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A review by aiffix
Telluria by Vladimir Sorokin
5.0
Sometimes I list down the SF Ufos which have navigated my window sill:
Dhalgren, Samuel R Delaney
Orbitor, Mircea Cartarescu
Le Dernier Monde, Celine Miniard
The Vhorr, Brian Catlin
Biographie Comparee de Jorian Murgrave, Antoine Volodine
Un Navire de Nulle Part, Antoine Volodine
A good half of Antoine Volodine’s works
Solaris, Stanislas Lem – this classic among Ufos
Mange-Monde, Serge Brussolo
Stretch science fiction’s reach and you will include The (obvious) Naked Lunch, William Burroughs, for its drug-fueled nightmares, The Death of Virgile, Hermann Broch, for its impossible knowledge of the doors of oblivion, Souvenirs d’Afrique, Raymond Roussel, for its stubbornness in flirting with the surreal.
And here comes Telluria, Vladimir Sorokin, a collection of short stories sewed together by their universe. Like the Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith, with whom he shares little else. Sorokin writes like Henry Miller. He is a volcano. Sometimes he writes like Proust, he is a long river, he is the Danube. Sometimes he writes like Dostoevsky – to whom he refers – and his characters cease to make sense. One has to dig, deep, to source their motivation. Sometimes he writes like a general – I do not dare say Tolstoi, Sorokin’s style never reaches that level of classicism. His stories are about power, addition, poverty, immense wealth, nostalgia, abandon, rage, madness, skills, retreat, conquest, childhood and destiny. A hundred pages into the novel I realized that there was no plot and that it did not matter, for the plot was not necessary. The binder is in the margins. The characters, once glanced at, never return. This is the psychedelic slide show of a mad world, some years into the future, half medieval. It is incomplete. It is inconsistent. It is sanguine and generous.
It is in the list.
Dhalgren, Samuel R Delaney
Orbitor, Mircea Cartarescu
Le Dernier Monde, Celine Miniard
The Vhorr, Brian Catlin
Biographie Comparee de Jorian Murgrave, Antoine Volodine
Un Navire de Nulle Part, Antoine Volodine
A good half of Antoine Volodine’s works
Solaris, Stanislas Lem – this classic among Ufos
Mange-Monde, Serge Brussolo
Stretch science fiction’s reach and you will include The (obvious) Naked Lunch, William Burroughs, for its drug-fueled nightmares, The Death of Virgile, Hermann Broch, for its impossible knowledge of the doors of oblivion, Souvenirs d’Afrique, Raymond Roussel, for its stubbornness in flirting with the surreal.
And here comes Telluria, Vladimir Sorokin, a collection of short stories sewed together by their universe. Like the Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith, with whom he shares little else. Sorokin writes like Henry Miller. He is a volcano. Sometimes he writes like Proust, he is a long river, he is the Danube. Sometimes he writes like Dostoevsky – to whom he refers – and his characters cease to make sense. One has to dig, deep, to source their motivation. Sometimes he writes like a general – I do not dare say Tolstoi, Sorokin’s style never reaches that level of classicism. His stories are about power, addition, poverty, immense wealth, nostalgia, abandon, rage, madness, skills, retreat, conquest, childhood and destiny. A hundred pages into the novel I realized that there was no plot and that it did not matter, for the plot was not necessary. The binder is in the margins. The characters, once glanced at, never return. This is the psychedelic slide show of a mad world, some years into the future, half medieval. It is incomplete. It is inconsistent. It is sanguine and generous.
It is in the list.