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“A postmodern literary masterpiece.” –The Times Literary Supplement
Two hundred years after civilization ended in an event known as the Blast, Benedikt isn’t one to complain. He’s got a job—transcribing old books and presenting them as the words of the great new leader, Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe—and though he doesn’t enjoy the privileged status of a Murza, at least he’s not a serf or a half-human four-legged Degenerator harnessed to a troika. He has a house, too, with enough mice to cook up a tasty meal, and he’s happily free of mutations: no extra fingers, no gills, no cockscombs sprouting from his eyelids. And he’s managed—at least so far—to steer clear of the ever-vigilant Saniturions, who track down anyone who manifests the slightest sign of Freethinking, and the legendary screeching Slynx that waits in the wilderness beyond.
Tatyana Tolstaya’s The Slynx reimagines dystopian fantasy as a wild, horripilating amusement park ride. Poised between Nabokov’s Pale Fire and Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, The Slynx is a brilliantly inventive and shimmeringly ambiguous work of art: an account of a degraded world that is full of echoes of the sublime literature of Russia’s past; a grinning portrait of human inhumanity; a tribute to art in both its sovereignty and its helplessness; a vision of the past as the future in which the future is now.
“A postmodern literary masterpiece.” –The Times Literary Supplement
Two hundred years after civilization ended in an event known as the Blast, Benedikt isn’t one to complain. He’s got a job—transcribing old books and presenting them as the words of the great new leader, Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe—and though he doesn’t enjoy the privileged status of a Murza, at least he’s not a serf or a half-human four-legged Degenerator harnessed to a troika. He has a house, too, with enough mice to cook up a tasty meal, and he’s happily free of mutations: no extra fingers, no gills, no cockscombs sprouting from his eyelids. And he’s managed—at least so far—to steer clear of the ever-vigilant Saniturions, who track down anyone who manifests the slightest sign of Freethinking, and the legendary screeching Slynx that waits in the wilderness beyond.
Tatyana Tolstaya’s The Slynx reimagines dystopian fantasy as a wild, horripilating amusement park ride. Poised between Nabokov’s Pale Fire and Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, The Slynx is a brilliantly inventive and shimmeringly ambiguous work of art: an account of a degraded world that is full of echoes of the sublime literature of Russia’s past; a grinning portrait of human inhumanity; a tribute to art in both its sovereignty and its helplessness; a vision of the past as the future in which the future is now.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There is a wonderfully ominous air hanging over this entire work. Tolstaya describes her anti-utopian vision of a Russian future where all the culture of hundreds of years has been destroyed in 'the blast'. Obviously some thinly-veiled satirical comment here.
Mostly this book is wonderfully executed, with searingly beautiful and creepy passages offset by some real comic moments. I wasn't sure about the ending by any means, however.
Certainly one to look out for - there are some really interesting comparisons to be made between this book and Zamyatin's 'We'.
Mostly this book is wonderfully executed, with searingly beautiful and creepy passages offset by some real comic moments. I wasn't sure about the ending by any means, however.
Certainly one to look out for - there are some really interesting comparisons to be made between this book and Zamyatin's 'We'.
Format:Paperback
Exceptional vision, style, content, and exceptional translation. Even the cover (of the NYRB edition) is spot on.
Although set in a dystopian future, this is very much about the present day, just as it is very much about art, life, human relationships, and our perceptions of the world. Yet it never once becomes a lecture. Delivered almost as if being told on a winter's evening by the fire to a group of friends, this work manages to be serious and comic at the same time, manages to be realistic and fantastical, creates a world that has one foot in fairy tale and one foot in the world of the Gulags. And it does it seamlessly, with wit, joy, and consummate skill.
For anyone tired of the bilge that passes for literature these days in English speaking countries, I would heartily recommend this.
Although set in a dystopian future, this is very much about the present day, just as it is very much about art, life, human relationships, and our perceptions of the world. Yet it never once becomes a lecture. Delivered almost as if being told on a winter's evening by the fire to a group of friends, this work manages to be serious and comic at the same time, manages to be realistic and fantastical, creates a world that has one foot in fairy tale and one foot in the world of the Gulags. And it does it seamlessly, with wit, joy, and consummate skill.
For anyone tired of the bilge that passes for literature these days in English speaking countries, I would heartily recommend this.
1 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Two hundred years ago, "The Blast" finished off civilization as we know it, and the remaining inhabitants are mutants who have lost the ability to make fire. In this novel of books, freaks and slapstick, Tolstaya explores all that is monstrous and grotesque in humanity.
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