Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic
Review: A clever, funny and sometimes really sad book. Whoever thought it was a great concept and bad book, clearly missed the point altogether. This is a novel about the crazy ways lives connect and over lap, about the ways we see ourselves and others, the ways we misunderstand ourselves and others, about our place in the skein of things... I could go on and on. All I can say is it made me laugh even as it touched and saddened me. On finishing this book I went and bought Omon Ra which I am reading now with equal enjoyment. What a discovery.
Rating: 
Summary: A Brilliant and Imaginative Satire
Review: A translator's note at the beginning of Victor Pelevin's "The Life of Insects" states that "Mitya and Dima are both diminutive forms of the Russian name Dmitry." This struck me as an interesting and enigmatic note, standing starkly alone in the middle of the page immediately preceding the book's epigraph. As it turns out, Mitya and Dima are moths (or are they humans?) drawn to the light in one of the many episodes in Pelevin's remarkable and imaginative satire of life in modern Russia. As Mitya explains, "if I wrote a novel about insects, that's how I'd represent their life: a village by the sea, darkness, and a few lamps shining in the darkness above this repulsive dancing. But to fly to those lamps means . . . [death].""The Life of Insects" is the novel Mitya would have written. Set in an old resort hotel by the sea, the story begins with intrigue: Sam, an American, meeting two Russians, Arthur and Arnold, while a loudspeaker blares, first in English ("The Voice of God, Bliss, Idaho, U.S.A."), then in dreamy Ukrainian. The conversation among them immediately puzzles the reader, talk of hemoglobin, glucose, insecticides in the blood. "Sam looked around at his partners. Arthur and Arnold had turned into small mosquitoes of that miserable hue of gray familiar from prerevolutionary village huts, a color that in its time had reduced many a Russian poet to tears." Arthur and Arnold, the Russian mosquitoes, in turn looked enviously at Sam, an American, "a light chocolate color, with long elegant legs a small tight belly, and wings swept back like a jet plane's." From this first episode, I realized I was in for a wild imaginative ride, and Pelevin did not disappoint me. Weaving his story from chapter to chapter with stunning imagination and verve, "The Life of Insects" is an episodic narrative of many lives, all of them adumbrating ideas (from Ancient Egyptian religion to Buddhism to Marcus Aurelius) and biting satirical commentary on modern life in Russia and America. Appropriately described as a "satirical bestiary" by one reviewer, Pelevin's narrative tells not only of Sam, Arthur and Arnold, but also of a father and son, dung beetles, whose life is defined by the sphere of dung that they push along. "I know it's difficult to understand, but there simply isn't anything other than dung . . . and the purpose of life is to push it along in front of you." And there are Mitya and Dima, the moths, whose lives are dominated by the need to fly towards the light. And there is Marina, the pregnant female ant whose daughter, Natasha, decides to become a fly. As her mother watches, Natasha leaves her cocoon, "and instead of a modest ant's body, Marina saw a typical young fly in a short sexy dress with spangles." "The Life of Insects" is the work of a remarkable imagination, a biting satire that, at the same time, is laden with insightful reflection and commentary. I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: A satisfying philosiphy
Review: Although the book is difficult to follow at first the reader is swiftly enveloped by the philosiphies presented through the lives of the insects. The book is a brilliant conveience of life philosiphies everyone thinks of joining togeather but never do. Pelevin risks a great deal and suceeds. A reader can not pick up this book and put it down without having at least a small insight on life.
Rating:
Summary: A realistic look at life through the absurd
Review: Are Scarabs (and perhaps other insects) enlightened by rolling their roll of dung, their Ai, in front of them? Is all Ai? Is moth enlightment found by falling in a well (towards the dark) and relating the experience to the I Ching hexagram? Is the path to happiness plotted in French movies of love? Is life more than digging tunnels, flying towards the light, cannibalism ...? These and the other mysteries of life are explored in Pelevin's The Life of Insects in which the characters are people/insects in an ambiguity changing within a paragraph. Like Pelevin's The Yellow Arrow the focus is both on post-Communist USSR and in humanity in general. Also like The Yellow Arrow, the conceit of the novel would fail in the hands of most authors - but Pelevin pulls it off with quiet mastery of his craft. Add this to your list of must reads.
Rating:
Summary: bug out!
Review: Drawing parallels between human daily existence with that of the insect world, Viktor Pelevin, connects this collection of short stories with recurring characters and themes. He beautifully turns the plot, settings, and the logic upside down to show us futility and grace of a single life.
Rating: 
Summary: Bugs going nowhere.
Review: I found the book hard to follow, I am an avid reader and was very disappointed. One part I liked was with the bat, but I didn't even finished it. It was a waste of money for me.
Rating:
Summary: Shimmering Satire of Post-Perestroika Russia
Review: I must express my outrage with the utter lack of accuracy in the translation. I understand that no translation could possibly retain all the literary elements of the original text (I myself translate, amateurishly) however, that does not mean that the text must be deliberately mangled. In other words, this book MUST be read in Russian in order to truly appreaciate it's brilliance.
Rating:
Summary: If it wasn't for the translation...
Review: I must express my outrage with the utter lack of accuracy in the translation. I understand that no translation could possibly retain all the literary elements of the original text (I myself translate, amateurishly) however, that does not mean that the text must be deliberately mangled. In other words, this book MUST be read in Russian in order to truly appreaciate it's brilliance.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing book.
Review: I was in a different world for two weeks after reading 'The Life of Insects.' Absolutely tremendous! However, I read it in Russian. I am not sure how well a translation into English would preserve and express the author's amazing command of the language and the style of Russian thought in general. The Russian way of thinking and of expression in literature have always been hard to translate into the Western, much more logical, style. However, I think a lot of Pelevin's images and ideas are universal. As a whole, if you can truely detach yourself and take the book as it is - going with its flow - I think you could receive great pleasure from reading it, both intellectually and spiritually. (Of course, if you are reading a good translation!) Pelevin is truely a master!
Rating:
Summary: the translator butchered it.
Review: it's not his fault however. Pelevin is impossible to translate (i would know: i am translating his latest, "Chapaev i Pustota" :) the original, of course, deserves 6 stars and a starlette.
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