Omon Ra

by Victor Pelevin, Andrew Bromfield (Translator)

Victor Pelevin's novel Omon Ra has been widely praised for its poetry and its wickedness, a novel in line with the great works of Gogol and Bulgakov. Omon is chosen to be trained in the Soviet space program the fulfillment of his lifelong dream. However, he enrolls only to encounter the terrifying absurdity of Soviet protocol and its backward technology: a bicycle-powered moonwalker; the outrageous Colonel Urgachin; and a one-way assignment to the moon.

Genres: Fiction, Russia, Science Fiction, Russian Literature, Novels, Literature, Contemporary

154 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Victor Olegovich Pelevin is a Russian fiction writer. His books usually carry the outward conventions of the science fiction genre, but are used to construct involved, multi-layered postmodernist texts, fusing together elements of pop culture and esoteric philosophies. Some critics relate his prose to the New Sincerity and New Realism literary movements.

RU: Виктор Пелевин

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Space technology and rocket science are very complex and complicated things… They are not for anyone… There are many state secrets and plenty of classified information concerning the space science. Victor Pelevin was the one who could shed some bleak light on those most secret subjects.

His arms were stretched out confidently towards the stars, and his legs were so obviously not in need of any support that I realised once and for ever that only weightlessness could give man genuine freedom – which, incidentally, is why all my life I’ve only been bored by all those Western radio voices and those books by various Solzhenitsyns.

But the exploration of space is quite a different thing than it may seem to an outsider…

And me, I thought, all my life I’ve been journeying towards the moment when I would soar up over the crowds of what the slogans called the workers and the peasants, the soldiers and the intelligentsia, and now here I am hanging in brilliant blackness on the invisible threads of fate and trajectory – and now I see that becoming a heavenly body is not much different from serving a life sentence in a prison carriage that travels round and round a circular railway line without ever stopping.

Ignorance is bliss… Happy are those who don’t know state secrets and rocket science.

[Glenn Russell]

Blast off with a Soviet cosmonaut who is informed he has been chosen for a one-way trip to the moon. Hey, can you blame the CCCP for wanting to reclaim the international spotlight as king of the hill in the space race? After all, the Soviet Union's space program boasted a batch of breathtaking breakthroughs:

1957 - Sputnik, the first man-made object to orbit the Earth (a beep, beep, beep, by the way, that scared the living bejesus out of the US);

1959 and thereafter - Nine different probes of the Moon, including close up photos of the dark side and returning to earth with soil samples;

1960 - First animals (two dogs) orbit the Earth;

1961 - Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first person to orbit the Earth;

1963, - Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, orbits the Earth for three days;

1965 - Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov is first person to free-float in space. He famously reported that he felt "like a seagull with its wings outstretched, soaring high above the Earth.”

But then it happened: stinking Americans claim their own breakthrough in 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the very first person to walk on the Moon. And arrogant bastards that they are, those capitalist pigs even had the gall to leave an American flag on the Moon as the ultimate slap in the face to the great Soviet Union.

I can picture seven-year-old Victor Pelevin in his Moscow apartment watching the TV screen as Neil Armstrong took his one giant leap for mankind. And I can also picture young Victor along with millions of other youngsters in the USSR growing up with a love of rockets and outer space and envisioning themselves as a future cosmonaut and hero of the Soviet people.

But what becomes of your beautiful dreams when the space program fizzles out in the same downward spiral that turns your country, the USSR, into the former USSR? Oh, young comrades, I feel your pain.

Fast forward to 1992. I imagine Victor Pelevin, now age thirty, at his writing desk reflecting back on his boyhood dreams, dreams turned sour, dreams all gone up in smoke. What to do? Being an extraordinarily gifted literary artist, Victor knows exactly what to do. Narrated in the first person by Omon Krivomazov, Omon Ra lampoons the pride and glory of the USSR - its space program. Omon's story contains all sorts of titillating surprises I wouldn't want to give away, thus I'll shift my focus by linking comments to several direct quotes from the book:

“I think the first glimpse of my true personality was the moment when I realized I could aspire beyond the thin blue film of the sky into the black abyss of space.” ---------- Although our story begins with Omon as a boy and quickly moves to his enrolling in military school and training as a cosmonaut, much of the boy remains in Omon the man. This boy-in-the-man gives the entire tale an element of sweetness, even tenderness.

"The paradox - another piece of dialectics - is that we support the truth with falsehood, because Marxism carries within itself an all-conquering truth, and the goal for which you will give your life is, in a formal sense, a deception." ---------- Oh, you uniformed officials with your double-talk. Absurdity on a grand scale. Omon Ra is like the War Room from the film Dr. Strangelove mixed in with large doses of Mikhail Bulgakov and Vladimir Voinovich over-the-top craziness.

"Life always has room for heroism." ---------- This is the slogan spelled out all over the facility for cosmonauts in training. In other words, don't worry about the small things like permanent injury or loosing your life - what really counts is loyalty to the program and the state.

"I especially like Ra, the god the ancient Egyptians believed in thousands of years ago. Probably I liked him because he had a falcon's head, and pilots and cosmonauts and all sorts of heroes were often called falcons." --------- Victor Pelevin loves his mythology. He has Omon assume the name of the Egyptian deity of the sun. The art on the cover of the book is a perfect combination of cosmonaut and Ra the god.

