, а я пока сгоняю за очками от солнца, чтобы случаем не ослепнуть.
Признаюсь честно, для меня “Теллурия” – всего лишь третье большое знакомство с Сорокиным. Так вот, в первой книге долбили “норму”, во второй – лёд, в третьей – теллуриевые гвозди. Ох.
С другой стороны, если сравнивать новый роман Сорокина с межавторским сборником рассказов по постапокалу от писателей-дебютантов (например, с коллекцией фанфиков по Сталкеру), то это уже где-то “тройка с плюсом”. В сборнике заявлено 50 новелл: из них реально работают около дюжины, остальное – откровенный шлак. Представьте на минутку, что зарисовки про гномиков и pro тесто написал неизвестный вам офисный работник из Перми и, поверьте, они мгновенно потеряют свои прелесть, значимость и глубину.
Но перед нами, увы, не западная фантастика и не сборник литературных дебютов, а “великий роман от великого писателя”. Поэтому падите ниц и внемлите каждому слову, а я пока сгоняю за очками от солнца, чтобы случаем не ослепнуть.
July 31, 2025
Woven into a tapestry of terror and drug-laced delirum, Sorokin’s "Telluria" draws readers into a caricatured future fueled by perennial desires and lust. Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin is notorious for his experimental style and outlandish—at times nauseating—stories. Originally published in 2013, "Telluria" delivers another audacious work that envelops nationalism, religious fanaticism, and carnal desire.
The novel is set in a dystopian future after a series of ethnic and religious wars, where Russia has been partitioned and large segments of the population have become addicted to Tellurium—a next-generation drug that produces a hallucinogenic, euphoric high. Emanating from these surrealist foundations are fifty chapters, each presenting a distinct narrative with its own dialect, worldview, and style. Sorokin flows seamlessly between polemics against Russia’s historic despotism: “Russia was a frightening, antihumanist state at all times, but the monster was especially beastly during the twentieth century, when blood simply flowed like a river and human bones crunched in the dragon's snout,” and provocative reflections on psychoactive substances: “All famous narcotic substances have always led us down the garden path, substituting our desires for the desires of the substance, our will for its will, and our idea of pleasure for its idea of pleasure.” Seemingly emblematic of this era of humanity, this overpowering metallic substance is contained in a nail meticulously driven into the skull by a skilled carpenter, sending the recipient into a blissful dream state, a sexual escapade, or a visitation with a deceased relative. Denizens of these fragmented regions also use a device referred to as a ‘smartypants,’ employed in a prophetic manner that reflects humanity’s inseparable link to technology.
Rather than tell a linear, overarching narrative, instead Sorokin provides a panorama of a collapsed Russian world ruled by entropy and sensual pleasure. It’s a world where nationalistic expansion prevails, where citizens risk death for the rapture of a tellurium nail, and where gay lovers visit a Stalin-themed nation-state only to become victims of their lack of sycophancy. Despite being more reserved than his earlier works, "Telluria" still pushes boundaries with obscenities and hyperbolic events to drive home its ridicule of state-sponsored terror and egoism. Praise must also be given to translator Max Lawton for his creative attempt to render the unique dialects and irregular styles into English.
The novel has its lulls and indulgences but largely conveys the world of desperation and extremism that Sorokin fears for Russia’s future. It is a masterful blend of lampoon, absurd tales, fantasy, social realism, and dystopian fiction that thwarts any attempt to be summarized or categorized.
The novel is set in a dystopian future after a series of ethnic and religious wars, where Russia has been partitioned and large segments of the population have become addicted to Tellurium—a next-generation drug that produces a hallucinogenic, euphoric high. Emanating from these surrealist foundations are fifty chapters, each presenting a distinct narrative with its own dialect, worldview, and style. Sorokin flows seamlessly between polemics against Russia’s historic despotism: “Russia was a frightening, antihumanist state at all times, but the monster was especially beastly during the twentieth century, when blood simply flowed like a river and human bones crunched in the dragon's snout,” and provocative reflections on psychoactive substances: “All famous narcotic substances have always led us down the garden path, substituting our desires for the desires of the substance, our will for its will, and our idea of pleasure for its idea of pleasure.” Seemingly emblematic of this era of humanity, this overpowering metallic substance is contained in a nail meticulously driven into the skull by a skilled carpenter, sending the recipient into a blissful dream state, a sexual escapade, or a visitation with a deceased relative. Denizens of these fragmented regions also use a device referred to as a ‘smartypants,’ employed in a prophetic manner that reflects humanity’s inseparable link to technology.
Rather than tell a linear, overarching narrative, instead Sorokin provides a panorama of a collapsed Russian world ruled by entropy and sensual pleasure. It’s a world where nationalistic expansion prevails, where citizens risk death for the rapture of a tellurium nail, and where gay lovers visit a Stalin-themed nation-state only to become victims of their lack of sycophancy. Despite being more reserved than his earlier works, "Telluria" still pushes boundaries with obscenities and hyperbolic events to drive home its ridicule of state-sponsored terror and egoism. Praise must also be given to translator Max Lawton for his creative attempt to render the unique dialects and irregular styles into English.
The novel has its lulls and indulgences but largely conveys the world of desperation and extremism that Sorokin fears for Russia’s future. It is a masterful blend of lampoon, absurd tales, fantasy, social realism, and dystopian fiction that thwarts any attempt to be summarized or categorized.
January 14, 2023
Enter the weird and wonderful world of Vladimir Sorokin. Set in a future where Russia has split into a multiplicity of independent states and where the drug of choice is tellurium.
The novel consists of 50 episodic chapters, all set in the same world but (mostly, there are a couple of exceptions that I spotted) each independent of each other. Written in a variety of styles - some poetic, some satirical and I think some parodying styles of famous Russian writers (I think, my knowledge of Russian literature is not that great. I thought I might have spotted ~Dostoevsky and Chekhov at least).
