Powieści Wiktora Pielewina. Kontekst postmodernistyczny. Interpretacje

Abstract

The present monograph consists of an introduction, four main chapters, final conclusions, bibliography, a summary in English and an alphabetical index of authors arranged by surname. Victor Pelevin’s four novels (“Moscow’s quartet”) are the subject of analysis in individual chapters of the monograph. These are Buddha’s Little Finger (1996), Generation ‘P’ (1999), Numbers (2003) and The Sacred Book of the Werewolf (2004). Victor Olegovich Pelevin (born in Moscow on 22 November 1962) undoubtedly belongs to the most popular contemporary Russian writers. He is recognized as one of the leading representatives of Russian postmodernism. Pelevin’s prose meets with both great interest of the reading public and critical appraisal also beyond the borders of Russia. The writer owes his enormous popularity mainly to the fact that he does not hesitate to put provocative, sometimes even scandalizing contents in his works. Pelevin willingly mixes tropes of high and low/mass art; he often uses motifs and characters tested in pop culture, combining them with philosophy and mysticism at the same time. Pelevin’s works perfectly match the general definition and the program of postmodernism which include the pluralistic, mixed and polyphonic culture that combines various levels and languages. The literary works of this “cult” author give rise to controversy and are the subject of reinforced criticism, especially in Russia. Thus, the writer breaks a number of stereotypes, rooted in the consciousness of Russian intellectual representatives of all kinds. The supporters of the pro-western sense of direction criticize Pelevin for his sceptical attitude towards the west model of life, which the writer associates with spiritual emptiness and overconsumption, with the domination of “to have” over “to be”. Subsequently, patriots, defenders of the national cultural heritage are irritated by Pelevin’s ironic attitude towards social reality, as well as his free treatment of traditional sanctities, his attempt at their new interpretations and integrating them into the context of the present. Regardless of views, many critics resent the fact that Pelevin skillfully manages to write best-sellers, which are read not only by literary scholars. The first chapter entitled “Buddha’s Little Finger”as the postmodernist-Buddhist parable about the revolution and the present discusses the phenomenon of the alternative history. In the analyzed novel Pelevin creates alternative personalities of real people, attributing to them such features that they definitely could not possess. In Buddha’s Little Finger a legendary Red Army commander Vasily Chapayev transforms into a philosopher, an expert on Buddhism, even a magus and, finally, appears as Buddha’s reincarnation. Thus, Pelevin replaces two myths of Chapayev, at first as a hero of the Civil War 1918-1919, and then as a clownish comic hero of vulgar anecdotes, with another (the third) myth. Piet’ka, the orderly of the legendary commander, an infantile enthusiast of revolution, in Buddha’s Little Finger transforms into Peter Pusto (Void), a poet-modernist who, by a twist of fate, becomes a commissar in Chapayev’s division. The plot of the novel describes the world in two temporal dimensions. In the “contemporary” dimension (the 90s of the 20th century) Peter is a patient of a psychiatric clinic, where he becomes an object of Doctor Kanasznikov’s medical experiments. The analysis in the first chapter proves that Pelevin gives educating and moralizing character to anecdotes about Chapayev, and uses them to demonstrate a specific philosophical truth, based on assumptions of solipsism, referring to Immanuel Kant’s views as well as Buddhism (above all the Buddhist concept of emptiness). Considerations included in the second chapter entitled Between real reality and world of simulacra (categories of the “reality” and “hyperreality” in the novel “Generation ‘P’”) are divided into three main thematic groups: declassing of educated Russians, simulacra and hyperreality of the mass media, and the condition of modern man. Introducing the character of Babylen Tatarsky, Pelevin dispels the myth of a Russian educated person. The Generation ‘P’s main character must overcome his sensitivity and a current value system in order to survive in new political and economic conditions. For financial reasons he stops being a book enthusiast and becomes a cynical author of slogans and advertising content (a copywriter), an observer deprived of any moral sensitivity and a manipulator of human minds. The declassing of the Russian intelligentsia manifests also in the lack of national identity and national idea. The story of Tartarsky’s career is interrupted with numerous