"They gave Ivan a bulletproof waistcoat, a helmet, and a boar skin, and he went to work at his new job - a job which it would be no exaggeration to describe as daily heroism." --------- One of the novel's more hilarious bits. Rather than hunting real boars where there's an element of actual danger, when Henry Kissinger visits, the Soviet officials have Ivan and his son decked out as boars so the American official can rejoice in killing before signing an international agreement. But then the unexpected happens: after shooting the boar, Kissinger runs up (who would have guessed!) and stabs his prey with a knife. Sorry, Ivan. Oh well, your son died for a good cause. A true Soviet hero.

Omon Ra is Victor Pelevin's first novel. The Russian author went on to write fifteen more stunning works of imagination like Clay Machine-Gun, The Life of Insects, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf and S.N.U.F.F.. For readers unacquainted with his fiction, Omon Ra is the most accessible, a work I highly recommend.


Victor Pelevin, Moscow born and bred - coolest dude in town

[BlackOxford · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Dangers of Youthful Enthusiasm

It Is sobering, I suppose, to be reminded occasionally that we’re inevitably trapped both within the culture we inhabit and, more decisively, within the decisions we make about our lives before we’re even aware of the fact. Call this latter trap ‘aspiration’ or ‘vocation’ or ‘life-goal’. Whatever it is called, it has probably been arrived at through an irrational process of attraction and avoidance that has very little to do with current reality. This truth is potentially humiliating. So we avoid it. And few even desire to follow Schiller’s advice: “Live with your century but do not be its creature.”

Actually it matters very little whether the general culture or our specific ambitions are shaped by state propaganda and Party status, as in the former Soviet Union, or by commercial advertising and competitive striving, as in the United States. The consequence is that we find ourselves on a trajectory which is bound to end in disappointment. No institution lives up to its promotional hype. They are less satisfying, more mundane, and frequently more dangerous than we allow ourselves to imagine in our youthful enthusiasm.

How else could we possibly treat this situation, therefore, other than as an existential joke? Our feeling is one of being convicted of a crime we haven’t committed. We could, and frequently do, blame others, circumstances, or luck for the failure of ‘the system’ but we know this is ridiculous. Satire like Pelevin’s allows us to express our self-mockery with at least some dignity, however underserved. This may seem an odd and certainly a minority interpretation of the cultic Omon Ra but it seems to me more generally relevant than understanding its inside jokes of Soviet society or the unique travails of doomed cosmonauts.

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 3 out of 5]

اومون را کتابی ایست از ویکتور پلوین، نویسنده و طنز پرداز روس . او در این کتاب با زبانی طنز ، به زندگی در اتحاد جماهیر شوروی و چالش‌های ناشی از فشارهای اجتماعی و سیاسی آن زمان پرداخته.

داستان حول محور زندگی جوانی به نام اومون کریوومازوف است، اومون که تمایل و علاقه زیادی به سفرهای فضایی و دنیای ناشناخته دارد را شاید بتوان نماد نسل جوان برای فرار از محدودیت‌ها و تجارب تلخ موجود در جامعه و کوشش آن برای شناخت ناشناخته ها دانست .
موضوع اصلی کتاب را باید تفاوت های اساسی میان دنیای جوانان و آرزوهای آنها با جهان واقعی کمونیست ها دانست . در پشت برنامه فضایی شوروی در زمانی که در اوج رقابت با آمریکاست ، حقایق پنهان شده که گوشه ای از زندگی در حکومت کمونیستی را با طنزی تلخ نشان می دهد .
پلوین در این رمان، به انتقاد از نظام شوروی و جامعه آن زمان پرداخته. او پروپاگاندا و دروغ‌های دولتی که در آن برنامه‌ی فضایی شوروی به عنوان ابزاری برای دور کردن توجه مردم از مشکلات واقعی جامعه به تصویر کشیده شده و بیگانه‌سازی فرد و جامعه ، احساس اومون هنگامی که فکر می کند که به جامعه تعلق ندارد را نشان داده .
در حالی که زندگی حشره‌ای ، کتاب دیگر پلوین با رویکردی نوآورانه در شخصیت‌پردازی و طرح داستانی پیچیده‌تر، خواننده را شگفت‌زده می‌کند، اومون در این زمینه چندان موفق نبوده و به نظر می‌رسد از جسارت و ابتکار کمتری برخوردار باشد. برای نمونه، در زندگی حشره‌ای ، پلوین با خلق شخصیت‌های حشره‌ ای که نماد طبقات مختلف جامعه هستند، به انتقاد از اجتماع پرداخته، در حالی که در اومون را بیشتر بر روی شخصیت اصلی داستان متمرکز شده. این تفاوت در رویکرد شاید نشان ‌دهد که پلوین در هر دو رمان به دنبال کشف ابعاد مختلفی از وجود انسان و جامعه است، اما با زبان‌ها و ابزارهای ادبی متفاوت.