Always inventive, Sorokin is a writer I'm going to reading more of
The novel consists of 50 episodic chapters, all set in the same world but (mostly, there are a couple of exceptions that I spotted) each independent of each other. Written in a variety of styles - some poetic, some satirical and I think some parodying styles of famous Russian writers (I think, my knowledge of Russian literature is not that great. I thought I might have spotted ~Dostoevsky and Chekhov at least).
Always inventive, Sorokin is a writer I'm going to reading more of
April 2, 2023
Ļoti "sorokiniska" grāmata. Distopiska nākotne, kad Eiropā, Ķīnā un Krievijā notikušas politiskas pārmaiņas un viss atgriezies viduslaiku pilsētvalstu laikā. Grāmatu veido 50 nodaļas, katru var lasīt teju kā atsevišķu stāstu. Sorokina valodas kombinācijas ir kaut kas unikāls. 19.gs., mūsdienu valodas un "feņas" sajaukums.
November 28, 2023
Sorokin's feudal vision of the future, where Europe is dismantled into hyper-nationalist sectarian states following Holy War with a jihadist Taliban feels eerily prescient for a book that counts among its cast of characters an animated phallus, biguns (giants) and littluns (dwarves), zoomorphs (DNA-spliced animal-humans), and of which the unifying device is the practice of beating nails of tellurium metal into the backs of ones heads to hallucinogenic effect.
Over the course of 50 chapters - each standalone in terms of character, setting, and action - Sorokin pieces together the world of the "New Middle Ages" as he has termed them - a retro-futurist vision of western civilization in a rapid cultural retrograde. Gone certainly is the European Union, but gone also are Germany, Russia, France, etc - in with the Ur cultures of Bohemia, Silesia, and in "Russia" the fractured lands of PodMoscovia, the United States of Ural, the Kingdom of Ryazan, and naturally Telluria - a wealthy and powerful city-state carved out by a French military effort that is home to major repositories of the psychadelic drug du jour - the eponymous tellurium.
While the novel officially concerns itself with the future of the Western world as a whole, it takes a particularly acerbic eye to the history and future of the Russian states.
The Russian state span from cyberpunk autocracy to agrarian fiefdom, all plagued by a need for escapism that is delivered in the form of the ubiquitous but pricy tellurium nails.
Telluria is a novel which is defined, diluted, and enriched by its form. Each of the 50 chapters not only views this future dystopia from a different angle, geographic, demographic, philosophical, but also are told in vitally zany and polyglossic prose. While there are episodes that stand out as particularly insightful, moving, harebrained, and others that are a bit more mundane, the sheer circus of voices and stories on display here tip the scale from 3.5 to 4 stars for me.
Over the course of 50 chapters - each standalone in terms of character, setting, and action - Sorokin pieces together the world of the "New Middle Ages" as he has termed them - a retro-futurist vision of western civilization in a rapid cultural retrograde. Gone certainly is the European Union, but gone also are Germany, Russia, France, etc - in with the Ur cultures of Bohemia, Silesia, and in "Russia" the fractured lands of PodMoscovia, the United States of Ural, the Kingdom of Ryazan, and naturally Telluria - a wealthy and powerful city-state carved out by a French military effort that is home to major repositories of the psychadelic drug du jour - the eponymous tellurium.
While the novel officially concerns itself with the future of the Western world as a whole, it takes a particularly acerbic eye to the history and future of the Russian states.
Her imperial heart stopped. If she, this gloriously merciless giantess wearing a diamond tiara and a mantle of snow, had properly collapsed in February 1917 and disintegrated into a collection of human-size states, everything would have turned out more or less in keeping with the spirit of modern history, and the nations that had been oppressed by the czar's power would finally have gained their postimperial national identities and begun to live freely. But everything happened differently. The Bolshevik Party did not allow the giantess to fall, compensating for its small numbers with its beastly bite and inexhaustible social activity. Having successfully pulled off a nighttime coup in Saint Petersburg, they stopped the falling corpse of empire just before it hit the ground. I see Lenin and Trotsky precisely as tiny caryatids, holding up the dead and beautiful giantess with furious grunts.
The Russian state span from cyberpunk autocracy to agrarian fiefdom, all plagued by a need for escapism that is delivered in the form of the ubiquitous but pricy tellurium nails.
Telluria is a novel which is defined, diluted, and enriched by its form. Each of the 50 chapters not only views this future dystopia from a different angle, geographic, demographic, philosophical, but also are told in vitally zany and polyglossic prose. While there are episodes that stand out as particularly insightful, moving, harebrained, and others that are a bit more mundane, the sheer circus of voices and stories on display here tip the scale from 3.5 to 4 stars for me.
October 28, 2022
i think that once upon a time i liked these hyper-postmodern hallucinatory kaleidoscopic vignette collections. but now, while i like the absurdism and satire and all, i mostly just find myself bored. please, just give me one scrap of narrative structure
July 16, 2014
Как и любое другое произведение Сорокина, "Теллурию" стоит прочитать, просто для того, чтобы понимать в каком контексте принимаются законы, запрещающие даже обсуждать территориальные границы России. Литературное произведение, которое оказывает сейчас огромное влияние на воображение всех, кто эту книгу прочитал. Но в смысле какого-то особенного литературного удовольствия, то тут сложно поставить 5 из 5 звезд (и даже 4). Теллурия – это такая литературно-гражданская домашняя работа, которую надо выполнить, чтобы оставаться на связи с миром идей и умов современности.
