As my plane flew over the former Soviet Union en route to Tokyo one starry night, I opened Victor Pelevin's slim, mysteriously titled novel Omon Ra, recently translated from Russian into English (and German, French, Dutch, and Japanese).
Remember when launching satellites was as heralded as sending wireless email? Pelevin, a thirtysomething Moscow novelist and voice of postglasnost hip, captures the absurdity of overromanticizing technology in this clever flashback satire, in which cosmonaut Omon Krivomazov is ordered to kill himself after piloting what is supposed to be a roboticized expedition to the Moon.
Pelevin lavishes the reader with elegant description ("I ran outside and stood there ... swallowing my tears as I stared up at the bluish-yellow, improbably near orb of the moon in the transparent winter sky"), and he pokes subversive fun at '70s political culture (Henry Kissinger hunts men in bear costumes during a visit to Russia).
What makes Omon Ra an intriguing read is witnessing the drama through the protagonist's wide-eyed point of view. Curious and sincere, Omon ceaselessly questions how things work, hungrily analyzing his surroundings - from the illogically small supply of rations in his spacecraft to the ubiquity of macaroni stars in the cafeteria soup.
Omon Ra, by Victor Pelevin (translated by Andrew Bromfield): US$23. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: +1 (212) 741 6900.