[Mohammad Hrabal · Rating 3 out of 5]

مشخصاً ارتباط غریبی هست میان الگوهای عمومی زندگی و جریان اتفاقات پیش‌ پا افتاده‌ای که هر انسانی در زندگی روزمره درگیرش است و اهمیتی برای‌شان قائل نیست. حالا می‌توانم به‌ وضوح ببینم که روند زندگی من از پیش تعیین‌ شده بود، حتی پیش‌ از آنکه جداً به این فکر کنم که دوست دارم زندگی‌ام چگونه پیش برود. حتی تجلی‌یی از زندگی‌ام به شکلی ساده برابر چشمانم آمد. شاید پژواکی بود از آینده. یا شاید چیزهایی که به نظرمان پژواک آینده می‌آیند دانه‌هایی هستند که در همان لحظه بر خاک زندگی می‌افتند و وقتی به گذشته نگاه می‌کنیم فکر می‌کنیم پژواکی از آینده شنیده‌ایم. صفحه ۲۰ کتاب
یک لحظه از فکر نشستن در آن آلونک کوچک که بوی زباله می‌داد حالم بهم خورد، از فکر اینکه از فنجانی کثیف شراب ارزان نوشیده بودم، از اینکه تمام کشور پهناوری که درش زندگی می‌کردم پر بود از این آلونک‌های حقیر که تمام‌شان بوی زباله می‌دادند و بسیاری از آدم‌ها درشان نشسته بودند و همان آشغالی را می‌نوشیدند که من نوشیده بودم.… سوراخ‌هایی که ما درشان زندگی می‌کردیم تاریک بودند و کثیف و احتمالا خودمان هم لیاقتمان زندگی در چنین جاهایی بود. صفحات ۳۱-۳۲ کتاب
فکر کردم این دنیا و دنیای دیگر درست شبیه همین ساعت شنی هستند؛ وقتی تمامی زندگان در یک‌ جهت بمیرند، واقعیت واژگون می‌شود و همه دوباره حیات پیدا می‌کند، یعنی در جهت مخالف می‌میرند. صفحه ۸۴ کتاب
از کجا می‌دانستم بهترین چیزها در زندگی آنهایی هستند که تنها گوشه چشمی به آنها می‌اندازی؟ صفحه‌ی ۱۳۱ کتاب

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems like I've been here before: a nightmarish totalitarian state; fingers pointing to propaganda and bureaucracy; absurdism and biting satire. It all feels very familiar, but this cosmonaut coming of age novella isn't really comical in the ways I thought it might be prior to reading it: the ridiculousness of Pelevin's Soviet space program and secret KGB military flight school does result in the odd half-hearted snigger towards those in positions of power and control, and a scenario involving Henry Kissinger going on a bear hunt in the Siberian woods, but the narrative overall aroused way more feelings of genuine horror, as the absurdism takes off on a bleaker, darker journey full of dishonesty and inhumane brutality. The impoverished narrator, who dreams of wanting to escape the intolerable life within the Soviet system by blasting off to the moon with his one and only friend, would find the technology that is so forcefully and confidently fed as being at the forefront, is actually lagging so far behind that we end up with a twist that I really didn't see coming, making for a pretty astonishing finale. In fact, the last third, when we leave the earth behind, I was gripped, shocked and deeply moved by its outcome. A book I wasn't expecting much from to be honest really did take me to the stars: 4 big stars. Very impressive.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

In between the time I purchased Victor Pelevin's Omon Ra and the time I started reading it, I skimmed an article somewhere that claimed Pelevin was inspired by and indebted to Mikhail Bulgakov. This was not good news. The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov is one of my most hated novels of all time. If I can't easily articulate what it is I hate about it so passionately, I feel that if anyone were to ask me, 'What kinds of novels don't you like to read?' I could point to a ready-to-hand copy of The Master and Margarita and say, 'That kind.' Whether it was the overbaked symbolism, the dull narrative, the Jesus crap, or just the talking cat (or all of the above) that set me off, I will leave for you to decide.

But this review is about Pelevin, not Bulgakov. I can in fact confirm there is a kinship between the two authors, but more as uncle-and-nephew than as brothers. Pelevin is less obviously pining for Goethe than Bulgakov was; his short novel is rooted very much in the modern world, in all its particular and peculiar manifestations. How can it not be? After all, the title character Omon is a Soviet youth who dreams of being a cosmonaut. The first third of the novel is set up as pretty much a standard coming-of-age yarn with few eccentricities to speak of. I kept glancing at the cover blurbs: 'Unsettling' (The New York Times), 'comedy as black as outer space itself' (Tibor Fischer—whoever that is), and 'propulsively absurd' (The New Yorker). Huh? Really? I better keep reading...

Well, it's true. The novel eventually—I want to say suddenly—becomes an unsettling, absurd black comedy, but I just don't know how I feel about it. Sections of it, particularly the end in which Omon embarks upon his 'mission' with all its existential implications, might very well be brilliant. But some other parts are dull, unintelligible, or completely unsatisfying. In fact, there is a twelve page section (pp. 79 to 91 in the New Directions edition) that I skimmed because I just didn't really get it; it's a bewildering, ellipsis-filled monologue delivered by Omon's friend Mitiok that I am either too dense or too insensitive to appreciate. You might think that twelve pages isn't all that much, but it's actually 8% of this little book.

Omon's dream of being a cosmonaut becomes a nightmare! That's my cheesy, film-trailer voiceover for the novel. He enters a training academy where the bizarre truths of the Soviet space program are gradually revealed. I can't tell you much because it would ruin the only real reason there is to read this book—and that is to be startled by grim (and, yes, absurd) revelations. I'm not sure all of the satirical implications of life in the Soviet Union are apparent to me, but the novel's still serviceable to laymen (and women) anyway. I can't exactly celebrate Omon Ra by shouting from the rooftops, like a Booknerd Gone Wild!, but I won't dissuade you either. (Also, the cover is attractive and waxy-feeling.)