November 29, 2023
Laden with "historical digression only to try to explain to you the strange strangeness" (11) of the setting, this text assumes a future in which rightwing doctrines come to dominate most polities and cause the standard result of those policy preferences, such as we see in the 2023 war between Hamas and Likud, wherein the former is something of the latter's Frankenstein creature, a dialectical offspring with oedipal intention. The pages here are thus full of local authoritarianisms, warmongering theocracies, restored aristocrats, myopic narco-states, and other deplorables.
There's little narrative overlap between the 50 sections, some obliquely referring to each other; what happens is decidedly less important than what happened, an examination of the causality of the present moment, which is a valuable exercise. The various sections do give a decent tour of the world, which features high tech developments such as micro- and macro- versions of regular species, anthropomorphic animals, living or self-generating consumer goods, robots, holograms, clone soldiers, and so on--all aside horrific poverty and dereliction, the normal conjunction in late capitalism. There's thus lots of science fiction content but it's all marginal, with little explanation. The impression is as described in Herf's Reactionary Modernism, the wedding of misanthropic rightwing ideas, normally against progress in the learned arts and useful sciences, with a fetish for belligerent technologies. One set of characters, for instance, regards how "the Great Wall of Russia was never completed" as "an entirely utopian idea" (195). In some ways, the world's retrogression means the end of certain abstractions, such as commodity fetishism, say, in the proclamation that "Mass production is living out its final years. There aren't two identical nails beaten into humanity's head. Man regained a sense of the thing" (214). Capitalism has thus not been subject to a revolutionary reconstitution of society, but has gone along the other disjunct of that famous line, into the mutual ruin of the contending classes. That "Earth has been given to us as an island of overcoming" (id.) only reinforces the anti-modern nietzschean overtones.
It's overall a thought experiment in geopolitical pessimism, lyotardian in its insistence that the metanarratives of modernity have failed, returning the world in its vacuum to the metanarratives of the ancient world. The central conceit that Islam has taken over Europe is just paranoid and asinine, a houellebecqian jaundice that assumes an unrealistic plausibility and a childish horror. That said, even if it imagines the end of capitalism as a conclusory allegation, the setting can't conceive what that might be at the evidentiary level, except as a sort of apocalypse. It thus joins the cliche genre of disaster fiction, wherein it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of the current economic regime, as per Mark Fisher, a fairly convincing example of how false consciousness adheres to speculative fiction.
The one constant is the setting's narcotic of choice, tellurium, which is a real element on the periodic table with a known toxicity. Apparently we haven't tried it correctly, which involves nailing a spike of it directly into the brain at a precise locale. The novel does not disclose the exact spot or method of determining where, so devoted fans will need to experiment. The drug seems to grant the ability to speak with the dead and travel through time, among other more standard effects such as euphoria, suspended animation, and so on.
Whatever this text is saying about the world market for narcotics, however, it also draws a metaphorical concordance that "the sad paradox lies in the fact that these barbarians didn't have to beat anything metallic [i.e,., tellurium] into their heads in order to become heroic, for their heads had been beaten with heroic ideas since they were children" (153-54), which combines the basic marxist insight that certain ideas act like narcotics with the horatian principle that dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Reinforcing the concordance, the text notes that the practice began as a religious rite, with Zoroastrians in the 4th century BCE (185). The aporetic nature of the narcotic discourse contends that "Happiness is not medicine. Not narcotics. Happiness is a condition of the soul. And that is what tellurium offers" (213). Tellurium by contrast "awakens the brain's inmost desires" (311), as though desire were both purely internal and purely good: "Tellurium gifts you with an entire world. A solid and plausible world, a living world. And I ended up in the world that I'd been dreaming of since my early childhood. I became one of the disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ (311-12).
One of the more effective components of the text is the thread that goes through the several sections (see e.g., sections 21 and 28) dealing specifically with 'carpenters,' those professionals who nail tellurium spikes into brains. We see that they have "professionals ethics" (208), which makes this thread an neat examination of Agamben's eidos zoe, disclosing therein the central significance of this setting. Jesus is not expressly proclaimed to have been the original carpenter but we get the point.
Recommended for those seeking artifacts of the great unfinishment, readers who find responsibility to be the greatest of pleasures, and miserable platonists masturbating to shadows in the cave.
There's little narrative overlap between the 50 sections, some obliquely referring to each other; what happens is decidedly less important than what happened, an examination of the causality of the present moment, which is a valuable exercise. The various sections do give a decent tour of the world, which features high tech developments such as micro- and macro- versions of regular species, anthropomorphic animals, living or self-generating consumer goods, robots, holograms, clone soldiers, and so on--all aside horrific poverty and dereliction, the normal conjunction in late capitalism. There's thus lots of science fiction content but it's all marginal, with little explanation. The impression is as described in Herf's Reactionary Modernism, the wedding of misanthropic rightwing ideas, normally against progress in the learned arts and useful sciences, with a fetish for belligerent technologies. One set of characters, for instance, regards how "the Great Wall of Russia was never completed" as "an entirely utopian idea" (195). In some ways, the world's retrogression means the end of certain abstractions, such as commodity fetishism, say, in the proclamation that "Mass production is living out its final years. There aren't two identical nails beaten into humanity's head. Man regained a sense of the thing" (214). Capitalism has thus not been subject to a revolutionary reconstitution of society, but has gone along the other disjunct of that famous line, into the mutual ruin of the contending classes. That "Earth has been given to us as an island of overcoming" (id.) only reinforces the anti-modern nietzschean overtones.
It's overall a thought experiment in geopolitical pessimism, lyotardian in its insistence that the metanarratives of modernity have failed, returning the world in its vacuum to the metanarratives of the ancient world. The central conceit that Islam has taken over Europe is just paranoid and asinine, a houellebecqian jaundice that assumes an unrealistic plausibility and a childish horror. That said, even if it imagines the end of capitalism as a conclusory allegation, the setting can't conceive what that might be at the evidentiary level, except as a sort of apocalypse. It thus joins the cliche genre of disaster fiction, wherein it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of the current economic regime, as per Mark Fisher, a fairly convincing example of how false consciousness adheres to speculative fiction.
