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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
strange, hilarious, witty and wonderful. suspend every ounce of disbelief and enjoy the ride
Five stars for a book that I resent? Certainly why not?
From the second that I started to read the book I couldn't quite decide if I liked it or hated it. The book comes off a bit like an elitist ass hole. One of those guys who knows he is smarter than you and decides that instead of acting like a civilized person he is going to prove it to you by, well telling you things that don't make any sense and then acting like they do. and if that is not enough he will include diatribes against things that as far as you were aware of didn't exist in the book. A weird obsession with pens and a preponderance of references to buddhism that don't actually explain that they are references to buddhism.
and why will you then give this book five stars? because somehow it all fits together. The long diatribe against tv actually changes your perception of the book thus far and colors your reading of further passages. Comments about che guevera's buddhism change your understanding of what might be buddhism, but comments about he buddhist method of television watching then change your perception of whether pelevin even understands buddhism, or if he wants to?
The mundane seems repetitive but the deep seems substantial and ever changing.
somehow the book seems complete without being reasonable and active while forcing a slowdown.
Everything feels deliberate. The first 10 chapters feel convoluted and hard to read but slip into a long stretch of easy flowing chapters which again devolve into convoluted muck. materialism becomes buddhism becomes "Ideal"ism. There is something about the evolution of the novel as form that evolves the novel as content. In short something feels right, perhaps because something feels just a little wrong.
*************************************
I don't actually know if I like this book. I mean I resent it but I don't know. I shall extrapolate and possibly decide and review later...
From the second that I started to read the book I couldn't quite decide if I liked it or hated it. The book comes off a bit like an elitist ass hole. One of those guys who knows he is smarter than you and decides that instead of acting like a civilized person he is going to prove it to you by, well telling you things that don't make any sense and then acting like they do. and if that is not enough he will include diatribes against things that as far as you were aware of didn't exist in the book. A weird obsession with pens and a preponderance of references to buddhism that don't actually explain that they are references to buddhism.
and why will you then give this book five stars? because somehow it all fits together. The long diatribe against tv actually changes your perception of the book thus far and colors your reading of further passages. Comments about che guevera's buddhism change your understanding of what might be buddhism, but comments about he buddhist method of television watching then change your perception of whether pelevin even understands buddhism, or if he wants to?
The mundane seems repetitive but the deep seems substantial and ever changing.
somehow the book seems complete without being reasonable and active while forcing a slowdown.
Everything feels deliberate. The first 10 chapters feel convoluted and hard to read but slip into a long stretch of easy flowing chapters which again devolve into convoluted muck. materialism becomes buddhism becomes "Ideal"ism. There is something about the evolution of the novel as form that evolves the novel as content. In short something feels right, perhaps because something feels just a little wrong.
*************************************
I don't actually know if I like this book. I mean I resent it but I don't know. I shall extrapolate and possibly decide and review later...
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
I love Victor Pelevin, but I somehow managed to miss this one when it came out. I only learned of its existence because a film adaptation premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival under the title Generation P. The film blew me away and was my favorite from that year's festival; Victor Ginzberg's film adaptation was magnificently faithful to a novel that, I find, was begging to be a weirdass film from the first page.
Homo Zapiens -- the title refers to a theorized new, devolved form of human being whose thoughts and reactions are largely governed by the television, even if, maybe especially if, what he's mostly doing is zapping to avoid commercials -- is Pelevin at his most gleefully nihilistic as he surveys the chaos that was Russia in the 90s. Not since The Exile: Sex Drugs and Libel in the New Russia have I seen this milieu so vividly depicted: blatant corruption at all levels of public and private life, gross materialism and drug abuse, vodka and cranky mysticism, all wrapped up in the Russian version of How to Get Ahead in Advertising; had hero Babylen Tartosky sprouted another head I would not have been surprised. But Pelevin has other, crazier ideas to play with, here.
Like the idea that at some point the mass media stopped reporting the news and started making it up -- even to inventing the politicians, who only exist as artfully computer-generated animations and carefully seeded urban legends (a cadre of ordinary-seeming ex-soldier types has the job of planting stories of seeing, e.g. Yeltsin or Berezhovsky in a grocery store or walking down the street). It's unclear whether or not we readers are expected to take this idea as true for this fictional world, or as just another whopper his co-workers and employers have laid on for Babylen's confusion or edification, and it's one of the amazing things about this novel that it ultimately doesn't matter if the reader believes it or not, if Babylen's superiors believe it or not, or if Babylen believes it or not.
Which is to say that Homo Zapiens, novel and film, messed with my head in all of the ways I most like having my head messed with. But if you're not familiar with the real world that inspired this phantasmagorical fake (or is it? Hmm?) one, do yourself a favor and have a look at The Exile, either the book I linked to above, or look at some of the archived "classic" issues from its original run as one of the bitchiest and most profane alternative newspapers the world has ever seen. Doing so will not only enrich your experience of reading or watching Homo Zapiens/Generation P, but will also give you a unique and completely compelling look at the world through the eyes of "two hairy-assed jerks" who had front row seats to watch the chaos, cannibalism and cockery of the collapse of the world's last great empire.
Homo Zapiens -- the title refers to a theorized new, devolved form of human being whose thoughts and reactions are largely governed by the television, even if, maybe especially if, what he's mostly doing is zapping to avoid commercials -- is Pelevin at his most gleefully nihilistic as he surveys the chaos that was Russia in the 90s. Not since The Exile: Sex Drugs and Libel in the New Russia have I seen this milieu so vividly depicted: blatant corruption at all levels of public and private life, gross materialism and drug abuse, vodka and cranky mysticism, all wrapped up in the Russian version of How to Get Ahead in Advertising; had hero Babylen Tartosky sprouted another head I would not have been surprised. But Pelevin has other, crazier ideas to play with, here.
Like the idea that at some point the mass media stopped reporting the news and started making it up -- even to inventing the politicians, who only exist as artfully computer-generated animations and carefully seeded urban legends (a cadre of ordinary-seeming ex-soldier types has the job of planting stories of seeing, e.g. Yeltsin or Berezhovsky in a grocery store or walking down the street). It's unclear whether or not we readers are expected to take this idea as true for this fictional world, or as just another whopper his co-workers and employers have laid on for Babylen's confusion or edification, and it's one of the amazing things about this novel that it ultimately doesn't matter if the reader believes it or not, if Babylen's superiors believe it or not, or if Babylen believes it or not.
Which is to say that Homo Zapiens, novel and film, messed with my head in all of the ways I most like having my head messed with. But if you're not familiar with the real world that inspired this phantasmagorical fake (or is it? Hmm?) one, do yourself a favor and have a look at The Exile, either the book I linked to above, or look at some of the archived "classic" issues from its original run as one of the bitchiest and most profane alternative newspapers the world has ever seen. Doing so will not only enrich your experience of reading or watching Homo Zapiens/Generation P, but will also give you a unique and completely compelling look at the world through the eyes of "two hairy-assed jerks" who had front row seats to watch the chaos, cannibalism and cockery of the collapse of the world's last great empire.
This is actually at least a 2.5, maybe a 3. I enjoyed it. I couldn't even begin to tell you what happens in this book but honestly I think I'm just too American for it.