Fin Keegan

AS RUSSIA SLIDES further into chaos and dissolution (what internal strife does not achieve sheer loss of heart and conscience seems likely to) and her miserable people wage war on their neighbours and themselves, there is little to give observers hope for the Russia of the third millenium, a nation whose glories, though usually tainted by expansionism and xenophobia, are now long past and well beyond repeating, even in benevolant forms. Russia’s population is falling, her regrets accumulating and, with persistant anti-semitism, a parlous economy and a sense of having been duped by History, she increasingly resembles inter-war Germany. One of the few things to cheer about is the rude health of her literature, since in Russia books are still important, though never approaching the state-sponsored print runs of bygone days or the intense devotion of samizdat literature. And among young writers none is more accomplished or admired than Victor Pelevin, whose failure to win the Little Booker in 1999 was greeted with outrage by the Russian reading public. Read MORE of my review of Victor Pelevin’s Omon Ra