The one constant is the setting's narcotic of choice, tellurium, which is a real element on the periodic table with a known toxicity. Apparently we haven't tried it correctly, which involves nailing a spike of it directly into the brain at a precise locale. The novel does not disclose the exact spot or method of determining where, so devoted fans will need to experiment. The drug seems to grant the ability to speak with the dead and travel through time, among other more standard effects such as euphoria, suspended animation, and so on.
Whatever this text is saying about the world market for narcotics, however, it also draws a metaphorical concordance that "the sad paradox lies in the fact that these barbarians didn't have to beat anything metallic [i.e,., tellurium] into their heads in order to become heroic, for their heads had been beaten with heroic ideas since they were children" (153-54), which combines the basic marxist insight that certain ideas act like narcotics with the horatian principle that dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Reinforcing the concordance, the text notes that the practice began as a religious rite, with Zoroastrians in the 4th century BCE (185). The aporetic nature of the narcotic discourse contends that "Happiness is not medicine. Not narcotics. Happiness is a condition of the soul. And that is what tellurium offers" (213). Tellurium by contrast "awakens the brain's inmost desires" (311), as though desire were both purely internal and purely good: "Tellurium gifts you with an entire world. A solid and plausible world, a living world. And I ended up in the world that I'd been dreaming of since my early childhood. I became one of the disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ (311-12).
One of the more effective components of the text is the thread that goes through the several sections (see e.g., sections 21 and 28) dealing specifically with 'carpenters,' those professionals who nail tellurium spikes into brains. We see that they have "professionals ethics" (208), which makes this thread an neat examination of Agamben's eidos zoe, disclosing therein the central significance of this setting. Jesus is not expressly proclaimed to have been the original carpenter but we get the point.
Recommended for those seeking artifacts of the great unfinishment, readers who find responsibility to be the greatest of pleasures, and miserable platonists masturbating to shadows in the cave.
September 22, 2022
I SAW THE worst minds of my generation torn out of black madness by tellurium, minds
who overcame the quotidian morass of the swamp of an ordinary life,
who cast the concrete crust of idiotic self-assurance and dull complacency off from their souls,
who trampled the chimera of earthly predestination in an instant,
who shook the ashily shaggy mold of tired perception of the world off from their eyes,
who crushed the sticky shell of depression with their new hands,
who spat the hot magma of consummateness into the dull face of thousand-year-old spleen,
who breathed the new breath of life into the empty eye sockets of dusty libraries
who let thousands of schizophrenically hopeless books fall into the wind—books that had pushed readers either to suicide or the loony bin,
who beat a shining tellurium stake into the grave of earthly despondency...
The Russian literary master Vladimir Sorokin's post-apocalyptic and seeemingly prophetic vision will not get lost amidst all the literary pyrotechniques and verbal conjuring that he employs- instead they serve to allay the rapid pace of events that takes place here in a world set in the future where neo-feudal communities of scattered and tiny nations carve up their own ideology and niche. But what rises above all, and what is common to all these numerous communities is the appetite for the special substance called tellurium which, when driven correctly by a spike through the head with some skill, serves to give bliss to the person; but when administered incorrectly means certain death which proof we get to see towards the end of the book when two gay travellers to the erstwhile republic of Russia meet their end in an attitude of self-discovery. The book's fifty chapters paint the picture of a futuristic planet with a motley cast of characters that depicts the life in this dystopian realm from every angle, and lays ample testimony to Sorokin's great gift for language and imagery. This was indeed a great read and one of the highlights of my reading experience this year. Now I would like to delve into other works by this great modernist author.
who overcame the quotidian morass of the swamp of an ordinary life,
who cast the concrete crust of idiotic self-assurance and dull complacency off from their souls,
who trampled the chimera of earthly predestination in an instant,
who shook the ashily shaggy mold of tired perception of the world off from their eyes,
who crushed the sticky shell of depression with their new hands,
who spat the hot magma of consummateness into the dull face of thousand-year-old spleen,
who breathed the new breath of life into the empty eye sockets of dusty libraries
who let thousands of schizophrenically hopeless books fall into the wind—books that had pushed readers either to suicide or the loony bin,
who beat a shining tellurium stake into the grave of earthly despondency...
The Russian literary master Vladimir Sorokin's post-apocalyptic and seeemingly prophetic vision will not get lost amidst all the literary pyrotechniques and verbal conjuring that he employs- instead they serve to allay the rapid pace of events that takes place here in a world set in the future where neo-feudal communities of scattered and tiny nations carve up their own ideology and niche. But what rises above all, and what is common to all these numerous communities is the appetite for the special substance called tellurium which, when driven correctly by a spike through the head with some skill, serves to give bliss to the person; but when administered incorrectly means certain death which proof we get to see towards the end of the book when two gay travellers to the erstwhile republic of Russia meet their end in an attitude of self-discovery. The book's fifty chapters paint the picture of a futuristic planet with a motley cast of characters that depicts the life in this dystopian realm from every angle, and lays ample testimony to Sorokin's great gift for language and imagery. This was indeed a great read and one of the highlights of my reading experience this year. Now I would like to delve into other works by this great modernist author.
November 26, 2024
Fifty short stories of a dystopian world after a global religious war. The stories each have a different point of view and are set in different locations around the globe. They are written in the form of prayers, a song, proclamations, a news broadcast, letters, or even a poem that reimagines Allen Ginsburg’s Howl. The short stories are part fairy tale, part science fiction and includes giants, Templar knights, robots, princesses, and dog men. The ecological devastation and political chaos coexists with rudimentary tools and high tech machines. In this world the metal tellurium has become both currency and drug. Tellurium nails are hammered into the user’s skull by men called Carpenters and produces feelings of ecstasy, provides strength and courage before a battle, the acquisition of knowledge and abilities, and allows one to converse with the dead.
