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"A dazzling, utterly distinctive saga from Russia's most celebrated-and most controversial-novelist. Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia's most popular and provocative novelists. In his scabrous dystopian satire Day of the Oprichnik, American readers were introduced to his distinctive style, which combines an edgy avant-garde sensibility with a fondness for the absurd and even the grotesque-all in service of bringing out stinging truths about life in modern-day Russia. In The Blizzard, we are immersed in the atmosphere of a nineteenth-century Russia. Garin, a district doctor, is desperately trying to reach the village of Dolgoye, where a mysterious epidemic is turning people into zombies. He carries with him a vaccine that will prevent the spread of this terrible disease but is stymied in his travels by an all-consuming snowstorm, an impenetrable blizzard that turns a drive that should last only a few hours into a voyage of days and, finally, a journey into eternity. The Blizzard dramatizes a timeless metaphysical predicament. The characters in this nearly postapocalyptic world are constantly in motion and yet somehow trapped and frozen-spending day and night fighting their way through the storm on an expedition filled with extraordinary encounters, dangerous escapades, torturous imaginings, and amorous adventures. Hypnotic, fascinating, and richly descriptive, The Blizzard is a seminal work from one of the most inventive writers working today"--
"In this short, surreal twist on the classic Russian novel, a doctor travels to a distant village to save its citizens from an epidemic, but a metaphysical snowstorm gets in his way"--… (més)
My second Sorokin of the year took me through a snow storm of biblical proportions. ‘The Blizzard’ tells the tale of a Doctor’s struggle to reach an out-of-the-way Russian town to which he must take an antidote for a mysterious plague that has made its way there from Bolivia (apparently). He hires a baker with a sled and a countless band of fantastical mini horses to help him navigate the storm and reach his destination, but upon the way, various events crop up (namely illicit liaisons with a midget’s wife, Kazakh drug merchants selling 3-dimensionally shaped hallucinogens, a garage/cocoon device, a huge snowmen and giants) impeding and delaying their progress. Having read Day of the Oprichnik, I guess I anticipated a reasonable amount of bizarreness but this novel-come-fable felt like a purposefully strange piece of writing and in hindsight, reminds me of a Studio Ghibli production (albeit with a lot more realism) crossed with budget 1980s cartoon films adaptations. Despite there not being a clear discernible meaning in the work, after various discussions it seemed that the struggle of life offered by a buddy reader was a good punt as to the message of the novel. Furthermore, the Odyssian overtures to their quest to deliver the antidote, left us wondering if Sorokin ever really intended ‘The Blizzard’ to be passable. I can’t say I loved ‘The Blizzard’ but I didn’t particularly dislike it either. It provoked good discussion, reminded me of the work of Lazslo Krasznahorkai and made me think a lot about those tiny horses and whether they were warm enough! ( )
Ein Buch, in dem das absolut Bizarre nicht Selbstzweck ist, weiß ich doch sehr zu schätzen. Ein Arzt fährt mit einem Mobil, das von 50 Miniatur-Pferden betrieben wird, durch einen Schneesturm, um ein Dorf gegen Zombie-Befall zu impfen. Ein archaisches Abenteuer, durchsetzt von surrealistischen Szenerien und aus der Zeit gefallenen Erfindungen und das alles im Rahmen einer sehr klassischen Erzählung. Hier passt Goethes Definition einer Novelle wirklich. Was "Unerhörtes" und so. Ihr wisst schon. ( )
Essentially a two-hander, this short novel follows a sleigh-driver and a doctor as the former tries to transport the latter through a winter tempest to deliver vaccines to a plague (or zombie) infested settlement. The whiteout dissolves everyday forms, renders the familiar unknowable; unexpected hard objects lurk beneath the drifted snow to impede their progress. Reality is misshapen, too, in several delightful ways (people and horses come in three Gulliverian sizes; nomadic mages seem able to spraypaint matter into existence) and there’s a tantalizing near-future dystopia lurking beneath the surface story. I love how Sorokin works in the literary tradition of Russian sleigh- or coach-trips, especially in terms of the master/servant dynamic that waxes and wanes between Garin and Crouper as their relationship succumbs to the shifting of the wind and snow. It reminded me of the journeyings of Tchtchikov as much as the sleighride in War & Peace but I’m sure there’s a ton of references to Russian lit that went over my head — I did catch the phrase “foundation pit” which surely isn’t there by chance. There’s a hallucinogenic sequence which is actually relevant AND readable, one of many (a blizzard of) encounters that ensure the narrative never congeals or gets too introspective. I think the breadth of imagination, depth of the two main characters, and spectacularly sad ending make this my favorite Sorokin so far. ( )
