A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia and Other Stories

Rating:
Summary: Whatever that guy is on, I want some...
Review: 10+ stars actually.

someone else already wrote this, but beg and pray for Viktor Pelevin's works!

i read The Werewolf in russian, then in english, and the translation doesn't cut it. it's no one's fault, it's simply impossible to convey in english what Pelevin conveys in russian.

my honest to God advice: his work is worth learning Russian, just to read it in the original. you will be amazed. and you will also understand why Pelevin is claimed to have monopolized the Russian bookmarket. :-)

A.

p.s. V.Pelevin's most recent and best stuff has not been translated yet (perhaps it's impossible to translate without ruining it or reducing it to sterility).

"Generation P" and "Chapaev i Pustota" ("Chapaev and Void"). if you see a copy in english, get it right away and run with it.

Rating:
Summary: Russian surrealism
Review: A book of difficult stories, at best, the first story, "A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia", about a wanderer who happens upon a pack of werewolves, and the last story "Prince of Gosplan", which meshes the real world with the world of computer games, are the two stellar and meaningfully understandable stories in this collection.

Whether it is my own ignorance of Russian/Soviet history and life, my lack of philosophical depth, and/or issues of translating Russian to English, the 6 other stories in this collection left me mostly confused and frustrated.

In "Vera Pavlovna's Ninth Dream", a bathroom attendant suffers from severe solipsism and its disturbing consequences.

In "Sleep", a student succumbs to the belief that everyone around him is "sleeping" through their daily lives.

In "Tai Shou Chuan USSR", a Chinese citizen metaphysically becomes a powerful force in the Russian government.

"The Tarzan Swing" is an alternating tale of death vs. mental illness.

In "The Ontology of Childhood", a young child describes what seems to be his life in a prison cell.

And "Bulldozer Driver's Day" details the daily life of a working class citizen determined to break out of the mold.

All seemingly straightforward, these stories constantly twist and turn through the surreal and metaphysical in ways that, without interpretation, leave the reader in a philosophical fog. I would love to re-read this with expert interpretations as I am sure the insights are fascinating, but as a literary layman I find I may be missing much of the good stuff that I am certain can be found here.

Rating:
Summary: Russian surrealism
Review: A book of difficult stories, at best, the first story, "A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia", about a wanderer who happens upon a pack of werewolves, and the last story "Prince of Gosplan", which meshes the real world with the world of computer games, are the two stellar and meaningfully understandable stories in this collection.

Whether it is my own ignorance of Russian/Soviet history and life, my lack of philosophical depth, and/or issues of translating Russian to English, the 6 other stories in this collection left me mostly confused and frustrated.

In "Vera Pavlovna's Ninth Dream", a bathroom attendant suffers from severe solipsism and its disturbing consequences.

In "Sleep", a student succumbs to the belief that everyone around him is "sleeping" through their daily lives.

In "Tai Shou Chuan USSR", a Chinese citizen metaphysically becomes a powerful force in the Russian government.

"The Tarzan Swing" is an alternating tale of death vs. mental illness.

In "The Ontology of Childhood", a young child describes what seems to be his life in a prison cell.

And "Bulldozer Driver's Day" details the daily life of a working class citizen determined to break out of the mold.

All seemingly straightforward, these stories constantly twist and turn through the surreal and metaphysical in ways that, without interpretation, leave the reader in a philosophical fog. I would love to re-read this with expert interpretations as I am sure the insights are fascinating, but as a literary layman I find I may be missing much of the good stuff that I am certain can be found here.

Rating:
Summary: The Sublime and The Ridiculous
Review: A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia, a collection of short stories, exhibits both the joys and the challenges of reading someone as brilliantly absurd as Russia's Victor Pelevin. The tamest of these eight stories is surreal, the most complex is, at times, simply impenetrable. At times, Pelevin addresses universal themes with tremendous insight; at other times his satire is so specifically Russian that anyone not well-versed in Russian history will find the subject matter less than understandable. And, although Pelevin appears to be striving for a light mood, at least in some of the stories, the gloomy and pessimistic specter of the former Soviet Union casts its shadow over the volume as a whole.

A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia can be seen as both a tribute to Dostoyevsky and as a radical departure from him, for these characters are loners who are simply not aware that they are loners. The Tarzan Swing is a Pelevin story that is very reminiscent of Dostoyevsky's story, The Double. It comes as a shock to the protagonist of Tarzan's Swing to realize that he is carrying on a conversation with a companion that might be nothing more than his shadow. Unlike The Double, however, the protagonist in Pelevin's story is never really sure if this "companion" is real or not.

All of Pelevin's rather narcissistic characters wander through their post-perestroika days in a dreamlike state obsessing on the meaning of life. They exist outside of themselves and seem to take it in stride that the physical world is compromised by spatial and temporal impossibilities, that a universe exists in a teapot, that dream landscapes are superimposed on real ones and that Russia is but a sewer cover away from China. And, while Dostoyevsky's characters are bogged down by paranoid delusions, Pelevin's characters always seem to find themselves faced with the empty but ultimately self-satisfying prospect of solipsism, and they take it for granted that the world is in a kind of surreal flux.

The title story tells the tale of a traveler who becomes hopelessly lost in central Russia and is transformed into a werewolf. Surprisingly, he likes it and he finds it a very liberating experience. This story, told in a linear manner, is no doubt the most accessible of the entire volume. Pelevin gives us stunning detail so we are able to feel how the character moves and smells and sees. The story's placement at the beginning of the collection provides the perfect entree to the lunacy that is Victor Pelevin's trademark.

The Ontology of Childhood is more difficult to grasp, especially for those not familiar with Russian history or Russian literature, but it is a more accomplished piece of writing and showcases Pelevin's unique talent most admirably. Written in the second person, The Ontology of Childhood is a chilling recollection of growing up in a prison and blends powerful remembrances of dark pessimism with expressions of profound hope.

Pelevin's uncanny ability to render eerie, off-center dreamscapes makes him the Salvador Dali of literature. He is a wordsmith who successfully mixes the sublime with the ridiculous and comes up with wildly turbulent tales that are always more than interesting and thought provoking. They are, in their essence, nothing short of great literature.

Rating:
Summary: Two amazing stories, and some other good ones.
Review: The first and last stories in this collection, "A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia" and "Prince of Gosplan", are quite remarkable, and certainly worth the price of admission. The former is a wonderfully lyrical story about a traveller who chances on a group of people who are able to turn themselves into werewolves at will. The latter is an absurdist tour de force about a programmer of video games whose life is lived largely in the games. I think both are safely characterized as unforgettable. The shorter other stories have some excellent moments -- especially "Tai Shou Chuan USSR", about a Chinese peasant who accidentally becomes an important Soviet government official, and "The Ontology of Childhood" -- but seem somewhat less comprehensible.