beer good
Well-Known Member
Vladimir Sorokin - A Day In The Life Of An Oprichnik (День опричника, 2006)
It's 2027, and things are finally right in Mother Russia. The Soviet years and the messy capitalist confusion that followed are long over, the decadent junkie cyberpunks in the West have been shut out with a huge wall, the Czar is back in the Kremlin, the sacred Russian church is in charge of moral, and the not-so-secret secret police keep everyone in check. Finally, everyone can sit back and be Russian - that is work hard, pray, eat black bread, and try not to notice that the Chinese are making a fortune off them.
Like the title suggests, A Day In The Life Of An Oprichnik borrows the structure from Solzhenitsyn's Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, but instead of a political prisoner, this time we get to follow one of the jailers. (Well, supposedly.) Komyaga is one of the top enforcers in the secret police, and during one day he gets to see a lot of action; he roots out and hangs unwanted elements, he oversees the day's dissident poetry and makes sure it's not too subversive, he flies to Sibiria to consult with soothsayers and make deals with the Chinese, he does very expensive drugs, he philosophizes on the importance of Russianness... Especially the bits about the serfs and the czar and the church and blind obedience for the greater good. Praise the classics and make sure nobody writes anything new that might upset the ruling order.
And then the Chinese buy everyone.
It's 2027, and things are finally right in Mother Russia. The Soviet years and the messy capitalist confusion that followed are long over, the decadent junkie cyberpunks in the West have been shut out with a huge wall, the Czar is back in the Kremlin, the sacred Russian church is in charge of moral, and the not-so-secret secret police keep everyone in check. Finally, everyone can sit back and be Russian - that is work hard, pray, eat black bread, and try not to notice that the Chinese are making a fortune off them.
Like the title suggests, A Day In The Life Of An Oprichnik borrows the structure from Solzhenitsyn's Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, but instead of a political prisoner, this time we get to follow one of the jailers. (Well, supposedly.) Komyaga is one of the top enforcers in the secret police, and during one day he gets to see a lot of action; he roots out and hangs unwanted elements, he oversees the day's dissident poetry and makes sure it's not too subversive, he flies to Sibiria to consult with soothsayers and make deals with the Chinese, he does very expensive drugs, he philosophizes on the importance of Russianness... Especially the bits about the serfs and the czar and the church and blind obedience for the greater good. Praise the classics and make sure nobody writes anything new that might upset the ruling order.
It's a gleefully vicious satire Sorokin serves up, both of nationalism and Orwellian controlled pseudo-democracy in general, but also of Putin's (and, I suppose, Solzhenitsyn's) conservative to-thyself-be-enough vision of where the country is headed these days. It's deliberately over-the-top, ending in outright pornography, but it's hard to miss the point: going forward by going backward and demanding that everyone respect the Good Old Ways will only lead to a snake eating its own tail, losing itself in a dream of what a country should be but never was.
And then the Chinese buy everyone.