[Petar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Težina tega koji visi na lancu primorava sat da radi, Mesec je takav teg, Zemlja - sat, a život, to su otkucaju zupčanika i pesma mehaničke kukavice.

Omon Ra je roman koji govori o obmanjivanju i iskorišćavanju malog čoveka, nešto čime je nažalost istorija bogata i što jeste i što će i dalje biti jedna od vodećih inspiracija ne samo u literaturi, već u umetnosti uopšte. Talas političkih promena prati trend izdavanja pregršt naslova koje je svrgnuti režim cenzurisao u epohi potonjeg državnog poretka. Sa slobodom govora i umetničkog izražavanja, pored tiskanja dela već afirmisanih umetnika, prvi put se čuju glasovi mladih pisaca, koji u stranice utiskuju nešto novo što daje svežinu i pored srodne tematike. Pravi primer jednog takvog autora jeste Peljevin sa ovim debitanskim romanom publikovanim odmah po raspadu Sovjetskog Saveza. Omon Ra je zabavna, satirična i dinamična knjiga sa protagonistom koji svojom prostodušnjošću tera čitaoce na poistovećivanje. Jezičkim stilom i smislom za humor podseća na Slaughterhouse-Five, a junak ovog dela neodoljivo asocira na Bilija Pilgrima, pa ako ste ljubitelji stvaralaštva Kurta Vonegata, toplo preporučujem da ova knjiga bude uvod u reč i delo Viktora Peljevina.

5-

[Hamed Rahimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

#📚
4⭐️/5⭐️
#كتاب #رمان #فلسفى_سياسى #روس #معاصر
رمان #اومون_را نوشته ى #ويكتور_پِلِوين با ترجمه #پيمان_خاكسار از #نشرزاوش
ويكتور پلوين يكى از مشهورترين نويسندگان روسِ معاصر است كه كتابهايش به زبانهاى مختلف ترجمه و در كشور هاى گوناگون منتشر شده است. #پلوين بيشتر به خاطر ديالوگ هاى شخصيت هايش باهم و همينطور پيش زمينه هاى علمى_تخيلى و فلسفى رمان هايش شناخته شده است. پلوين در رمان #اومون_را يكى از مهمترين مسائل فلسفى را مورد نقد و بررسى قرار داده يعنى پوچى زندگى و مرگ و فدا كردن جان در جهت آرمان سياسى. زمينه ى اصلى رمان بى شك فلسفى ست اما نميتوان پيش زمينه ى آن يعنى فضاى سياسى را ناديده گرفت كه بخش عظيمى از آن را تشكيل مى دهد.
رمان روايتگر پسرى به اسم #اومون است كه از بچگى روياى پرواز و فضانوردى دارد. رمان در زمان پس از جنگ جهانى دوم و دوران جنگ سرد شوروى با آمريكا اتفاق مى افتد. اومون به همراه دوستش ميتيوك كه روياى فضا را از بچگى در سر داشتند به مدرسه هوانوردى مى پيوندند و در آنجا به آنها پيشنهاد اجبارى شركت در پروژه ى صعود به ماه مى شود كه در آن بى شك قرار است جان خود را از دست بدهند بى اينكه جهان از آن خبردار شود. كتاب شروعى زيبا و اتمامى شوكه كننده و دلپذير داشت. با اينكه ترجمه از نسخه انگليسى انجام شده است و نه روسى، بسيار سليس، روان و بى ابهام است. كه مشخص است پيمان خاكسار به خوبى از پس آن برآمده است. اميدوارم به زودى كتابهاى بيشترى از اين نويسنده روس بخوانيم كه استقبال كمى از طرف مترجمان روسمان به آن شده است.
#بوكرمن

[Mariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I remembered my childhood, sometimes I used to imagine what the rapid approach of the final moment before eternity would feel like. And sometimes I tried to finish off really old thoughts that resurfaced into consciousness. For instance, I thought about the question "Who am I?"

In ancient times it was myths before science.

A head wrapped in foil, built into a model aircraft. The aircraft built to contain the plasticine figure. There's no door. A hatch drawn on the outside, and on the inside a couple of dials. Mitiok would like to find the person who made the aircraft and punch him in the face. Omon sticks the figure in an empty cigarette case and carries it with him into space.

Peripheral vision of a wide blue sky. Stretch your arms and do the airplane, buzzing in your head raring to go. Blast off! It is the airplane food trick and the stupid adult consumes the bite of chocolate pudding all by himself.

My adoring fans, the young cosmonaut takes off into space. Now the crowd goes wild. What will he do next?

The American Indians would have many names for the moon. The creamy corn moon. Runs with wolves, sleeps with the fishes. He who bike rides like E.T. phone home. I kept thinking about the loveable alien when the moonwalker device turns out to be operated by bicycle.

Omon takes the name of Ra when he mythologizes before he falls in love. His mouth hangs open as if he hung the moon, catching the thousands of tiny fireflies that go there when they pass away from glass jar asphyxiation.

Would you be willing to die for it? Yes. Wait, that was for real? I only said what I thought you wanted to hear.

I liked when Omon resents the hell out of his imminent death for his sleeping bear country (self decorated with stars and medals) and the thought that plagues him more than anything else is the fat thighs of his douchey superior officer in little white tennis shorts after he's gone. You tell him, Omon!

