Latest offering from Russian cult novelist <PERSON> divides and confuses critics · Global Voices
Detail from the front cover of <PERSON> “искусство легких касаний” (“The Art of the Light Touch”), published 2019. Image via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
This August, prolific Russian writer <PERSON> published his newest novel “The Art of the Light Touch” (Искусство легких касаний). <PERSON>, who has published a new book every year since 2011, is hailed by literary critics and adoring fans as an “ undeniable genius ” for his stark analysis of Russia's contemporary political and social climate. But <PERSON> is also something of a mystery: the author has not given an interview or been on a book tour in over a decade. Indeed, many fans suspect that <PERSON> is less an individual and more a conglomeration of many different authors. Some even think he is a computer.
For his part, <PERSON> has done nothing to dispel these rumours and conspiracies. Whoever he really is, <PERSON>’s talent is undeniable. He fuses esoteric philosophy with sharp observations on current events. In 2009, <PERSON> was voted the most influential intellectual in Russia; his works have made it into the postmodernist literary canon and are taught in every philology department in Russia and in universities abroad.
That reputation made the mixed reviews which met this year's eagerly anticipated novel all the more surprising.
Unlike <PERSON>'s recent works, “The Art of the Light Touch” is not a novel, but a collection of tangentially related short stories. It is also less of an explicit reflection on Russia's politics and provides a broader and more philosophical reflection on the country's predicaments. Perhaps, writes critic <PERSON>, <PERSON> is simply “tiring of his role as professional interpreter of Russia's political reality.” But if that's true, it doesn't mean that these fantasies are any less interesting for those seeking to understand contemporary Russia.
Iakinf, the first of the trio, is the most readable. 880
It is the story of four friends (a banker, a late-night television host, a sociologist, and a glazier) on a hiking trip in Kabardino-Balkaria, in Russia's North Caucasus. They are led by <PERSON>, a mysterious guide who gradually reveals his past as a psychic during the tumultuous 1990s and his acquaintance with a mafioso who employed him to summon the ancient spirit-God <PERSON>. <PERSON> captivates his audience and readers alike with tales of ancient spirits and child sacrifice. We are left wondering what the latter signifies: are Russia's youths and their futures being ritually sacrificed to maintain power structures? Is progress and potential being sacrificed to feed the power-hungry Russian authorities?
At the end of each night, the four friends question their narrator’s story. Is <PERSON> really a powerful mage, or just a talented fabulist? They find out soon enough. As they choose their paths, the friends find themselves before the mountain where <PERSON> once summoned the ancient spirit <PERSON>. They follow the steps of <PERSON>'s spirit children who were ritually sacrificed, and the four friends disappear without a trace. Following the frame narrative, a literary device beloved by Russian authors <PERSON>, <PERSON>, and <PERSON>, this story ends just as it began. <PERSON> rides down the mountain on his bicycle, whistling his out of tune French ballads, waiting to lure more unsuspecting travellers.
The menace of myth and unreality is also a strong theme in the third story, titled Stolypin: Fight After Victory. It is a continuation of <PERSON>'s recent book Secret Views from Mount Fuji (2018), and features the same protagonists. It is set in a dreamscape, at first a train, which turns out to be a boat, and is a linguistic exploration of prison slang as well as a psychological investigation of the prison mentality. <PERSON> presents a twisted, post-Soviet Russian version of <PERSON>’s cave : a warped view of reality from behind the prison bars.
But it is the second story, by far the most substantial, which has most captivated critics’ attention.
Also titled “The Art of the Light Touch”, it is a detective narrative which attempts to tie ancient masonic conspiracies to contemporary politics. The story's protagonist is <PERSON>, a prominent Russian philosopher and historian specialising in Freemasonry. 351