Publishers: Ad Marginem, Moscow
Borges meets Sorokin in “an atomic bomb of a novel for the progressive reader,” from the best-selling author of NAILS and PASTERNAK.
The Socialist realism novels by Gromov, some mediocre Soviet author who died in the eighties totally forgotten, suddenly become a treasure: it is discovered that the books possess magic powers. If read intently, they can change the physical condition, the state of mind, and psyche of a reader, each book in its own way. The boring novels with original titles like “Fly, Happiness!” or “Silver Valley” are actually the Book of Power, Book of Memory, Book of Wrath, Book of Joy, and Book of Strength, and affect a reader correspondingly.
In “Gromov's” reality, where the books—or rather the effects they produce—become the most appreciated value, people who once read a novel of Gromov's are obsessed with getting the other ones. This results in the emergence of half-mystical, half-military sects called “libraries” (sometimes in quite unsuitable places, such as prisons or old people’s homes), each run by a “Librarian”. In their quest for Gromov’s books, the libraries cooperate or fight with each other, with kitchen knives and ladles for armaments and old car tyres for protection, sometimes with devastating outcomes. The ultimate goal of all the libraries is to find the banned Book of Meaning, the entire edition of which was destroyed due to Krushchev’s anti-Stalin campaign.
Oblivious of the existence of “Gromov’s universe”, a young man named Alexei Vyazintsev arrives in a provincial town, coming into possession of a flat inherited from his deceased uncle—but instead finds himself in the possession of another inheritance. His uncle was an influential “librarian”, and now Alexei is to take his place. He will fight together with the members of his library for Gromov’s books, until he reaches the long-desired one, the Book of Meaning, to discover the greatest, and probably the weirdest, secret of all.
Mikhail Elizarov creates shocking descriptions, picturesque battle scenes, and yearning pathos, entangled in all-enveloping irony, to draw the reader implicitly into a world where reading is the only possible mode of existence for both individual and nation.
Praise for the novel
«A powerful, invincible text».
Afisha
«Extraordinarily successful, viable, talented; simply outstanding».
TimeOut
«Elizarov is one of the most outstanding young Russian writers today».
Vedomosti
«A novel about the Soviet universe».
Gazeta
«A true epic novel. One that could have been written by Andrei Platonov».
Knizhnaya Vitrina
