- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: New Directions (Feb 1 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0811213641
- ISBN-13: 978-0811213646
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13 x 1.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 204 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #506,163 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Named by his father after the Soviet OMON, the Interior Ministry riot police, Omon, a Soviet astronaut, renames himself Ra after the Egyptian sun god. As he approaches his final crisis, Omon reflects on the lies he's told and on the one that has just been revealed to him--that the Soviet space program (that he's based his entire life upon) is entirely other than what it purports to be. As Omon tries to reconcile the events of his life, he remembers what a Colonel of the KGB once told him, " ... the more consciously you perform your feat of heroism, the greater will be the degree of truth." The ensuing truths he uncovers are astonishing.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
A rising star in the Russian literary firmament (see The Yellow Arrow, below), Pelevin, winner of the 1993 Russian Booker Prize for short stories, has written a parody of life under Communism refracted through the prism of the Soviet space program. This clever parable about a young cosmonaut ordered to make the ultimate sacrifice?killing himself after secretly piloting a supposedly unmanned lunar expedition?is sprinkled with throwaway gags, absurdist humor and wickedly ironic touches, as well as with the eerie beauty of space exploration. Obsessed with space travel since early childhood, Omon Krivomazov identifies with Ra, the ancient Egyptian falcon-headed sun god, a fixation that reflects his desire to escape the gray conformity of Soviet life and his yearning for a soul. Omon learns that more than 100 of his fellow cosmonauts have already been sacrificed as guinea pigs after taking part in supposedly automated, manless launches. Pelevin portrays the Russian space program as a vast propaganda enterprise, a distraction to paper over the tawdriness and fear of everyday life. Many allusions will be lost on American readers. And, in light of the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction state of contemporary Russian society, some of the Soviet-era satire seems oddly tame. Nevertheless, as captured in Bromfield's superb translation, Pelevin is blessed with a distinctive mix of eloquence and nervous energy, inventive storytelling and subversive wit.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Omon is not a particularly common name, and perhaps not the best there is. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Omon is not a particularly common name, and perhaps not the best there is. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pelevin is a modern mystic,
By
This review is from: Omon Ra (Paperback)
Most of the reviews available on this page suggest that Omon Ra is a new "1984", i.e., a (morbid) satire of the Soviet State. I would like to disagree with this interpretation. Pelevin is a deeply mystical writer. A mystical writer (especially a Russian mystical writer) would not waste his time criticizing some long-forgotten political regime. Reading Omon Ra as a sad satire of the USSR is like saying that Kafka's Metamorphosis is about the situation in pre-war Austrian Empire or that Borges' The Book of Sand is about the condition of intellectuals in Argentina. People who see only the (pseudo) satirical dimension in Omon Ra hugely underestimate Pelevin.In my opinion, Omon Ra could have taken place in any society and in any era (whence the surreal "reincarnation test" in the middle of the book). It is (as any good mystical novel) a travel of a soul through layers of emptiness. This travel seemingly ends on the dark side of the Moon, in desolation and despair. But wait until you read the last pages before you conclude that suicide is the only solution in the murky world of Russian mysticism. And please, compare Pelevin to Gogol or Kafka rather than to Orwell.
5.0 out of 5 stars
shattered self-identity,
By A Customer
This review is from: Omon Ra (Paperback)
I would reccomend this book to anyone who enjoys parody and especially to anyone who enjoyed Catch-22. Pelevin's book is a deeply funny and deeply heart-breaking commentary about self-identity, both personal and national. It is smart without being self-consciously so, its themes are universal, and the protagonist and his journey are unforgettable.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious view at the Soviet space programme,
By
This review is from: Omon Ra (Paperback)
Omon is a typical Soviet boy growing up in a dreary suburb of Moscow with an absent mother, a drunken father and an uninterested aunt who takes care of him. Since his childhood he want to be a cosmonaut and he shares this dream with a boy from the neighbourhood, Mitiok. Together they apply for Flying School and even make it to the training for the space program. Gradually it dawns on them that the Soviet achievements in the air and in space are not as glorious as they are claimed to be: the space program has a whole new interpretation of the term "automation" which makes the people who have to carry out the "automated techniques" into instant heroes, but in a way you do not exactly want. In the end Omon visits the moon, but not in the way he had expected it to be...Pelevin wraps his criticisms on the Soviet society in a story which is at the same time hilarious, sarcastic and critical and makes you think of Franz Kafka and Joseph Heller. Definitely worth reading.
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