Victor Pelevin is emerging ad one of the world's most exciting novelists. In Babylon he gives us a deliciously comic vision of vanity, greed and advertising, Moscow style.
The collapse od the Societ Union has opened up a vast market, ripe for exploitation. Everybody wants a but of the action. But how do you sell things to a generation who grew up with just one brand of cola? Enter Tatarsky, a lowly shop assistant, who discovers a hidden talent for devising homegrown alternatives to Western ads. Soon Russian television is ablaze with new slogans: 'Do it yourself, Motherfucker!' for trainers, and 'Gucci for Man – Be a European, Smell Better!'
Tatarsky is propelled into a world of gangsters, spin-doctors and drug dealers, fuelled by cocaine and hallucinogenic mushrooms. But as his fortunes soar, reality loosens its grip, old certainties crumble. Who is the boss – man, or his television set? When advertisers talk about 'twisting reality', do they mean it quite… (tovább)
Victor Pelevin is emerging ad one of the world's most exciting novelists. In Babylon he gives us a deliciously comic vision of vanity, greed and advertising, Moscow style.
The collapse od the Societ Union has opened up a vast market, ripe for exploitation. Everybody wants a but of the action. But how do you sell things to a generation who grew up with just one brand of cola? Enter Tatarsky, a lowly shop assistant, who discovers a hidden talent for devising homegrown alternatives to Western ads. Soon Russian television is ablaze with new slogans: 'Do it yourself, Motherfucker!' for trainers, and 'Gucci for Man – Be a European, Smell Better!'
Tatarsky is propelled into a world of gangsters, spin-doctors and drug dealers, fuelled by cocaine and hallucinogenic mushrooms. But as his fortunes soar, reality loosens its grip, old certainties crumble. Who is the boss – man, or his television set? When advertisers talk about 'twisting reality', do they mean it quite literally? Can Tatarsky trust the analysis of advertising communicated by the spirit of the late Che Guevera? And exactly what does go on at the Institute of Apiculture?
Babylon is a stunning and ingenious work of imagination, humour and poignance, a satire which cuts both ways, East and West. It confirms Pelevin as the true heir of Gogol, Bulgakov and Dostoevsky, and 'the future of the Russian novel'. (Independent)
