Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin

Abstract

hope (she will go out and make friends) and depression (she totally avoids her neighbors), Mathea’s approach to life is schizophrenic. Oddly, this characterization seems natural. Will she find a way out of the darkness? Or will she slip further into irredeemable melancholy? As a tragicomic novel, The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am invites reflection : What is it, exactly, that determineswhetherornotwearetrulyalive ? Mathea is sad because, like so many lonely people, she cannot find validation . Fortunately for her—and for the rest of us—Kjersti Skomsvold’s novel may provide the corroboration we seek. Shaun Randol New York Vladimir Sorokin. Day of the Oprichnik . Jamey Gambrell, tr. New York. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 2011. isbn 9780374134754 We jump some two decades ahead: high tech, 3-d virtual-reality communications , a ten-lane road and four high-speed rail tracks underground connecting Guangzhou to Paris through Russia to support the dominant Chinese manufacturing exports. We are safely in the future, or are we? Russia is again ruled by a tsar, the country is surrounded by walls to the south and the west, the Orthodox Church has fully restored its influence , and most Russians have burned their foreign passports in fires lasting for months on the Red Square. Actually , the walls of the Kremlin are painted white again as in old times, reflecting more closely the original meaning of the name: the “Beautiful Square.” This is the fiction for a not too distant future by Vladimir Sorokin, author of many novels, short stories, and plays. Born in 1955, he lives in Moscow and has won the People’s Booker and Andrei Bely prizes. He started as a dissident and has blossomed in post-Soviet times. Day of the Oprichnik describes a day in the life of Andrei Danilovich Komiaga, one of the elite members of the Oprichnina, an Inquisitiontype order brought to life to punish the enemies of the state. The original Oprichniks were the dreaded, pitiless guards of Ivan the Terrible, and their black clothes and horses created fear whenever they showed up. Komiaga will race in his Chinese-made Mercedov car in the special lane reserved for the privileged, while the plebeians are stuck in Moscow traffic; suppress unruly boyars (members of the aristocracy ), rape, censor, do shady deals both for the benefit of the order and for the entertainment of the top brass, drink and indulge in potent and exquisite drugs, all the while convinced that he is a true defender of the pure Orthodox faith and the Russian king. 66 | World Literature Today wltreviews Garrett Hongo Coral Road Poems Knopf Relying on the history of his own family, Hongo’s third collection of poetry speaks to issues of immigration and the meaning of homeland. Each poem is set in Hawaii, where Hongo’s Japanese ancestors live on the margins of existence as minorities in a troubled era of history. Though each story simply represents a shard of experience, Hongo’s powerful compositions “bring forth a complete aesthetic experience.” Johan Harstad Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? Seven Stories Press Harstad’s Buzz Aldrin has already been published and marked as a best-seller in eleven countries. The protagonist, a thirtysomething Norwegian gardener named Mattias, holds Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, as his ultimate idol. After finding himself abandoned in the middle of a rain-soaked highway in the Faroe Islands, Mattias embarks on a journey that will show him that sometimes traveling through the space of relationships is a journey similar to landing on the moon. Nota Bene Sorokin is a real master of painting the different scenes, from dark and frightening to satiric and comic, as when Komiaga is called upon to be one of the censors at the general rehearsal for an upcoming festive concert in the great Kremlin hall. The resemblance to Soviet-style pumped-up patriotism and propaganda is striking. One might be tempted to brush away this uncomfortable vision as too dark and improbable in the global, interconnected world. But careful reading of the news from Russia can give us pause. And the power grab of elites, who live in a world closed to the...