Generation "П"

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Generation П
Author Victor Pelevin
Country Russia
Language Russian
Genre(s) Novel
Publication date 1999
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 256 pp
ISBN ISBN 0142001813

Generation "П" is the third novel by Russian author Victor Pelevin. Published in 1999, it tells the story of Babylen Tatarsky, a Moscow 'creative' and advertising copywriter. The story deals with themes of post-Soviet Russia, consumerism, recreational drug use, and Mesopotamian mythology.

An English translation by Andrew Bromfield is published by Penguin as Homo Zapiens. An edition by Faber and Faber was also published in the UK as Babylon.

A film adaption by Victor Ginzburg is currently in production.[1]

Contents


[edit] List of chapters

  1. Generation 'P'
  2. Draft Podium
  3. Tikhamat-2
  4. The Three Riddles of Ishtar - Tatarsky runs into his old classmate, Gireiev, and visits his home outside of Mosow. Gireiev and Tatarsky consume some fly agaric mushrooms. Tatarsky, hallucinating, enters an abandoned construction site, viewing it as the ziggurat he read of in chapter three.
  5. Poor Folk
  6. The Path to Your Self
  7. Homo Zapiens - Using a ouija board Tatarsky summons the spirit of Che Guevara to ask him about advertising. By means of automatic writing, Guevara dictates a polemic on the nature of television, based on the thought of Buddhist teacher Siddhārtha Gautama.
  8. Safe Haven
  9. The Babylonian Stamp
  10. Wee Vova
  11. The Institute of Apiculture
  12. Cloud in Pants
  13. The Islamic Factor
  14. Critical Times
  15. The Golden Room - Tatarsky attends a reception in a bunker below the Ostankino TV Tower. He is dressed with a mirror and a mask and taken to the golden room, where he looks into the sacred eye. Azadovsky is strangled. Tatarsky is declared to be ritual husband of the goddess Ishtar.
  16. Tuborg Man - in his role as husband of Ishtar, Tatarsky appears in innumerable television commercials. In the final scene, he is seen as the resting wayfarer in a commercial for Tuborg beer.

[edit] Characters

  • Babylen Tatarsky - The hero of the story, Tatarsky is a former student of the Literary Institute of Moscow and disillusioned poet. In chapter two, he meets a former classmate and becomes an advertising copywriter.
  • Hussein - provides 'security' at the kiosks where Tatarsky works in chapter two. He is addicted to opiates and Sufi music. He recognises Tatarsky in chapter 10, shortly after Tatarsky's hallucinogenic experience. Hussein then detains Tatarsky, but is released by Wee Vova, who is his boss Khanin's protection.
  • Sergei Morkovin - a classmate from the Literary Institute. Morkovin get Tatarsky his first advertising job at Draft Podium. He appears again in chapter 11, getting Tatarsky a position at the Institute of Apiculture. In chapter 12 he inducts Tatarsky into the Institute's secrets.
  • Andrei Gireiev- another classmate from the Andrei Gireiev. In chapter four he introduces Tatarsky to the fly agaric mushroom. In chapter nine he talks Tatarsky down after his acid-induced hallucination. He supplies Tatarsky mushrooms one more time in chapter 14.
  • The Sirruf - this is a winged, dog-like dragon which appears to Tatarsky during a hallucinogenic trance in chapter nine. Amongst other things, it claims it is guardian to the Tower of Babel.
  • Farsuk Seiful-Farseikin - TV political analyst at the Institute. He inducts Tatarsky into the society in the penultimate chapter.

[edit] Major themes

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[edit] Mesopotamian Mythology

Motifs from Mesopotamian mythology are widely represented in the book by various references, symbolic coincidences and the final denouement. The most prominent image is the one of Ishtar – goddess, feminine origin related to Venus. It’s the most constant and significant theme, the rest appears as a support for it. The idea beneath the motif of Mesopotamian Mythology seem to serve the purpose of deification of advertising as in the end the most powerful media corporation appears to be a Chaldean Guild sustaining (preserving) the balance between good and evil by means of deft informational manipulations. Tatarsky’s experimenting with death caps that give him creative inspiration also has mythological background – death caps are sacred mushrooms of Ishtar, consequently it looks like the goddess inspires him. Tatarsky’s name also bears a sign of symbolism – Vavilen, apart from being an acronym from the names of Vasiliy Aksenov and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, can also be interpreted as a variation of the word Babylon, or Vavilon in Russian.[citation needed]

[edit] Consumerism

The subject of consumerism is discussed on several levels: - Conceptual level. Society is presented as a primitive abstract organism – ’’oranus’’. Oranus is a virtual embodiment of man’s longing for possession. On biological level, it is equal to a multi-cell primitive mollusk. However it is able to steer society’s economical processes by means of various media and among others advertising. - The theme of advertising creates the ground-level of the novel. It depicts the mechanics by means of which one group of people stimulates consumption of goods by the other group of people at the same time fulfilling their own demand for material values. - Material level. Set in post-soviet Russia the image of materialistic approach to life is especially successful because soviet attachment to things is incomparable to any other. It stemmed from the constant lack of things during the seventy year soviet period. Therefore, when Pelevin captured the stage of initial “making up for things amassment” the effect turned out to be particularly powerful. The most successful image in the book is the exhibition of monetarist minimalism – an exposition of certificates issued by various auctions and art dealers confirming the price paid for this or another work of art. - Drug abuse as a signifier of status. Tatarsky presents a specific approach to taking drugs as a marking point on the social level. Discussed in latter chapter.