advertising slogans and scripts of advertising video clips in which (similarly to authentic advertising forms) in principle not specified products are advertised but extremely hypnotizing models of happiness, success, comfort and prosperity. These patterns, not related to any reality, through references to Jean Baudrillard’s terminology can be called simulacra – copies without an original. Pelevin demonstrates (combining realistic facts with fiction) that television plays a more important role than advertisements in creating a system of simulacra that replaces the real world. The writer believes television manipulates information and produces its “own” versions of events. This self-creation of television (hyperreality) has no reference to what is authentic. In Generation ‘P’ Pelevin introduces a new anthropological type called Homo zapiens (“a zapped man” from English “to zap”), who can be perceived as a kind of hybrid created as a result of combining Homo consumens (a human being that is distinguished by overconsumption of material goods) and Homo videns (a person that dethroned a word for the image). The writer underlines overwhelming influence of visual media on the human psyche and their magic power of mental addiction. The third chapter of the monograph Mystical numerology in “pseudo-production” novel “Numbers” includes a description and analysis of Stepan Mikhailov’s behaviour, a banker inwardly enslaved by a blind belief in the power of numbers. In the long term, the fictional businessman manages “to keep alive” in a chaotic and violent Russian reality in the late 20th and early 21st century with the help of the magic of numbers. Doing different types of banking transactions, Mikhailov is not guided by his mind but completely irrational conviction about the power of numbers and their influence on human life. As far as the main character of the novel Numbers is concerned, it is not only his “ordinary” fascination for numbers, faith in their magical properties or symbolism. Here, attributing good or bad luck to specific numbers and predicting professional future from them turns into a disease or a serious mental disorder. Mikhailov’s conduct may involve some symptoms typical for people’s behaviour with the anankastic personality, suffering from obsessive-compulsive neurosis that belongs to a group of fear disorders. In the novel Numbers Pelevin also raises an issue of extremely complicated contemporary relations between Russia and the Western world. The fourth chapter entitled Postmodernist variations on a theme of fairy tales about the vixen and the wolf in “The Sacred Book of the Werewolf” emphasizes literary and cultural origins of some main “untypical” characters: A Huli – an eternally young vixen-woman (werefox) and Alexander (Sasha the Grey) – a general-werewolf, an officer of the Federal Security Bureau. In both cases, these are complex literary creations, in which one can recognize references to Chinese, Scandinavian and Germanic mythology, Russian folklore, allusions to famous works of Russian literature and to movie characters. In the novel The Sacred Book of the Werewolf it is the first time a love story has been present in Pelevin’s works. The plot of this novel seems to be a perfect pretext for making a perverse and ironic portrait of Russia at the beginning of the 21st century and, in a broader context, creating a critical image of the whole contemporary world, as well as introducing and presenting the clash of two different ideologies: postmodernist and liberal ones, represented by A Huli, and neo-conventional (neo-conservative) views of the werewolf-patriot. The fourth part of the monograph concentrates on Pelevin’s attitude to the image of a werewolf, strengthened in cultural and literary tradition, which the writer refutes consistently. Pelevin actually refers to the myth of man’s transformation into a negative “stranger”, into wolf`s worrying and dangerous existence, simultaneously breaking with the stereotyped definition of a werewolf. Therefore, the transformation into an animal is not a horrifying event in the novel and Pelevin’s werewolves are not predators, destroyers or wild beasts that attack people and animals in a murderous frenzy, threatening the whole community in this way. Alexander makes use of his transformation skills, for example when extracting oil. The Sacred Book of the Werewolf in its structure is based on the interaction of tradition and innovation, seriousness and irony, realism and elements of fantasy. Pelevin’s literary production is interesting tribute to a wide range of issues discussed in his novels, and diversity of artistic means of expression used by the writer, and above of all, due to the multi-threaded nature of plots that allow readers to interpret his works in various ways.