Story No. 21
Magnus the Hasty, a Carpenter, rushes on towards his destination and, as he approaches his goal, was scanned to verify his identity. Shown into the hall he was greeted by five other Carpenters and has his feet washed by his companions. The following day, during the grand ceremony, the Carpenters gather and are joined by the Grand Magistrate of the Templar Order, the military Chaplin and the Templar Knights themselves. After Mass, the Chaplin offers a sermon on the preservation of Christendom, if not the resulting “end of days”, and then the knights are called to a great battle. The Holy Communion taken, Magnus was chosen to nail the tellurium spike into the Magister’s skull while the other five Carpenters perform the same service for the knights present. The Magister speaks, encouraging the warriors to take the battle to the infidels in Istanbul and to save Christian Europe from slavery and a heretic faith. Leaving the refractory, the fighters walk to the catapult and the robots armed with cannons and rockets. The Magister, the Chaplin, and the knights climb into the robots and are catapulted into the air. And the thirteenth Crusade begins.
Story No. 21
Magnus the Hasty, a Carpenter, rushes on towards his destination and, as he approaches his goal, was scanned to verify his identity. Shown into the hall he was greeted by five other Carpenters and has his feet washed by his companions. The following day, during the grand ceremony, the Carpenters gather and are joined by the Grand Magistrate of the Templar Order, the military Chaplin and the Templar Knights themselves. After Mass, the Chaplin offers a sermon on the preservation of Christendom, if not the resulting “end of days”, and then the knights are called to a great battle. The Holy Communion taken, Magnus was chosen to nail the tellurium spike into the Magister’s skull while the other five Carpenters perform the same service for the knights present. The Magister speaks, encouraging the warriors to take the battle to the infidels in Istanbul and to save Christian Europe from slavery and a heretic faith. Leaving the refractory, the fighters walk to the catapult and the robots armed with cannons and rockets. The Magister, the Chaplin, and the knights climb into the robots and are catapulted into the air. And the thirteenth Crusade begins.
March 8, 2016
Хороший такой калейдоскоп по мотивам предыдущих экзерсисов + забавная интеллектуальная игра («для средних умов», как не преминула бы добавить любимая учительница биологии): эдакая угадайка-опознавайка того, с чем тешился писатель (Пелевин и Аллен Гинзберг тут самые отъявленные примеры). В связи с чем последним регистр меняется почти в каждой главе, что, несомненно, развлекает.
Ну и брезгливость к предмету изображения тоже, конечно, трогательна — это от любви, не иначе, не любил бы родину — не писал. В этом мне видится традиция и преемственность, потому что нормальному человеку уже, похоже, не остается ничего другого — только смеяться над историей, культурой, политикой и современным состоянием этих территорий. Правда, похоже, из всех русскописателей так качественно в последнее время это делает только Сорокин.
Ну и брезгливость к предмету изображения тоже, конечно, трогательна — это от любви, не иначе, не любил бы родину — не писал. В этом мне видится традиция и преемственность, потому что нормальному человеку уже, похоже, не остается ничего другого — только смеяться над историей, культурой, политикой и современным состоянием этих территорий. Правда, похоже, из всех русскописателей так качественно в последнее время это делает только Сорокин.
December 24, 2014
Литературный луна-парк. Обзор поз церебральной йоги. Местами восхитительно. Глубже головы не проваливается, впрочем.
September 4, 2016
Telurie je takovým crossoverem Nova Expressu Williama Burroughse (klipovitý, ulítlý a experimentální styl psaní) a Emberta Eca (mnohoznačnost, spousta informací, spiknutí, odkazy, atd...) a trochu připomíná i svého krajana Sašu Sokolova a jeho Palisandreu.
Kniha je zajímavá tím, že vlastně nemá žádný děj a nebo když to budeme brát opačně, má minimálně tolik dějových linek, kolik je v knize kapitol. Neobvyklé je, že ač všechny ty dějové linky sdílejí společný prostor světa stvořeného autorem, nijak se spolu nestřetávají ani na sebe nijak nenavazují. Představte si to jako sbírku spousty hodně ale hodně krátkých povídek odehrávajících se v jednom společném literárním universu.
Tím světem je blízká budoucnost, které by se mohli dožít děti nedávno narozené. tedy pokud přežijí totální rozklad našeho světa, kdy se i díky několika válkám s vahábisty rozpadne Evropa i Rusko na spoustu miniaturních státečků a díky objevení teluru, což je taková absolutní droga, propadne do technologicky vyspělejší varianty středověku. Telur je velice vzácný kov, ze kterého se vyrábějí hřebíky, které, když někomu vtlučete do hlavy, získá nikdy nekončící pocit štěstí, naplnění a plní se mu ty nejtajnější sny, objevuje nové schopnosti atd... Malá zemička na Kavkaze, kde se nachází snad jediné ložisku teluru se ze dne na den stává nejmocnější zemí světa a samotný telur se stává nejvzácnější a nejstrategičtější surovinou a universálním platidlem. "Tesaři", kteří se živí odbornou implementací telurových hřebíků o hlav jiných lidí se potulují světem a jsou takovou novodobější verzí potulných mnichů klasického středověku.
Většina dnešních technologií je zapomenuta a naopak zde najdeme spoustu nových technologií postavených zejména na biotechlogiích a manipulacích s DNA.Většina příběhů se odehrává na územích, které nyní ovládá Rusko ale sem tam se dostaneme i do Evropy. V některých částech je autor velice vtipný, v jiných hodně ulítlý, někde hodně temný a jinde rusky melancholický. Občas se styl vyprávění tak liší, že až působí, jako by některé části psal někdo jiný.
