Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky
The Strugatsky brother's sci-fi novel is a classic of the genre that expands far beyond it, and is a veritable millefeuille of themes and ideas.
At it's most basic level, Roadside Picnic tells the story of Red, a 'stalker' who enters into 'the Zone' to scavenge alien artefacts and sell them to any unscrupulous dealers for whatever he can get. It might cost him his liberty if the authorities catch him; it might cost him his life if any one of the myriad dangers in the Zone snare him, but no matter how many times he swears that this will be his last time, Red goes back, in spite of the increasing dangers.
That's the plot in a nutshell - but the Strugatskys start by, in effect, telling the reader, via an 'interview' with the character of a scientist, that it doesn't matter what the Zone is or who the aliens were that created it or why they visited Earth at all. In other words, the plot itself is not the main issue here.
So what do we have, then?
It's important to note that this was written in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. On one level, what the Strugatskys have created is an allegory of aspects of Soviet experience - bureaucracy, the black economy with its inevitable dangers (the Zone), the cult of science, graft, spying on and selling out one's colleagues and friends, trying to drown everything in a sea of booze.
But that's not where this novel stops. The Zone can also be read as capitalism, with all its dangers - the 'place' where the people who do the actual work risk their lives to make the money for those who sit on the sidelines and watch.
And in another nod to classic Marxism, the Strugatskys raise the question of the link between capitalism and religion - for Red, at the end, what makes him agree to do what he's asked, with its probable fatal outcome, is a growing belief (or a desire to believe) that a legendary artefact will solve all his problems (answer his prayers), particularly in terms of the health of his daughter, who has been born as a mutant as a direct consequence of his trips into the Zone. It has become the ultimate opiate.
Then core philosophical aspects of the novel are raised primarily by a discussion between the scientist and an engineer/businessman. The big question is that of reason. The Strugatskys use the idea that nobody can know what the reason for the alien invasion that created the Zones was (a roadside picnic by vast aliens who left their debris around after?) as a way of suggesting that there is no reason; that we are simply animals, ruled over by our genes and by biological imperatives.
As Red struggles to think - to employ reason - about his situation, he gives in to instinct, dismissing, for instance, concerns about the problems of bringing out potentially dangerous alien technology from the Zone for anyone who'll buy it, in favour of hoping that some legendary alien artefact might turn out to be benevolent and help his daughter. This is the risks of complete faith in faith; in a 'god'; in the promise of religion.
But here is another thread - that of Pandora's Box; of the cult of science going unchallenged, as scientists have no limits placed on what they explore and possibly discover. The risks of complete faith in science.
This is a vast amount to cram into a slender tome of just 144 pages and, as you might expect, the prose is tight and taut, imbued with a sense of Russian pessimism.
Devastating and absolutely brilliant.
The Strugatsky brother's sci-fi novel is a classic of the genre that expands far beyond it, and is a veritable millefeuille of themes and ideas.
At it's most basic level, Roadside Picnic tells the story of Red, a 'stalker' who enters into 'the Zone' to scavenge alien artefacts and sell them to any unscrupulous dealers for whatever he can get. It might cost him his liberty if the authorities catch him; it might cost him his life if any one of the myriad dangers in the Zone snare him, but no matter how many times he swears that this will be his last time, Red goes back, in spite of the increasing dangers.
That's the plot in a nutshell - but the Strugatskys start by, in effect, telling the reader, via an 'interview' with the character of a scientist, that it doesn't matter what the Zone is or who the aliens were that created it or why they visited Earth at all. In other words, the plot itself is not the main issue here.
So what do we have, then?
It's important to note that this was written in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. On one level, what the Strugatskys have created is an allegory of aspects of Soviet experience - bureaucracy, the black economy with its inevitable dangers (the Zone), the cult of science, graft, spying on and selling out one's colleagues and friends, trying to drown everything in a sea of booze.
But that's not where this novel stops. The Zone can also be read as capitalism, with all its dangers - the 'place' where the people who do the actual work risk their lives to make the money for those who sit on the sidelines and watch.
And in another nod to classic Marxism, the Strugatskys raise the question of the link between capitalism and religion - for Red, at the end, what makes him agree to do what he's asked, with its probable fatal outcome, is a growing belief (or a desire to believe) that a legendary artefact will solve all his problems (answer his prayers), particularly in terms of the health of his daughter, who has been born as a mutant as a direct consequence of his trips into the Zone. It has become the ultimate opiate.
Then core philosophical aspects of the novel are raised primarily by a discussion between the scientist and an engineer/businessman. The big question is that of reason. The Strugatskys use the idea that nobody can know what the reason for the alien invasion that created the Zones was (a roadside picnic by vast aliens who left their debris around after?) as a way of suggesting that there is no reason; that we are simply animals, ruled over by our genes and by biological imperatives.
As Red struggles to think - to employ reason - about his situation, he gives in to instinct, dismissing, for instance, concerns about the problems of bringing out potentially dangerous alien technology from the Zone for anyone who'll buy it, in favour of hoping that some legendary alien artefact might turn out to be benevolent and help his daughter. This is the risks of complete faith in faith; in a 'god'; in the promise of religion.
But here is another thread - that of Pandora's Box; of the cult of science going unchallenged, as scientists have no limits placed on what they explore and possibly discover. The risks of complete faith in science.
This is a vast amount to cram into a slender tome of just 144 pages and, as you might expect, the prose is tight and taut, imbued with a sense of Russian pessimism.
Devastating and absolutely brilliant.
