"You can't be a Discursion Monger, but you're gonna make a content sommelier. And what is it, it will be clear very soon".
A few years ago, I met a friend, talked about books, he proudly reported that he reads "S.N.U.F.F. I heard a rumor that Snuff had taken it as a friendly question:
-Is this about the dog?
-It's about Ukraine," an acquaintance said offended, "Pelevin! How he puts them there!
I was ashamed of my ignorance and remembered that I saw the cover with a strange name. I got stronger in my unwillingness to make my own idea about the novel, it was a time when Viktor Olegovich's works were not read in principle, and political and on the anger of the day - something I always try to stay away from. I safely forgot about the book for the next six years.
And it didn't occur to me to ask when the book was written. And it was the eleventh in two thousand, who does not remember - two years before the final aggravation of relations with neighbors. Although, in fact, the Pelevin Urkain is not, Ukraine, more like a solyanka team from the East Slavic world, to which the Russians are no less attached. He will have fun at the very beginning of the efforts of the former Soviet republics, which have become illegitimate, to revive as the state language, which peacefully reposed many years ago for uselessness. And even invent an artificially created Upper Middle Siberian - a construct of Ukrainian with Yiddish, to which the developers for some reason have fastened seven past times, complex grammar and a solid billing sign. As a result, this stillborn child will remain dead for official use and will continue to speak Russian downstairs.
Wait, downstairs, how is that? Where there is a bottom, where the top is supposed to be? That's right. In the wonderful new world, mankind is divided into people and orcs in the ratio of about one to ten. The latter live downstairs, eating bananas, coconuts, and sorghum (we are talking about a very distant future, the climate has changed radically) and being at our current stage of technical development. At the same time, the best and most privileged part of the population has settled in the flying cities of the off-shore, where they are able to benefit from the wonders of science that are much greater than today. The only thing that is worthwhile is the anti-gravity that allows these machines to hang in the air without falling.
It makes people and orcs feel happier. The difference between them is that in addition to the usual burdens of urban life is added annual warfare, which is conducted every year at one place called the Mound of Fame and weapons with uniforms for some reason is very different in different groups of warring from the bottom (instructions for this come down from above). So part of the warriors can be dressed as savages and armed with clubs, another musketeer of the time of the siege of La Rochelle or hussars of the Napoleonic wars. On the human side, Marvel's superheroes fight, laying down hundreds of orcs. The life of the lower inexpensive. The process is fixed on the film drones. Everything ends on the same signal from above, as it began, within a year, the orcs lick the wounds and prepare for the next war, not understanding anything in what is happening.
As for the upper ones, they understand a little more. That is, they understand everything. What for the orcs is war, for the people of S.N.U.F.F., a complex abbreviation that can be deciphered in a dozen different ways, like Bykov's "Railway", but in general the point is to shoot movies, a hybrid of movies and news, around which the whole life revolves upwards - in one way or another all people are involved in the service and service process. No, I won't explain what the sacred meaning of S.N.U.F.F. is. So, the advanced user will guess, and it is time for me to tell about the novel.
Because this is a rare case for Pelevin, when the book is not only a diverse stem on the topic of politics and culture, not only esoteric enlightenment but also a wonderful interesting story. In which, according to Oh Henry, there is love, poverty, and war. Love comes first, everything will be covered and justified by it. The main manipulator of Russian literature can be marvelously romantic when his eyes are turned to the subjects that deserve reverential tenderness. And here there is, believe me. It is really interesting to watch how the story of love and freedom unfolds, where, it would seem, it can not be, by definition, really interesting.
I listened to an audio variant of Igor Knyazev, if there is a possibility of a choice, always I will give it preference. An excellent book in excellent execution.