Pokud netrváte na klasickém lineárním příběhu, tak mohu knihu doporučit. Konzervativnějším čtenářům bych raději doporučil možná Vánici a nebo raději i jiného autora.
Kniha je zajímavá tím, že vlastně nemá žádný děj a nebo když to budeme brát opačně, má minimálně tolik dějových linek, kolik je v knize kapitol. Neobvyklé je, že ač všechny ty dějové linky sdílejí společný prostor světa stvořeného autorem, nijak se spolu nestřetávají ani na sebe nijak nenavazují. Představte si to jako sbírku spousty hodně ale hodně krátkých povídek odehrávajících se v jednom společném literárním universu.
Tím světem je blízká budoucnost, které by se mohli dožít děti nedávno narozené. tedy pokud přežijí totální rozklad našeho světa, kdy se i díky několika válkám s vahábisty rozpadne Evropa i Rusko na spoustu miniaturních státečků a díky objevení teluru, což je taková absolutní droga, propadne do technologicky vyspělejší varianty středověku. Telur je velice vzácný kov, ze kterého se vyrábějí hřebíky, které, když někomu vtlučete do hlavy, získá nikdy nekončící pocit štěstí, naplnění a plní se mu ty nejtajnější sny, objevuje nové schopnosti atd... Malá zemička na Kavkaze, kde se nachází snad jediné ložisku teluru se ze dne na den stává nejmocnější zemí světa a samotný telur se stává nejvzácnější a nejstrategičtější surovinou a universálním platidlem. "Tesaři", kteří se živí odbornou implementací telurových hřebíků o hlav jiných lidí se potulují světem a jsou takovou novodobější verzí potulných mnichů klasického středověku.
Většina dnešních technologií je zapomenuta a naopak zde najdeme spoustu nových technologií postavených zejména na biotechlogiích a manipulacích s DNA.Většina příběhů se odehrává na územích, které nyní ovládá Rusko ale sem tam se dostaneme i do Evropy. V některých částech je autor velice vtipný, v jiných hodně ulítlý, někde hodně temný a jinde rusky melancholický. Občas se styl vyprávění tak liší, že až působí, jako by některé části psal někdo jiný.
Pokud netrváte na klasickém lineárním příběhu, tak mohu knihu doporučit. Konzervativnějším čtenářům bych raději doporučil možná Vánici a nebo raději i jiného autora.
March 15, 2015
This book, though, influenced my everyday much more than any other read recently. I start seeing things connected to godly telur, write creepy emails and then, Putin disappears, maybe that is a sign of Nichtsein und Postzeit. Or Dochsein und Postzeit?
February 22, 2025
Долго време ми стоеше на полица и конечно ѝ дојде редот.
Немав некои очекувања, но на крајот бев пријатно изненаден.
Сорокин ни дава една мешавина, еден микс од сите можни жанрови... од научна фантастика, преку фантазија, од трилер до драма... 50 глави, секоја засебна, некоја долга половина страна, некоја и по десетина страници, сите со квалитет на проверен руски класик и сите заедно прават една целина и ни доловуваат еден свет, гротесктен и прекрасен во исто време.
Немав некои очекувања, но на крајот бев пријатно изненаден.
Сорокин ни дава една мешавина, еден микс од сите можни жанрови... од научна фантастика, преку фантазија, од трилер до драма... 50 глави, секоја засебна, некоја долга половина страна, некоја и по десетина страници, сите со квалитет на проверен руски класик и сите заедно прават една целина и ни доловуваат еден свет, гротесктен и прекрасен во исто време.
December 11, 2023
This was really interesting. It’s really a collection of short stories set in this same future Eurasia, where the drug Tellurium is in the background of everything in one way or another. We get perspectives of workers and (vaguely) aristocrats, humans and zoomorphs, biguns and litluns, etc. Some chapters are set up like plays, some are first person, some third person. Some chapters call back to characters we have previously met or show different points of view. It’s all really fascinating and well done.
March 9, 2017
C'est en train de devenir une habitude en ce moment, mais me voilà à nouveau avec un romancier russe entre les mains. Et comme le précédent, il s'agit d'un roman estampillé SF, mais qui n'en pas vraiment un, ou plus exactement qui est à la frontière du genre.
Le récit se déroule à quelques années d'ici, dans un monde qui a été changé par de profonds bouleversements politiques et sociaux. Vladimir Sorokine focalise son roman sur l'Europe et la Russie et nous dépeint donc ce nouveau monde à travers une succession de chapitres sans réels liens entre eux, si ce n'est qu'ils se déroulent tous dans ce nouveau monde.
Du coup, quand je parle de récit, c'est en partie inexact. Chacun de ses chapitres nous fait suivre le temps de quelques pages un ou des personnages, mais on ne les recroisera jamais plus après. On découvre donc par petites touches, élément par élément, ce qui constitue ce nouveau monde à travers leurs expériences personnelles.
L'Europe se remet donc difficilement d'une grande guerre contre les islamistes wahabites qui, après avoir lancé une offensive conventionnelle depuis l'Asie centrale, ont été repoussé mais non sans avoir sonner le glas des gouvernements en place, et même des Nations tels que nous les connaissons. Même son de cloche pour la Russie qui a explosé en une Myriade d'États : Moscovie, République de l'Altaï, gouvernement communiste de l'Oural, Stalinie...
Le monde qui a émergé de ce chaos est donc morcelée, replié sur lui-même, dominé par des régimes autocratiques et/ou populaires. Les manipulations génétiques ont débouché sur la création d'hommes hybrides (personnel de petite taille ou au contraire géants, jouets sexuels, hommes-animaux....), et le monde s'est découvert une nouvelle drogue : le tellure, vendu sous forme de clou argenté. Ces clous, une fois enfoncés dans le cerveau de l'utilisateur, lui montre exactement ce qu'il veut voir au plus profond de lui. La drogue ultime donc, puisqu'elle satisfait tout le monde !