An odd book. Set in a dystopian future: there is mention of the Russian Revolution [by another term] and past Stalin days, it begins by a doctor hoping to reach a distant village to vaccinate the inhabitants against the Black Bolivian Plague, which turns people into zombies. A fierce blizzard is raging, and the doctor wants to push through it. He engages a sled and driver, with miniature horses. Beginning with a trope of 19th century Russian literature, the story then introduces whimsical and fantastic elements, large and tiny people and animals, and other strange obstacles stretching out the trip from hours to days. There are imaginings and nightmares of both the doctor and his driver. The doctor's impatience and stubbornness turn the story into tragedy. Is a possible moral "Haste makes waste?" The main character's being a doctor and so much mention of pince-nez reminded me of Chekhov, because of both things. ( )
This book was weird and I liked it. Do yourself a favor and read this completely 'blind' - no plot summaries , spoilers , don't even read the description inside the book cover. ( )
"A dazzling, utterly distinctive saga from Russia's most celebrated-and most controversial-novelist. Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia's most popular and provocative novelists. In his scabrous dystopian satire Day of the Oprichnik, American readers were introduced to his distinctive style, which combines an edgy avant-garde sensibility with a fondness for the absurd and even the grotesque-all in service of bringing out stinging truths about life in modern-day Russia. In The Blizzard, we are immersed in the atmosphere of a nineteenth-century Russia. Garin, a district doctor, is desperately trying to reach the village of Dolgoye, where a mysterious epidemic is turning people into zombies. He carries with him a vaccine that will prevent the spread of this terrible disease but is stymied in his travels by an all-consuming snowstorm, an impenetrable blizzard that turns a drive that should last only a few hours into a voyage of days and, finally, a journey into eternity. The Blizzard dramatizes a timeless metaphysical predicament. The characters in this nearly postapocalyptic world are constantly in motion and yet somehow trapped and frozen-spending day and night fighting their way through the storm on an expedition filled with extraordinary encounters, dangerous escapades, torturous imaginings, and amorous adventures. Hypnotic, fascinating, and richly descriptive, The Blizzard is a seminal work from one of the most inventive writers working today"--
"In this short, surreal twist on the classic Russian novel, a doctor travels to a distant village to save its citizens from an epidemic, but a metaphysical snowstorm gets in his way"--
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Google Books — S'està carregant…
(3.61)
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Having read Day of the Oprichnik, I guess I anticipated a reasonable amount of bizarreness but this novel-come-fable felt like a purposefully strange piece of writing and in hindsight, reminds me of a Studio Ghibli production (albeit with a lot more realism) crossed with budget 1980s cartoon films adaptations. Despite there not being a clear discernible meaning in the work, after various discussions it seemed that the struggle of life offered by a buddy reader was a good punt as to the message of the novel. Furthermore, the Odyssian overtures to their quest to deliver the antidote, left us wondering if Sorokin ever really intended ‘The Blizzard’ to be passable.
I can’t say I loved ‘The Blizzard’ but I didn’t particularly dislike it either. It provoked good discussion, reminded me of the work of Lazslo Krasznahorkai and made me think a lot about those tiny horses and whether they were warm enough!
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