The Yellow Arrow

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Summary: A Remarkable Fable by One of Russia's Finest Writers
Review: "The Yellow Arrow", a ninety-two page novella, was the first of Victor Pelevin's books to appear in English translation and provides an excellent introduction to one of Russia's finest contemporary writers.

"The Yellow Arrow" of the title is "a train traveling towards a ruined bridge." It is a train, however, that appears to have no beginning and no end. It is a train that makes no stops. From this simple premise, Pelevin elaborates a sometimes absurd, sometimes mystical, parable of life in Russian society. Or is it life in general? Either way, the narrative works on many levels and provides an entertaining and, for those who like, metaphysically speculative foray into where we're all headed.

"The Yellow Arrow" is essentially the story of one passenger-Andrei's-life on the train. Told in the third person, the reader lives inside the mind of Andre, thinking what he thinks, seeing what he sees, experiencing what he experiences. Andrei becomes the protagonist for open-ended speculation about the meaning of life on the train. Thus, early in the narrative, Andrei sits in the restaurant car of the train and speculates (in a passage that is typical Pelevin and that provides a resonant connection to the meaning of "The Yellow Express"):

"Watching the hot sunlight falling on the table-cloth covered with sticky blotches and crumbs, Andrei was suddenly struck by the thought of what a genuine tragedy it was for millions of light rays to set out on their journey from the surface of the sun, go hurtling through the infinite void of space and pierce the mile-thick sky of Earth, only to be extinguished in the revolting remains of yesterday's soup. Maybe these yellow arrows slanting in through the window were conscious, hoped for something better-and realized that their hopes were groundless, giving them all the necessary ingredients for suffering."

The train becomes a deep-seated metaphor for lives in society, for those who live those lives with unquestioning acceptance and for those who don't-those who wonder about the train and about whether there is anything else, anything outside the train. Thus, Andrei's friend, Khan, draws a distinction between those like him and Andrei, who reflect and question where they are and what they're doing, and those who do not: "A normal passenger never thinks of himself as a passenger. So if you know you're a passenger, you no longer are one. They could never imagine it's impossible to get off this train. Nothing else exists for them, apart from the train."

But whether or not anything exists outside the train, whether you can get off the train, is less important than what is in your head. As Khan suggests to Andrei, "It doesn't matter in the least whether anything else exists apart from our train. What matters is that we can live as though there is something else. As though it really is possible to get off. That's the only difference. But if you try to explain that difference to any of the passengers, they won't understand."

I hope this gives a flavor for Pelevin's writing and for the tone of "The Yellow Express." While a short work, Pelevin succeeds in creating a compelling and satirically amusing metaphorical world, a world that provides sublime insight into what it means to think and to question in a society that encourages unquestioning acceptance.

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Summary: a fable without a moral
Review: A Russian novel can be a frightening thing: 600-plus pages filled with morbid melodrama, populated with 50 characters, each with five nicknames. The Yellow Arrow, however, is a sharp, aerodynamic projectile of a novel.

Without wallowing in Dostoevskian soul-composting, Pelevin combines elements of Eastern European dread and South American fantasy into an absorbing allegory that recalls the stories of Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges.

The eponymous arrow is a train on which the necessarily limited action takes place. Not only can no one get off the train, but most people are oblivious to their status as passengers. Andrei, the novel's protagonist, is one of a secret group that questions the status quo - even daring to consider the world beyond the train. Think of it as a travelogue of the absurd: Ionesco on wheels.

Though slim - 92 pages - this slip of a novella contains more fictive invention and food for thought than many books several times its size. Like Kafka, Borges, and Italo Calvino, Pelevin has created a fable without a moral, an ambivalent allegory with uncertain referents, a dry comedy laced with angst, and a realistic fantasy in miniature. What does it all mean? Everything and nothing. Where does it all lead? Don't worry about the destination - just relax, settle in for the trip, and pay attention to the passing scenery. All aboard!


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Summary: Subversive Absurdism !
Review: It is interesting to read east european sf (or imaginative/speculative fiction, whatever strikes your fancy) and notice how very different it is from its American cousin. I love them both, but I think the latter has had a bit too much of a stronghold on the market. Pelevin belongs perhaps to the Stanislaw Lem and bros. Strugatski tradition of sf (and adding some Borgesian flavorings). This is similarly subversive literature as those guys were when the Iron Curtain was still hanging up and the censors were scissor-happy.. only now it's subversive to the American culture of literature as a commodity instead of art.

This particular book also reminds me of some early films of Jacques Rivette films. Pelevin writes (and is translated) in a very clear manner, the prose is lucid and this is, despite applying some wonderful dream-logic to the story, highly readable and entertaining. It's also intelligent, absurd and strange, yet fun and fast to read. Not to mention also very brief (clocking in at 92 pages of fairly large print) and thus an excellent intro to Pelevin, though I get the sense that he's just getting started here.

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Summary: Toward a Ruined Bridge
Review: People are traveling on a train toward a ruined bridge in this long story or short novel (whichever it is) by one of Russia's top writers, Victor Pelevin. I won't give away the plot. Suffice it to say that the whole story is an allegory about life in the post-Soviet Russia. The story is pessimistic with melodramatic overtones in the end. I don't know what the conclusion of this story means and would like to find out. What I take from the whole book is that Russia is racing towards something indefinite, which may not be so great a destination when it is finally reached. Is this a new spin on Gogol's troika? I do recommend this book, however. It takes you a little bit inside the "Russian soul," it gives you a sense of the pessimism of the 1990s Russia, and it is concise and easy to read.

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Summary: Marvelous Parable
Review: The Yellow Arrow is a slim volume that is powerful - written as a long metaphor or parable of contemporary Russia and of mankind as a whole. There is a strong mystical element in the story; unlike some literature that has a mystical undercurrent, the book remains concrete and `realistic'. The story line is of living on a train - a train on an endless journey - with passengers who are often unaware that they are on a train. "Outside the train" is where the dead are pushed. Fascinating premise, extremely well done.

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Summary: Buddhism translated for the westerner
Review: This book takes the Buddhist view of the world, and translates it into words that westerners might understand. Instead of the usual mysticism that accompanies Buddhist texts in Western languages (arising mostly from the fact that the translators have no idea what the text means, they just translate the words), this book explains the Buddhist metaphor in concrete objects. Instead of "Carma", there is a "thought that pulls the next one after it, as a locomotive pulls the train". If you are familiar with Zen practices of Koan, you will most certainly see it in this book. The train that never stops represents the wheel of Samsara - the vicious cycle of rebirth and death.

Apart from the translated Buddhist metaphor, the writing is excellently light and alive.