Et donc, chapitre après chapitre, se dessine petit à petit une nouvelle carte d'Europe, dans une ambiance quasi moyenâgeuse, et en un formidable kaléidoscope, finalement assez proche d'un monde post-apocalyptique. Tout cela paraît somme toute fort peu crédible (une attaque concertée de l'Europe et de la Russie par des armées wahabites d'Asie centrale, mouais), mais là n'est pas le propos.
Sorokine, qui a déjà eu de sérieux ennui avec le régime de Poutine (avec notamment des livres brûlés en place publique par les jeunesse poutinienne. Une vraie lettre de noblesse !), pousse j'en ai l'impression, certains raisonnement qui se peuvent tenir en Russie à leur paroxysme, et prend un malin plaisir à jouer avec tous les mythes nationaux de la Russie depuis l'époque tsariste. Sont ainsi convoqués les tsars, Lénine, Staline, Gorbatchev, Poutine, dans une formidable foire à l'encan nationaliste.
Le roman brasse donc très large, présentant un monde qui, sans être crédible comme déjà dit, sonne réaliste, et reprend et extrapole beaucoup de problématiques contemporaines, certaines spécifiquement russes (le regret du communisme, l'ultra-nationalisme, l'amour/haine avec l'Europe...) d'autres plus transnationale (peur de l'Islam, la tentation des extrêmes, le retour aux "racines chrétiennes de l'Europe"...).
Une mosaïque complexe donc, mais qui se lit plaisamment. Sorokine arrive à varier la langue de ses personnages et on change régulièrement de styles, de verve d'un chapitre à l'autre (mon coup de chapeau à la traductrice au passage, elle a dû se marrer). Un roman qui m'a plu, mais qui je pense peut être déstabilisant.
Le récit se déroule à quelques années d'ici, dans un monde qui a été changé par de profonds bouleversements politiques et sociaux. Vladimir Sorokine focalise son roman sur l'Europe et la Russie et nous dépeint donc ce nouveau monde à travers une succession de chapitres sans réels liens entre eux, si ce n'est qu'ils se déroulent tous dans ce nouveau monde.
Du coup, quand je parle de récit, c'est en partie inexact. Chacun de ses chapitres nous fait suivre le temps de quelques pages un ou des personnages, mais on ne les recroisera jamais plus après. On découvre donc par petites touches, élément par élément, ce qui constitue ce nouveau monde à travers leurs expériences personnelles.
L'Europe se remet donc difficilement d'une grande guerre contre les islamistes wahabites qui, après avoir lancé une offensive conventionnelle depuis l'Asie centrale, ont été repoussé mais non sans avoir sonner le glas des gouvernements en place, et même des Nations tels que nous les connaissons. Même son de cloche pour la Russie qui a explosé en une Myriade d'États : Moscovie, République de l'Altaï, gouvernement communiste de l'Oural, Stalinie...
Le monde qui a émergé de ce chaos est donc morcelée, replié sur lui-même, dominé par des régimes autocratiques et/ou populaires. Les manipulations génétiques ont débouché sur la création d'hommes hybrides (personnel de petite taille ou au contraire géants, jouets sexuels, hommes-animaux....), et le monde s'est découvert une nouvelle drogue : le tellure, vendu sous forme de clou argenté. Ces clous, une fois enfoncés dans le cerveau de l'utilisateur, lui montre exactement ce qu'il veut voir au plus profond de lui. La drogue ultime donc, puisqu'elle satisfait tout le monde !
Et donc, chapitre après chapitre, se dessine petit à petit une nouvelle carte d'Europe, dans une ambiance quasi moyenâgeuse, et en un formidable kaléidoscope, finalement assez proche d'un monde post-apocalyptique. Tout cela paraît somme toute fort peu crédible (une attaque concertée de l'Europe et de la Russie par des armées wahabites d'Asie centrale, mouais), mais là n'est pas le propos.
Sorokine, qui a déjà eu de sérieux ennui avec le régime de Poutine (avec notamment des livres brûlés en place publique par les jeunesse poutinienne. Une vraie lettre de noblesse !), pousse j'en ai l'impression, certains raisonnement qui se peuvent tenir en Russie à leur paroxysme, et prend un malin plaisir à jouer avec tous les mythes nationaux de la Russie depuis l'époque tsariste. Sont ainsi convoqués les tsars, Lénine, Staline, Gorbatchev, Poutine, dans une formidable foire à l'encan nationaliste.
Le roman brasse donc très large, présentant un monde qui, sans être crédible comme déjà dit, sonne réaliste, et reprend et extrapole beaucoup de problématiques contemporaines, certaines spécifiquement russes (le regret du communisme, l'ultra-nationalisme, l'amour/haine avec l'Europe...) d'autres plus transnationale (peur de l'Islam, la tentation des extrêmes, le retour aux "racines chrétiennes de l'Europe"...).
Une mosaïque complexe donc, mais qui se lit plaisamment. Sorokine arrive à varier la langue de ses personnages et on change régulièrement de styles, de verve d'un chapitre à l'autre (mon coup de chapeau à la traductrice au passage, elle a dû se marrer). Un roman qui m'a plu, mais qui je pense peut être déstabilisant.
July 17, 2024
THIS BOOK IS AMAZING. I have not stopped thinking about it since I read it this week, I have not stopped telling everyone who will listen that it is a brilliant masterpiece, a futuristic medieval fragmented world told from 50 different perspectives about a world where a magical metal nail can give you euphoric time travel and insight, how it is nothing like what I expected or had heard of Sorokin, how reading it whisks you along through infinite intertextualities of Russian lit and as you dip in and out of different voices the whole thing coheres into the most majestic and endless and unendable and yet perfectly euphoric mosaical whole.
I almost started reading it again and then I was like, OK Yonina, you need to grade papers, you need to finish Mardi, and Krzhizhanovsky, and so on. But I will be returning to Telluria with more than just enthusiasm in hand. I will probably be writing about it.
Haven't felt this enthusiastic about a book since maybe The Lost Scrapbook or Satantango or 2666.
I almost started reading it again and then I was like, OK Yonina, you need to grade papers, you need to finish Mardi, and Krzhizhanovsky, and so on. But I will be returning to Telluria with more than just enthusiasm in hand. I will probably be writing about it.
Haven't felt this enthusiastic about a book since maybe The Lost Scrapbook or Satantango or 2666.
June 25, 2024
I have to rate this one star on Goodreads because, while I've rated some frustrating books two stars and still managed to finish them, that wasn't the case here. I have huge OCD and if I am not able to finish reading a book, even one I hate that is a big no no. So this book was a complete disappointment and a creative failure.
The concept is intriguing, which is why I picked it up and decided to buy it. The plot summary on the back depicts a fragmented future world where nation-states have devolved into neo-feudal territories dominated by tellurium, a drug administered by hammering a nail into the brain. It's a fascinating premise, with the drug shaping politics, power, and society (heard of Soma by any chance?). However, that's the only substantial information you get as the reader so be warned. The narrative is fragmented into 50 mini-stories with different themes, styles of writing and incredibly localised. They are completely unrelated, so there is no cohesive plot and that’s the information you, the reader have at your disposal to make sense of this world.
A fragmented narrative can work if executed well, but that wasn't the case here. The writing, whether due to the original or the translation, is often tedious and overly rhetorical. The sections don't work well individually or as a whole, making the book feel lifeless and dreary. The short chapters, often just 3-4 pages long, contribute to a disjointed and boring reading experience.
Despite some cool passages and the intriguing concept of tellurium, everything else falls flat. The book attempts to be satirical, but I constantly felt like I was missing the inside joke. Maybe it's because I'm not Russian, but if a book is to be translated, it should resonate with an international audience.
September 19, 2022
Celebrate the new dark age with Vladimir Sorokin! Telluria is a gorgeously weird, stylistically dazzling wonder that melts down global politics into a retro-futuristic dystopia full of devilish humor and brainy psychedelia: a breathtaking vision that brings to mind Eco, Saramago, Pynchon, Stanislaw Lem, and Kurt Vonnegut.
February 9, 2023
"Ежели говорить серьезно, у меня претензий больше не к немцам и жидам, а к русским. Нет на свете народа, более равнодушного к своей жизни. Ежели это национальная черта — такой народ сочувствия не заслуживает".
December 12, 2023
Definitely a conceptually cool book. Describes a complex, fragmented future world in which a unifying liberal vision has failed and nation-states have devolved into countless neo-feudal territories, ripe with future technologies, new stratifications of 'biguns'/'littluns', people with the heads of dogs, and at the center of it all, tellurium, a drug delivered by hammering a nail directly into one's brain, a drug so coveted that this dangerous and often lethal process gave rise to an elite profession of 'carpenters' who are experts in administering it, a drug so powerful it becomes a grounding for knowledge, politics, power, economy. Sorokin paints a diverse cultural and linguistic background where national identity has become localized and it is not uncommon to hear a character speak French, Russian, Chinese, German, or Kazakh in the same breath. Each chapter is a fragment of this world and you never get any grand unifying plot—much like the world he describes. This is all a rather generous description so far, and the book *was* cool in concept, and had a lot of cool passages and chapters. But overall it was kind of disappointing. Much of the language attempted to imitate various colloquial dialects, and as hard as I'm sure it is to render whatever Sorokin was doing in Russian into English, the translation often felt rather amateur. So much of the book felt unnecessary, like you never get why you're reading what you're reading other than that it somehow has to do loosely with tellurium. As a result it was never particularly gripping and it was hard to actually care about many of the characters. The final chapter, which seems to have nothing at all to do with tellurium, is an interesting mystery in my opinion. Maybe something about the simplicity of life, reconnection to nature, whatever, that many have returned to following the destruction of narratives of progress and unity. Not sure, but an interesting ending at least. Overall, the book was okay: cool in theory and fine in practice, but just not that interesting to read for most of it.
September 5, 2022
DNFing on Chapter 16, because I can’t get over all the technical errors in the prose. Every time I sit down to read it, I catch a half-dozen writing mistakes that pull me out of the story. For example, here are some things I caught: close to 20 adverbs used on a single page (“said ___ly” is used so many times I almost choked, as an editor), verb tenses switched between sentences for no reason, and incorrect word usage that should’ve been caught by the editor at NYRB (e.g., “prone” when “supine” was meant). At the end of the day, I was struggling between trying to enjoy the story and being distracted by these mistakes, and I ultimately decided that I couldn’t keep it up.
June 17, 2024
this is a highly detailed, beautifully written, extravagantly confusing novel. I won’t pretend to have understood every chapter or to have followed every story contained within, but to allow the prose to simply exist, to let yourself be immersed in such a foreign, yet strangely relatable world, is to experience a fully realized, terrifyingly prescient examination of our current times and the lengths to which they might some day arrive. We can only hope for a better outcome.
April 7, 2025
50 short chapters that build an absolutely mad world. This is not a traditional novel with a protagonist and a plot. Instead, it’s 50 tableaux of a post Russian world after an Islamic holy war. The only connection between the chapters is a nail that’s driven into people’s heads for a “hallucinatory narcotic” effect.
March 4, 2022
BUREAU OF DISSENSUS
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