If Omon were a planet he'd be the planet that attracts lots of bad shit. Asteroids of rotten luck would always be landing on his space. Or, life long dreams of trips to the moon with no move to make the dream alive. Swallow it down like crappy camp lunches of bug juice. He would be interesting to astrologists for this fact alone. "Not much else is known about Omon. But a lot of bad shit happens to him." That he's a plot device made him not all that interesting to me. The moon rhapsodies were lovely, reminding me of the lyrics of Tom Waits. His eyes are saucers, and empty ones.

My favorite part of the book is when Omon talks to another guy on the ship who is really into Pink Floyd. The way he went all quiet when learning that Omon had had the unattainable Floyd record of his dreams. I could sense his heart fall into his feet. Dima quizzed the kid on what it sounded like, although the second hand listening experience was as if a ghost were watching a live person eat their favorite meal. "So what Pink Floyd did you listen to?" His persistence was pure obsessed fan. I thought he was my kind of guy. I used to have this dystopian model held up in my mind of poor Soviet inhabitants clinging to their precious Phil Collins cassette tapes. Another guy on the ship would shout into the intercom that Pink Floyd weren't any good. Not to rock the boat Omon crosses the river in paved in government issued reaper coins. It is as bad as a Genesis best of hit reissued for one new song. His classroom globes earth's view doesn't rock his world. I wondered how he couldn't have seen the beauty in the blackness of space. Weightless, and love handled senior officers shouting into an intercom couldn't make the dark side of the moon any less yours than what you could feel between you and between it. Omon hears the roar of the crowd. Blast off and lift off and.... don't fly.

He said a lot of other complicated things, but what I remember most vividly is an image that struck me as amazingly poetical: a weight hanging on a chain makes a clock work. The moon is such a weight, the earth is the clock, and life is the ticking of the gears and the singing of the mechanical cuckoo.

The sequence in the school space camp that was the punishment for Mitiok's destruction of the aircraft model was another mesmerizing part of the book. Crawling on the linoleum floor in a gas mask. Time stopped, sweat poured down their faces like tears. The senseless bureaucratic crap to shovel down with their macaroni star arts and crafts lives. But when he gets into space and can't see what is right in front of him I didn't care as much about what was handed to him, no matter how shitty.

Through the film of my tears the earth was blurred and indistinct, and it seemed to be suspended in a yellowish void; I watched its surface draw closer from out of this void as I squirmed my way towards it, until the walls that were passing in on me parted and the brown tiles of the floor flew up to meet me.

[Matthew Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

115th book of 2023.

A great, short read. It's humorous in a sly way, surreal and a little terrifying. Omon (pronounced, I hear, as 'Amon') dreams of being a cosmonaut as a young boy. That slowly becomes a reality as he joins a Soviet space program. Naturally, it's deeper than that. Before joining, others are required to have their feet amputated in honour of an old Soviet hero who lost his legs. Pelevin writes with great beauty, capturing Omon's loneliness and confusion throughout the novel. There's a plot-twist of sorts at the end so I can't discuss the plot so much but I can say that there's no reason not to read this bizarre and well-written little book at just 150 pages or so. It did remind me a bit of Sorokin, which was how I got here in the first place. Plus bonus points for the random conversation two characters have about Pink Floyd and talking about one of my favourite PF songs, Echoes.

[...] we don't know anything about stars, except their life is terrible and senseless, since all their movements through space are predetermined and subject to the laws of mechanics, which leave no hope at all for any chance encounters. But then, I thought, even though we human beings always seem to be meeting each other, and laughing, and slapping each other on the shoulder, and saying goodbye, there's still a certain special dimension into which our consciousness sometimes takes a frightened peep, a dimension in which we also hang quite motionless in a void where there's no up or down, no yesterday or tomorrow, no hope of drawing closer to each other or even exercising our will and changing our fate; we judge what happens to others from the deceptive twinkling light that reaches us, and we spend all our lives journeying towards what we call the light, although its source may have ceased to exist long ago.

[Jelena · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Soviet lad dreams about becoming a cosmonaut and enrols a military space programme – a fairly unpretentious premise that will not be further expanded. I never expected a major scientific investigation or a detailed history of the pioneers of space travel from a satire, a genre bound to be easily accessible and comprehendible in order to convey a critical and analytical point. So the dark side of the Moon brings the magic, and the Soviet construct brings the myth.

So many observations about the grand madness and mad grandeur of the all-consuming, all-communist Soviet magnificence, the mirage of worldly and outer-worldly victory in the name of humankind and collective ideal, the Potemkin villages on top of Potemkin villages are achingly sharp and apt. A fortress built on the quicksand of myth. Equally perplexing, but not surprising, are the brief, casual scenes of utter dehumanisation and loss of persona, along with all its values. Ivan the Huntsman. I fell apart over Ivan the Huntsman. And I, too, own all those Pink Floyd albums. All those components are bizarre to say the least. And more bizarre still because they are quite conceivable.

Addressing the phantasms of Soviet everyday life, my mind instantaneously switches to Good Bye Lenin!. Sure, there is no space travel and this is East Berlin. The film is no masterpiece, but it shows a warm, comic and humane poignancy that “Omon Ra” lacks entirely. In spite of his sharp eye for black absurdity, the author seems to be struggling with – words! And structure, and pace, and motivation. For a social and political satire, this novel failed to make me even remotely chuckle. Again for a satire, a rather direct form in its need to be foolproof, it too often lands in surrealistic detours. And as a short form focusing on one single main character and narrator, it fails to provide a palpable image of the character or a sympathetic connection of any sort.

