Vladimir Sorokin

[Daniel del Real]

I had heard this name twice before and now I just read he is going to be present in the Guadalajara International Book Fair for this year. I haven't read anything by him but sure his works seems very interesting.
Does anyone have read him?

Short bio courtesy of Wiki:

Vladimir Georgievich Sorokin (Russian: Владимир Георгиевич Сорокин) (born August 7, 1955 in Bykovo, Moscow Oblast) is a contemporary postmodern Russian writer and dramatist, one of the most popular in modern Russian literature.

Sorokin was born on August 7, 1955 in Bykovo, Moscow Oblast near Moscow. In 1972 he made his literary debut with a publication in the newspaper Za Kadry Neftyanikov (Russian: За кадры нефтяников, lit. For the petroleum industry manager). He studied at the Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas in Moscow and graduated in 1977 as an engineer.

After graduation he worked for one year for the magazine Change (Russian: Смена), before he had to leave due to his refusal to become a member of the Komsomol.

Throughout the 1970s, Sorokin participated in a number of art exhibitions and designed and illustrated nearly 50 books. Sorokin’s development as a writer took place amidst painters and writers of the Moscow underground scene of the 1980s. In 1985, six of Sorokin’s stories appeared in the Paris magazine A-Ya. In the same year, French publisher Syntaxe published his novel Ochered' (The Queue).

Sorokin's works, bright and striking examples of underground culture, were banned during the Soviet period. His first publication in the USSR appeared in November 1989, when the Riga-based Latvian magazine Rodnik (Spring) presented a group of Sorokin's stories. Soon after, his stories appeared in Russian literary miscellanies and magazines Tretya Modernizatsiya (The Third Modernization), Mitin Zhurnal (Mitya's Journal), Konets Veka (End of the Century), and Vestnik Novoy Literatury (Bulletin of the New Literature). In 1992, Russian publishing house Russlit published Sbornik Rasskazov (Collected Stories) – Sorokin’s first book to be nominated for a Russian Booker Prize. In September 2001, Vladimir Sorokin received the People's Booker Prize; two months later, he was presented with the Award of Andrei Bely for outstanding contributions to Russian literature.

Sorokin's books have been translated into English, French, German, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Korean, Romanian, Estonian and Croatian, and are available through a number of prominent publishing houses, including Gallimard, Fischer, DuMont, BV Berlin, Haffman, Mlinarec & Plavic and Verlag der Autoren.

One of his recent novels, A Day in the Life of an Oprichnik, describes dystopian Russia in 2028, with a Tzar in the Kremlin, the Russian language with numerous Chinese expressions, and a "Great Russian Wall" separating the country from its neighbors [1].

[Omo]

I read Den Oprichnika very recently, but wasn't impressed. Literary this book hasn't much to offer (apart from some poetry), and politcial/satirical it had a rather weak message. There's the usual amount of drugs and vodka involved, at times it is vulgar, which seems to be seen as a sign of quality in modern Russian literature, and all in all Sorokin's future vision is very reactionary. I'm afraid I can't recommend it.

I also have Bro lying around here, will start that soon.

[Liam]

Originally Posted by Omo

There's the usual amount of drugs and vodka involved, at times it is vulgar, which seems to be seen as a sign of quality in modern Russian literature, and all in all Sorokin's future vision is very reactionary.

I must say that I rather agree with Omo here. I could NOT get through the Kremlin Trilogy precisely because I thought the political message behind it was weak.

Daniel, if you're looking for a good AND easy intro to Sorokin, I suggest you locate a copy of Ilya Khrjanovsky's controversial film 4 (2005). Sorokin wrote the screenplay for it, and distilled his rather bleak and hopeless vision rather nicely--it all fits into the span of a two-hour movie. Personally, although I did not love it, I admired it from many different angles, despite all the filth, the horror, and the darkness.


Cheers,
L

[Daniel del Real]

Thank you for your responses. I also read the Russian Literature thread and found a lot of comments not very jubilant about Sorokin's books. I'll try to find the movie you recommenden Liam and I'll try to get Den Oprichnika which I think is going to be the easiest book to find. I have the curiosity to get my own opinion about him and the only way I have left is by reading him.

[tulse_luper]

just read "the queue" of his a few weeks ago. entirely dialogue, like gaddis' JR to the extreme.

politics not too bleak and a bit playful, (the entire action takes place in a soviet era queue for ever-changing goods: is it sausage? levis? shoes?)

and, due to its structure, you can read the whole thing in about three hours, but at times it comes across as just a stylistic experiment by a bratty grad-student.

and its in print (in the US) by the great NYRB Classics, so can be had pretty easily.

its my only encounter with the writer, but it was moderately favorable.

[DB Cooper]

Just picked up his novel Ice. This will be my first Sorokin and while the reviews Ive seen for this book are quite mixed, the story sounds rather bizarre and interesting. I havent heard of many contemporary Russian authors getting translated these days, so Im excited to take the pulse of whats going on in the literary scene there. Somewhere I saw a comparison made to Houellebecq and I enjoyed the books of his that Ive read.

[DB Cooper]

Started Ice last night, about 1/4 through. The translation appears to be horrible, at least I hope so, otherwise the writing is very underwhelming. The dialogue is stilted and laughable in an unintended way. