Magick Matters

11.10.2020

“Babylon” by Victor Pelevin

Magick Matters

"As a poet, Tatarsky is a failure. As a copywriter for one of Moscow's biggest advertising firms he makes $2,000 in ten minutes - and that's before the cocaine kicks in. But as Tatarsky speeds through a surreal world of PR mercenaries, German cars, back-door deals, Zen Buddhism, magic mushrooms and digitally rendered government officials, he begins to suspect the disturbing truth behind it all - as suggested to him by the disembodied voice of Che Guevara..."...>>

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11.10.2020

“The Yellow Arrow” by Victor Pelevin

Magick Matters

"Set during the advent of perestroika, a surreal, satirical novella by a critically acclaimed young Russian writer traces the fate of the passengers on The Yellow Arrow, a long-distance Russian train headed for a ruined bridge, a train without an end or a beginning--and it makes no stops. Andrei, the mystic passenger, less and less lulled by the never-ending sound of the wheels, has begun to look for a way to get off. But life in the carriages goes on as always. This important young Russian author's first American translation garnered rave reviews. The main character, Andrei, is a passenger aboard the Yellow Arrow, who begins to despair over the trains ultimate destination and looks...>>

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11.10.2020

“The Hall of the Singing Caryatids” by Victor Pelevin

Magick Matters

"After auditioning for the part as a singing geisha at a dubious bar, Lena and eleven other “lucky” girls are sent to work at a posh underground nightclub reserved exclusively for Russia’s upper-crust elite. They are to be a sideshow attraction to the rest of the club’s entertainment, and are billed as the “famous singing caryatids.” Things only get weirder from there. Secret ointments, praying mantises, sexual escapades, and grotesque murder are quickly ushered into the plot. The Russian literary master Victor Pelevin holds nothing back, and The Hall of the Singing Caryatids, his most recent story to be translated into English, is sure to make you squirm in your seat with utter delight."...>>

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11.10.2020

“The Life of Insects” by Victor Pelevin

Magick Matters

"Set in a crumbling Soviet Black Sea resort, The Life of Insects with its motley cast of characters who exist simultaneously as human beings (racketeers, mystics, drug addicts and prostitutes) and as insects, extended the surreal comic range for which Pelevin's first novel Omon Ra was acclaimed by critics. With consummate literary skill Pelevin creates a satirical bestiary which is as realistic as it is delirious - a bitter parable of contemporary Russia, full of the probing, disenchanted comedy that makes Pelevin a vital and altogether surprising writer."...>>

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11.10.2020

“Omon Ra” by Victor Pelevin

Magick Matters

"Victor Pelevin's novel Omon Ra has been widely praised for its poetry and its wickedness, a novel in line with the great works of Gogol and Bulgakov: "full of the ridiculous and the sublime," says The Observer [London]. Omon is chosen to be trained in the Soviet space program the fulfillment of his lifelong dream. However, he enrolls only to encounter the terrifying absurdity of Soviet protocol and its backward technology: a bicycle-powered moonwalker; the outrageous Colonel Urgachin ("a kind of Sovier Dr. Strangelove"—The New York Times); and a one-way assignment to the moon. The New Yorker proclaimed: "Omon's adventure is like a rocket firing off its various stages—each incident is more jolting and...>>

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