“Omon Ra” is a small volume, physically small: 137 pages total in the edition I read. There are just too many unmotivated events and actions, too many loose motifs, too much incoherence and a puzzlingly long part tossed into the narration without apparent purpose or connection. How is it possible to create something that short with so much redundancy on it?

So you add piercing perception, but subtract all eloquence. A thread to follow, but no focus. A deep clash between the individual and the system he is born into, an even deeper clash between their ideals. And then you make it blatant and blunt. I am so sad that a vigilant debunking of a system’s cogwheels got lost in being a tongue-tied melodrama, a satire, a somnambular account.

[Alireza · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب اومون‌را کتاب طنز تلخی ست. طنز است چون مسخره می کند، تلخ است چون نمی خنداند. تزویر حکومت کمونیستی شوروی را مسخره می کند اما نمی خنداند چون انسانیت را هدف قرار داده. جان انسان هایی که در عملیات های ابلهانه ی شوروی به اسم قهرمان گرایی از بین رفته. احمقانه از بین رفته. کتاب در تقابل دو مفهوم حماقت و شقاوت داستانش را روایت می کند. داستانی که آشکارا دغدغه های بزرگترش را نمایان می کند. بشر چیست؟ آزادی چیست؟ حد آزادی کجاست؟ زندگی چیست؟ دیدن چیست؟ ما که هستیم؟ و اشارات مستقیم و غیرمستقیمی از این دست.

کتاب را پیمان خاکسار از روی دو نسخه انگلیسی که یکی وفادار به متن و دیگری ترجمه انگلیسی بهتری داشته ترجمه کرده.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is possible I will read too much Pelevin and his resolute stance - which for now turns me on with its playful but surprisingly earnest blend of satire, wild imagination, individual freedom, practical application of meditative practices and exploration of mind – will morph into clownish posturing and I will feel a watery neon sickness rising in my throat, but for now… I will keep reading him until I vomit.

Omon Ra is essentially a dystopian coming of age novel in which the hero's childhood dream of space travel makes him manipulable to the powers that be as he is digested by their space program and enlisted into a one man expedition to the moon where he is to set up a microphone and then shoot himself. It turns out that the entire space program is an elaborate hoax, with space travel and moon landings faked on earth; the hoax being a way to create heroes and martyrs for the motherland while creating a national soul: an empty perverse soul filled with the youthful dead.

Pelevin appears to have ramped up the craziness in later books, this being his first novel, so this was imaginatively tame compared to The Hall of the Singing Caryatids; and was also surprisingly moving as the youthful dreams in the novel seem rooted in Pelevin's own hijacked dreams, and his radical turn inward to a meditative realm - as mirrored by his experience of near death isolation on the moon - is given supportive substance and validation.

[Hux · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bildungsroman novel about a young Soviet boy named Omon Ra who has dreams of becoming a cosmonaut. He meets a fellow space obsessed boy called Mitiok and together they bond over their shared ambitions and interests. As the story goes along, they both attend an academy for cosmonauts and begin their training for a mission to the moon.

I was enjoying the book is as a rather straight-forward story about a boy's dreams coming true amid a satirical landscape of soviet incompetence. But as it builds, there is a sense of the bizarre and surreal, culminating in an experience at the reincarnation test which results in (what appears to be) a drug induced rant form Mitiok where he reveals that, among other things, he was a Nazi in a past life. From here on in, the strangeness continues and the increasing sense of uncertainty is palpable as Omon Ra prepares for the final stages of the moon mission where he (and a handful of others) will have a leading part. All the while you can sense a blind devotion to the cause and a bleak, over romanticised craving for the heroic.

The ending contains what most certainly would be described as a twist but which was not entirely unexpected. It's the manner in which it's presented that gives it more impact, the stark, almost blunt conclusion leaving a bad taste in the mouth. Perhaps a metaphor for the magic bean socialist experiment gone wrong that the USSR so strongly represents.

[Ali Khosravi · Rating 3 out of 5]

داستان از اواسط کتاب کم کم برام جذاب شد و اینقدر کشش داشت که تا آخر بدون وقفه خوندم. بخشی که برای من خیلی جالب بود، گفتگوی شخصیت ها در اون شرایط سخت داخل موشک در باره آلبوم های موسیقی پینک فلوید و فیلم نقطه زابرینسکی از آنتونیونی بود. نویسنده ایدئولوژی سوسیالیسم رو در همه جای کتاب به سخره می گیره و کتاب در واقع هجویه ای در باره سوسیالیسم و برنامه های فضایی شوروی در دهه هفتاد هست. یک فیلم آمریکایی در باره برنامه های فضایی آمریکا در دهه هشتاد ساخته شده که به نوعی همین مضمون رو داره و احتمالا نویسنده نیم نگاهی به این فیلم هم داشته.

[Shayan Foroozesh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a bad story and it's a quick read but I wonder why I picked this book, and this despite many other wonderful classics that were sitting on my shelf.

[Mobina J · Rating 4 out of 5]

من خیلی خیلی دوست داشتم این کتاب رو. واقعا شوکه شده بودم آخر کتاب؛ اصلا انتظار همچین چیزی رو نداشتم. بشریت چه بلاها که بر سر بشریت نمیاره...

[carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

cómo le doy las gracias a colin jost por recomendarme esta maravilla ?

