It is a single day, one day, in the life of this Oprichnik, which seemed similar, of course, to Solzhenitsyn's novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I'm German, so you can guess how I feel about walls as a geopolitical idea (spoiler alert: It's shit). So between violence and raping and sex, the book becomes a strange mix of A Clockwork Orange, Fahrenheit 451, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (or any PKD novel filled with drug-use/abuse) and We. With a nod to Solzhenitsyn's gulag masterpiece "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," the book follows a single day in the life of the oprichnik Andrei Danilovich Komiaga. These walls, especially the western one, are meant, in the words of the autocrat’s devoted enforcer who narrates the story, to “cut us off from stench and unbelievers, from the damned, cyberpunks, from sodomites, Catholics, melancholiacs, from Buddhists, sadists, Satanists, and Marxists; from megamasturbators, fascists, pluralists, and atheists!

In this way, Sorokin inverts the key symbolism of Krasnov's book, turning Russia into the male zmei gorynych and the innocent girl becomes the West. Since my knowledge of Russian history is severely lacking, I frankly found both the humor and the historical context to be confusing, which ultimately made this novel difficult to enjoy. For the same novel Sorokin was charged under Russian law as a pornographer, because of a fictional sex scene between former Soviet premiers Nikita Kruschchev and Josef Stalin. The workday starts off with a raid on an out-of-favor nobleman's estate, whose servants are released with one bag of looted furnishing each, the children sent to orphanage, the wife gang-raped, and the nobleman hung in front of his gates.The bravura epic Ice trilogy chronicled the steady corruption of a group of “pure” Gnostic souls from outer space reborn in human bodies who ally themselves with successive autocratic Russian regimes to fulfill their single-minded goal of escaping this vile planet.

Through the Oprichniki help themselves to the property belonging to their victims, this is always justified under the grounds that it is good for the state.Towards the end of the day, the Oprichniki all sodomized one another, forming vast "human caterpillars" as thousands of men have sex with one another as part of the effort to form a collective identity. My favourite bit: His Majesty’s father, the late Nikolai Platonovich, had a good idea: liquidate all the foreign supermarkets and replace them with Russian kiosks. Sorokin's heroes tend to be humanist intellectuals who have to struggle against both corrupt, petty and mean-spirited bureaucrats who are temperamentally opposed to any change and the apathy, ignorance and philistinism of the Russian masses.

Likewise, the Oprichniki of the novel profess to be the ultra-patriotic defenders of traditional Russian culture, but much of their work consists in burning the classics of Russian literature. Day of the Oprichnik is a haunting and terrifying vision of modern Russia projected two decades into the future - or maybe not the future at all. Such convictions are central to the Holy Russian Motherland and the “Eurasianism”-versus-the-West brand of ethnic nationalism that has become a cornerstone of Vladimir Putin’s governing philosophy since he came to power. However you see it, it is definitely an excellent work and one that shows Russia in an interesting light. Day of the Oprichnik is deliciously complex, full of garish science fiction and hallucinogenic fish.Komiaga’s day might not be a typical one but it’s full of executions, parties, meetings, oracles, and even the Czarina.

Choosing one of two creates spiritual calm, people are imbued with certainty in the future, superfluous fuss and bother is avoided, and consequently – everyone is satisfied. Sitter och halv läser på jobbet, jag antar jag inte riktigt tänker på vad jag läser för plötsligt är dom i en bastu, penisar lyser i olika färger och de sätter på varandra så det bildas en ring, MEN på ett manligt sätt. Lovers of history, sociology and politics will all find fascinations to plunge into, but don’t baulk if none of that fires your blood. Bursting with near-hysterical enthusiasm, the latter-day Oprichnik crosses himself and invokes the Holy Church as he righteously inflicts sickening violence on His Majesty's identified enemies". The Tsar of Day of the Oprichnik is presented as all-powerful to his subjects, but he may in fact be a mere puppet leader.It raises some important questions as it stomps around mocking the Russian government, and has its nose sniffing around in the past just as much as it does its near future draconian setting. In Day of the Oprichnik , [Sorokin] combines futurological invention with political archaism to vicious satirical effect . The title of this book presumably comes at least in part from Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.