[edit] The role of drug abuse in the book

There are three drug-related themes in the book, all of them symbolizing and relating to different issues. Tatarsky’s first hallucinogenic experience is having death caps with his institute mate Gireyev, who has turned to various kinds of esoteric and Buddhist learnings. This experience is one of the bonds tying the plot of the book to Mesopotamian Mythology. Death cap is a sacred mushroom of Ishtar the most prominent female deity, feminine origin, and also a symbol of a starry sky. In Mesopotamian Cosmology she was related to Venus, the morning star. It is said that death caps were given to the contestants (participants of the lottery or the three Chaldean riddles) before ascend to Ishatar’s ziggurat, and that the “ascend” is nothing more than a hallucinogenic “trip” as an effect of intoxication. The other two experiences are juxtaposed with each other. Tatarsky’s cocaine abuse signifies rather his social status than the addiction itself. Vavilen himself notes that it is the price of the drug that counts and that if glue cost a thousand dollars for a tube it would be the top trend drug taken by all the celebrities. The other issue he pays attention to is the way to take it cocaine - to sniff it through a hundred dollar bill. Thus the essence of cocaine intake is in its material value, and the status it gives you not the physical experience itself. Acid, on the contrary, is represented as a “pure drug”, a stimulant that let us experience spiritual enlightenment. Acid is also a kind of transition between ancient stimulants like mushrooms and modern synthetic drugs, which combines modern technology and ancient purpose.[citation needed]

[edit] Mammon – Oranus

Pelevin employs William S. Burroughs' motif of “one all-purpose blob” as a metaphor for a society subdued to consumerism. Like Burroughs’ blob, representing degradation of “ordinary men and women” to an organ that can fulfill their basic bodily needs, Pelevin’s oranus represent degradation of an individual to a cell in biologically (if such term can be applied to a concept) primitive but at the same time powerful organism that governs our consumer habits. In order to govern and spur the constant flow of money and goods, which play a role of blood and lymph, oranus uses media as a kind of nervous system to steer its cells’ activity, namely selling and buying. What is important, is that oranus, or mammon, actually represents a psychological need of consumption. So in the end we may conclude that human psyche creates a concept to which it finally subdues itself and part of which it becomes.

[edit] Media-biasing and homo soveticus

Media as an influential instrument are one of the core themes of the book which is a witty cross-section of the advertising business and how it manipulates people. By means of notorious advertisements audience is made to adjust themselves to what is transmitted on TV and thus become Homo Zapiens – zapping man. The phenomenon of a zapping man can be explained in the following way: enormous amounts of advertising make us flip channels in order to avoid watching ads. As a result television, in a way, remotely controls us, and theoretically ad patterns and blocks can be shaped in such a way that at a particular moment we will come across a certain program on a certain channel, still being unaware of being steered. Therefore instead of searching for the needed info we run away from the unwanted one. What is more Pelevin uses an example of society whose mind and consuming habits is tabula rasa and therefore may be shaped in almost any suitable way. Post –soviet man was an ideal target for advertising attack. The Iron Curtain filtered all information coming from the outside of the USSR, thus acting somehow as a biasing program. The mind of homo soveticus after the Union’s fall was a perfect target for ad-biasing. Lack of information, and at the same time enormous information thirst created unique conditions - an advertising tabula rasa. By means of ad material more or less adjusted to cultural background anything could be sold as the mentality of homo soveticus had no reference point and this way was unable to judge about the offered products. In such conditions information transmitted from the screen is perceived as the true one, especially by those who have trusted the TV for the past 50 years. Any ad is perceived as a reliable and valuable info-source. Thus the task of a copywriter is simplified to nil – any information he supplies will be perceived as eternal truth, and the product will be sold.[citation needed]

[edit] Conspiracy theory

Pelevin presents rather far-fetched but not totally impossible vision of the world governed by virtual puppets created, upgraded and controlled by the media corporations. But “not totally impossible” should not be understood literally. Metaphorically media puppets shown in the novel may actually represent modern authorities whose success without exception depends on media, and how those media present them to people. The idea of this metaphor lies in the concept that when we see a politician or a public activist on the TV we see not a real person but rather an image created for the certain purpose whether to capture attention, rouse empathy or simply improve the rating of a political party or any other organization. Pelevin draws attention to the fact that the audience has no power to control media and the flow of information they deliver through press, television or the Internet.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ "A Novel Enterprise", The Moscow Times, March 17th, 2006.