[Bojan Mihajilovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pelevin predstavlja retki spoj kreativnog genija i sposobnog pisca i ova kraca knjiga moze biti uvod svakom u njegovo stvaralastvo. Najcesca tema njegovih knjiga su misteriozne organizacije, spoljna i unutrasnja politika Rusije, definisanje Ruskog identiteta posle raspada SSSRa, ezotericne filozofije...

Ova knjiga prati razvojni put jednog decaka koji masta da postane kosmonaut u vreme svemirske trke sa SADom, ali, kao i uvek kod Pelevina, nije sve tako kao sto na povrsini izgleda.

[Stephen Durrant · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most creative and surprising books on this list, "Omon Ra" is the first person narrative of a young man who undergoes bizarre training to become a hero cosmonaut in the Soviet space program. From the outset, the astounding "technology" supposedly capable of producing space flight is set in a context of incredible shabbiness and sinisterness. Soon we learn that Soviet space flight is all accomplished by means of self-sacrificing heroes who, for example, unscrew one rocket stage from another and then perish in space as the stages separate . . . and so forth. But the final truth, which I will not reveal here, is even lower tech than this. Suffice it to say, that it is all a grand illusion. Pelevin has at least two targets in this novel, at least so it seems to me: first, a Soviet state that cared little for individuals as it strove to promote a model of socialist heroism and to create an image of technological superiority; and second, American conspiracy theorists who continue to maintain to this day that the moon landing was faked. Beyond this is a more universal message about how those who are pursuing grand, albeit illusory, projects capture and demean our own fondest hopes and dreams. Pelevin's fictional world, at least as encountered in this small novel, grows, it seems to me, from a handshake between Kafka and science fiction. Yss, I know this sounds strange, but "Omon Ra" is indeed both strange AND engaging.

[Casey (Myshkin) Buell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omon Ra is a fun, poignant, and ultimately powerful satire of the Soviet state, and on a deeper level, a meditation on human longing and the will to be free. Omon's absurd journey from dreaming child to Soviet Cosmonaut will first delight you, then break your heart. Pelevin writes with a beautiful spare style, which allows him to pack a lot of story into this small book. With an economy of words he brings to life the nightmarish world of Soviet "efficiency" and national hubris; a world of willful blindness and ruthless dedication to a fading illusion.

[Mohammad · Rating 3 out of 5]

داستان تزویر حکومت کمونیستی اتحاد جماهیر شوروی
این بار در غالب مسائل فضایی و رقابت با آمریکا
فکر کنم فضاسازی این کتاب عالی بود ولی حیف که خیلی زود تموم شد
یعنی یکم پایان بندیش با شتاب بود ، موضوعش خیلی جالب بود ولی جای کار بیشتری داست
یک نکته خوب اینکه با ترجمه هایی که پیمان خاکسار انجام میده با خیلی از نویسنده های جدید آشنا میشیم ، نویسنده هایی که شاید اگر خاکسار دنبالشون نمیرفت شاید هیچوقت نمیتونستیم آثارشون رو بخونیم
این خودش واسه اوضاع فعلی بازار کتاب خیلی میتونه موثر باشه

[Jean Ra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Como novela de la familia Ra tenía ciertas expectativas, solamente cumplidas en una fracción.

Se trata de una farsa sobre la URSS, dónde expone una retórica mendaz, declarando una cosa para hacer algo igual o peor que el bloque enemigo. Es decir, lo de arriesgar, e incluso sacrificar, vidas humanas en la carrera espacial es un derroche, algo muy feo que hacen los yanquis, la URSS, en cambio, apuesta por la tecnología y envía autómatas a sus misiones espaciales. Eso dice. Luego en realidad envía a personas disfrazadas de robots (banda sonora: Kraftwerk jaja). En esa tesitura se halla el narrador, que de niño soñó con ser astronauta y de mayor topa con la dura realidad.

Lo más interesante, me pareció a mí, está en la concepción de la novela. Ya no sólo en la narración satírica, de raíz fuertemente política, también en otros elementos de la composición como el hecho de invocar y encajar a nivel simbólico al dios egipcio Ra. Rey de los cielos, que surca con sus poderosos carros, la deidad domina e impera el espacio por encima de las cabezas, lo que sería una metáfora tanto del astronauta como del ejercicio de la imaginación. A la postre, la idea que Omon tenía del astronauta queda efectivamente relegado al nivel de la imaginación.

Más allá de eso la escritura no ofrece muchas más alegrías. Sin ir más lejos, las páginas que abordan la infancia del protagonista no dejaron ninguna huella reseñable en mi mente. Son pura fórmula y transición. Y eso que la novela es bastante breve. Lo que viene después es lo que de verdad interesa -y se nota-, las páginas más jugosas, las que tienen gracia. Moderada gracia.

Supongo que mentalmente tenía expectativas que se aproximara al deslumbramiento de El dedo meñique de Buda, en su capacidad para sorprender y quebrar convenciones narrativas, y lo cierto es que como escritor, en Omon Ra, Pelevin no se demuestra tan ambicioso en lo formal y tampoco tan exuberante con las imágenes que construye. Supongo que el novelista todavía necesitaba más rodaje técnico y filosófico, aquí parcialmente esbozado.

