Reading 1001 discussion

The version I read was titled "Buddha's Little Finger"

Rating: 4 stars

This is kind of a trippy and darkly humorous book. Pelevin uses an iconic (and often ridiculed) real-life folk hero names Chapaev from the Russian Revoltion to represent the changes that occurred in Russia after the collapse of Communism. He became iconic from his appearance in an earlier work of fiction lauding his heroics despite modest beginnings. then later through Soviet propaganda. The story is related by Pyotr, who is in a mental hospital for a split personality of sorts and memory loss. He is often under the influence of various drugs, creating a dream-like state to the story. Hence, the "trippiness". Pelevin uses some clever visual imagery and attention to detail. One particular example is the recurrent use of of the color yellow. The whole story is an allegory of 20th Century Russia and the loss of identity it exprienced along the way.

I can't say I fully grasp all of it, but overall, it was a fun ride.

3 Stars

I read it I didn't hate, it didn't disgust me like some 1001 books but I totally didn't get it at all and have no interest in trying t re-read it again with the group insights.

I enjoyed this, but I was glad I had read a little about it before I started. There is a dual timeline where Pyotr is living during the Russian revolution and as a mental patient in the "New Russia" of the 1990s. One or other of these times is a dreamworld.

The rational reading is that the mental patient is real, and the revolutionary is a product of the drugs he is fed, but the revolutionary Pyotr firmly believes that he is real and his counterpart (of whom he is aware) is in his dreams. I don't think it really matters which is which. They are both somewhat dreamlike.

Interspersed are thoughts from Buddhist/Zen philosophy, "form is emptiness" etc. I'm not sure how much this would mean to someone who didn't have a grounding in it.

The novel shows Pyotr in his various forms lurching from one crisis to another while being prompted to follow the "middle way" but never doing this. There was a burlesque quality to it in some places. I wouldn't like to speculate on what it is trying to say about Russia.

Thank you to Book for sending it to me!