- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber; New edition edition (21 Aug 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571201261
- ISBN-13: 978-0571201266
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.6 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 521,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The Clay Machine-Gun is a novel rich in hilarious paradox. Pelevin himself has described it as 'the first novel in world literature which takes place in an absolute void'. Controversially denied the Russian Booker Prize - the Jury President branded it as a kind of 'computer virus designed to destroy the cultural memory' - the book became a huge cult success in Russia.
The Clay Machine-Gun is a nightmarish fantasy about identity, crime and Russian history. The action cuts deliriously between present-day Moscow and 1919, the era of the Civil War, in which the narrator finds himself serving as a commissar in the division of the legendary commander Vasily Chapaev, and his formidable machine-gunner sidekick, Anna. Hailed as the greatest Russian novel of the post-Soviet era, The Clay Machine-Gun confirmed Victor Pelevin's status as one of the brightest stars in the Russian literary firmament.
About the Author
Born in 1962 in Moscow, Victor Pelevin has swiftly been recognised as the leading Russian novelist of the new generation. Before studying at Moscow's Gorky Institute of Literature, he worked in a number of jobs, including as an engineer on a project to protect MiG fighter planes from insect interference in tropical conditions. One of the few novelists today who writes seriously about what is happening in contemporary Russia, he has, according to the New York Times, 'the kind of mordant, astringent turn of mind that in the pre-glasnost era landed writers in psychiatric hospitals or exile'.$$$His work has been translated into fifteen languages and his novels Omon Ra, The Life of Insects, The Clay Machine-Gun and Babylon, and two collections of short stories, The Blue Lantern (winner of the Russian 'Little Booker' Prize) and A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia, have been published in English to great acclaim.$$$Victor Pelevin was selected by the New Yorker as one of the best European writers under the age of thirty-five.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
One of the strangest books you're ever likely to read, this manages to combine a thriller about mistaken identity with meditations on metaphysics. Pelevin achieves the near-impossible by generating extremely philosophical dialogue in a way that doesn't sound at all unnatural or forced. And there is a tension and mystery about the characters and situation that keeps you reading.
The story? Well, it begins in 1920s Russia with a murder and a chain of events that the central character is unable to stop. The plot then switches to present-day Russia and an asylum, and between the two you start to wonder what exactly is real and what imagined.
Not as good as the amazing Life Of Insects, but better than the disappointing Babylon.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The most exciting modern novel I have read since the great Riddley Walker. Pelevin's is the most daring mind you are likely to encounter in quite a while; someone who manages to unite the disparate strands of the computer age, mysticism, humour...oh and magic mushrooms though you may want to file them under mysticism. I won't attempt to describe the book itself as that is already covered. My thoughts of his other works
Life of Insects...excellent, Kafka goes Zen
Babylon...lacks emotional depth, ultimately somewhat disappointing though enough fireworks and humour to keep the pages turning
Blue Lantern...great book of short stories, his best collection
Omon Ra...least impressive work but contains the brilliant long short story The Yellow Arrow
Werewolf Problem in Central Russia...excellent title story though not as good a collection as Blue Lantern
Life of Insects...excellent, Kafka goes Zen
Babylon...lacks emotional depth, ultimately somewhat disappointing though enough fireworks and humour to keep the pages turning
Blue Lantern...great book of short stories, his best collection
Omon Ra...least impressive work but contains the brilliant long short story The Yellow Arrow
Werewolf Problem in Central Russia...excellent title story though not as good a collection as Blue Lantern
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Pelevin's popularity is vastly increased with this book; and it has found devotees not only in RUssia, where the in-jokes are immediately understood, but also in the West where we appreciate his fast and witty style and his black humour. Pelevin works within the great Russian tradition of black humour and social comment (for example Satlykov-Schedrin), but his work has more in common with Bulgakov - whose great novel the Master & Margarita also explored social and metaphysical/spiritual issues in a fast-paced comic style. If you know Russia, you'll know the Chapayev jokes and maybe even seen the old Chapayev and Petka films But really it is enough just to know of them to see how richly Pelevin mines this seam of absurd humour. Pelevin's career shows how Russia's incredible literary culture still produces writers unrivalled anywhere.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The most unexpected guide to Buddhism
This is an amazing book.
Set out in two different Worlds and times, both happening inside one man's mind (Peter Void). Read more
Set out in two different Worlds and times, both happening inside one man's mind (Peter Void). Read more
Published 14 months ago by Oliver!
fascinating ,intense, mind stretching
does more than suspend reality - it reveals it as multidimensional.
wonderfully clever,funny,and profound.
wonderfully clever,funny,and profound.
Published on 22 July 2008 by phil mars
Just amazing
I'm finding it unusually difficult to find what it is that I want to say about this book. It really is the best thing that I've read in a very long time. Read more
Published on 2 April 2004 by W. G. Hardy
A Journey into the realms of sanity that is madness
The meaning of the universe, the concept of reality, the truth of one's existence - these are the thoughts overflowing the mind of the characters in Pelevin's The Clay Machine-Gun. Read more
Published on 30 Oct 2002 by Julia Z
The most amazing and intriguing novel I've read in years....
What other book combines Bhuddist philosophy with a sense of adventure, existentialism, revolutionary Russia, sex and drugs with Arnold Shwarzenneger and nirvana..... Read more
Published on 4 Jun 2001 by adrianchance@ozu.es
A Russian Phil k Dick.
At last, a novel that rivals Phil K Dick's exploration of the, "What is Reality, If anything at all." theme. Read more
Published on 23 April 2001 by "allavoid"
Beyond category
This is quite simply one of the best books ever written: a worthy successor to the great works of Dostoyevsky and Bulgakov, a superb expression of profound truths, and a sheer joy... Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2001 by Mr. Dylan T. Hayden
must - read of open minded person
Pelevin takes a hard teaching of dzen into the satiric, russian sence of humour, constantly engaging your mind questioning the "normal" understanding of Life or... Read more
Published on 12 Dec 2000
Offbeat fiction, eastern philosophy with political satire
If you have enjoyed any of Victor Pelevin's earlier work then you will be fascinated by this novel. His leanings towards eastern philosophy are more fully explored than ever... Read more
Published on 7 Sep 2000
intensly mind-blowing flavour
this book is one of the best that I have ever read. It seems to have messages on many levels (perhaps the most pervading of which is that if you remain drunk as much as you can,... Read more
Published on 13 Aug 2000 by Jasper Jake
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