La novela se escribió en 1992, así que el momento no podía ser más oportuno. Por motivos que desconozco, los círculos anti-comunistas no le dan más bola a este escritor, será que andan regurjitando los mismo de siempre, si no en Pelevin tendrían todo un escritor de culto.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was ten, I stood in my aunt and uncle's yard in Dallas one night and watched Sputnik 1 make a transit across the constellated dome of the "fixed" stars. Awed by the science that made it possible to put a manmade object into Earth orbit, I had no idea at the time of either the political ramifications of this accomplishment or of the effect that that small sphere crossing the sky would have on my subsequent life. The space race had officially begun. Politicians in this country lamented the lack of education in the sciences that had put America behind the Soviet Union in the race that would lead to a manned landing on the Moon.

My curriculum in school changed to include more science and more math. Participation in science fairs became compulsory. The walls of my room were decorated with posters of the solar system, and model rockets occupied my desk and bookshelves. More drawn by nature to the humanities, I found myself as a senior in high school struggling with a slide rule in a rigorous physics class. A small metal sphere with a very limited life in orbit had changed my educational experience, and although I made a course correction in college, it was only in the summer before I left for graduate school that I felt truly free of the "Sputnik effect." That was the summer that Armstrong made "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

Pelevin's novel, his first, recounts the experience of a boy in the Soviet Union growing up at the same time as I did and seeing the space race from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Hardly a straightforward Bildungsroman, Omon Ra has all of the quirkiness one would expect of a work by Pelevin. It is a damning criticism of the Soviet Union's Potemkin village approach both to Cold War competition and to domestic control of its population and an equally damning assessment of the disregard of the state for the individual. At the same time, Pelevin captures the inspiration of space exploration that crosses national borders and the inclination of citizens to be proud of their country even when surrounded by evidence of its egregious failings.

yes, it was true, perhaps the burrows in which our lives were spent really were dark and dirty, and perhaps we ourselves were well suited to these burrows, but in the blue sky above our heads, up among the thinly scattered stars, there were special, artificial points of gleaming light, creeping unhurriedly through the constellations, points created here in the land of Soviets, among the vomit, empty bottles, and stench of tobacco smoke, points built here out of steel, semiconductors, and electricity, and now flying through space. And every one of us, even the blue-faced alcoholic we had passed on the way here, huddling like a toad in a snowdrift, even Mitiok’s brother, and of course Mitiok and I— we all had our own little embassy up there in the cold pure blueness. I ran outside and stood there for ages, swallowing my tears as I stared up at the bluish-yellow, improbably near orb of the moon in the transparent winter sky.

It is a short novel, but it is well written, packed with surprises, larded with black humor and social criticism. It forms a perfect launch pad for journeys we all need to take into the past, into the future, and into ourselves.

[Andy Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Throughout his childhood, an impoverished young boy grows up in a nondescript rural Soviet village dreaming of becoming a cosmonaut, along with his best friend Mitiok. Supported only by his drunken father in that he is sent to a summer 'rocket' camp, young Omon even adopts the name of the Egyptian god of the sun as his enthusiasm grows.

But what begins as a rather sweet coming of age story undergoes a darker twist as Omon and Mitiok become enrolled at military flight school, and pretty soon, they are part of the space programme. This is Pelevin after all.. though he is in a more subtle and satirical mood here.

The novel grows in absurdity and, thankfully, black humour as Pelevin reveals his hand.. that sweet coming of age yarn is a distant memory..
..because it’s difficult to build a rocket that can be operated remotely, and even more difficult to return said rocket to the Earth, the Soviets are launching “unmanned” rockets that are, in fact, manned, but by suicidal cosmonauts who never return home. Omon and Mitiok, unknowingly, have been signed up to the programme.

Pelevin has put in place a structure that now allows him to indulge in taking shots at various aspects of Soviet society; its culture, its corrupt politics, and what one might call its schoolboy foolishness.
At one stage he even sends the visiting Henry Kissinger on a wild bear hunt in the Siberian forest for diplomatic purposes. Kissinger dispatches his prey, even though he knows it is actually a Russian peasant in a costume, hired for his pleasure.

Though some of the political satire is a bit dated now, it was published in 1992, it is still a whole lot of fun. He presents twist after twist, each more macabre than the last, and all with the USSR as the butt of the joke. But there is an underlying optimism to his work, as if the greater the degree of proposterousness the greater the honesty.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic pair of novellas. The first a parable of the Russian state (I think). A space program dependent on the sacrifice of ordinary people to cover up the project's shortcomings.

The 2nd (The Yellow Arrow) set on an apparently self contained community on a never ending train journey which appears to be a metaphor for a blinkered view of human existence.

Superb, thought provoking stuff

[Hamidreza Hosseini · Rating 4 out of 5]

وقتی این کتاب رو میخوندم فقط این به ذهنم میرسید: شوروی ،حکومت تظاهر و دروغ!
و چقدر آشنا بود اتفاقات و حرفهای این کتاب.
واقعا شوک آور بود داستان. از یه جایی به بعد ، ازونجایی که اومون وارد مدرسه نظامی میشه ،دیگه دلم نمیومد کتاب رو زمین بذارم

[امیر · Rating 1 out of 5]

برای من که جذابتی نداشت. به دلم نچسبید. فقط بخاطر مترجم کتاب را خوندم ترجمه خوبی بود ولی خود کتاب اصل و مایه ای نداشت.
یک سوال از داخل متن کتاب که فکر کنم بخاطر سانسور قابل فهم نبود.اون عمل جراحی که سه چهار جا بهش اشاره شده بود چی بود؟؟؟

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intoxicating mix of idealism, cynicism, satire, and myth making. Only in the end do you really begin to understand the authors opinion.