POOR OLEG

This book shot to the top of the vile list. It succeeds in flashbanging the reader with the most horrifying imagery one can image where all the other books tagged accordingly fall short in some way. In particular, I'm thinking of UXA.gov which was a scattered sequence of just gross/nauseating/upsetting images. The sci-fi/dystopian backdrop of fantasy (as well as the author's stilted-but-not-on-purpose prose) prevented that book from being immersive. It was trying too hard to be upsetting through a lens of a world that doesn't exist and won't and so it was like whatever.

This book, otoh, is about the fall of the soviet union. Granted, I doubt much of the grotesueries on display ever occurred, but the semblance that they may or that this is what existence here amounts to made it more difficult to suspend immersion which was like a page-per-page occurrence in UXA.gov. The four titular hearts refer to the four main characters each of whom represents a certain flavor or expression of Soviet nationalism/patriotism.

I cannot overstate the volume of sexual, scatalogical violence throughout this book. It was gross and upsetting, but it serves a purpose throughout. While there is something like a plot, it still hovers just out of ascertainability.

Rebrov opened the box, took out the eerquest, turned the transverse-supply lever, and carefully pulled rod no. 1 out of its groove.

"Well done!" Shtaube shook his head enthusiastically. "The bastards know how to do what needs to be done!"

Rebrov put the ring into the lever, inserted the half-ring, and pulled the spring. The bolt snapped and fell into place. Rebrov inserted the rod into its groove, secured the lever, moved the pole to 9, and extended his hand to Shtaube. Shtaube handed him the gnek. Rebrov inserted it into the slotted lock and began to turn it slowly.

"Gently, gently!" whispered Shtaube.

Rebrov turned the gnek to the end; the telmets leaped off the pad and entered the shuttle pod . Shtaube handed him the needle. Rebrov inserted it into the end hold and turned pole to 2. The shuttle capsule ...

None of these nouns nor the significance of the numbers is ever elucidated.

There are a number of plot devices which are in-your-face incomprehensible. Like the Nolan-esque "plot device" which is described with a bunch of doodads which do nothing but confuse the reader. The reliance on code numbers and sequences which are never explained are all allegories for dysfunctional systematic totalitarianism.

The horrors are starkly contrasted against the imperviousness of everyone else around them; as if existence in this failed society erodes the very fabric of humanity. This is the most prevalent theme throughout, and two of the many, many, painfully many instances (also I've never wished that a book was illustrated less than this one. Some horrifying charcoal drawings in the book which give life to scenes better left on the previous page(s)). One of which is a/the waiter distributing ice cream to the hearts while they force a gangrape between two other employees. The waiter doesn't react at all and leaves without a word. A more subtle instance comes at the heels of one of Shtaube's (the old veteran) lengthy soliloquies about the dreariness of post war Russia, ending:

"That's how I cam to live in dusty Guryev during the whole war,. I talked to exiled intellectuals, to Cossacks, to Kazakhs ... There was a lot of fish there, but not much flour. I ate spoonfuls of caviar, dreaming about bread. I also ate camel meat"

"Was it tasty?" Seryozha asked.

There is no moral high ground to even be claimed by Sorokin through the depiction of the characters. It's not like he's caricaturing a specific political alignment within the country or anything, it's more of a comprehensive indictment of everything and everyone. The only conclusion he permits to be drawn out of the story is "oh my god, burn it all to the ground" which is relayed through immensely painful and jaded cynicism of the depravity of Russian man and woman

"My dad was an honest communist," Olga smoothed the outside of her cigarette and lit up, "so he was always fighting party bosses. He got two official demerits and had two heart attacks."

Sorokin indicating that this is what doing the right thing within the system rewards you with. As such, there is no reason to work within the system, in fact it becomes irrational to do so for they will literally hold you down and shit into your mouth.

The "operations" which the gang undertake begins with the assassination of their parents. This is taken for granted, and completed heartlessly. The foreskin of the father of the youngest member Seryozha (13) is removed and passed between the characters as a sort of lozange for the rest of the book. With each incohrent transition or ex machina to a new horrible setting, I'd hoped that maybe it had been left behind but then no, they'd just be suckin on it. And there really is no emergent metaphor about this from what I can gather. Sorokin just foists this image on you and leaves you to stumble around in the dark, hoping to find deeper meaning about the absurd and upsetting image when there just is nonsense.

Gypsies killed my parents on July 6, 1941, Seryozha," Shtaube finished his tea. "And to kill someone's parents Seryzcha, is a great sin."

Rich coming from the parricidist who also keeps petitioning God before they go do a new-worst-thing ever

related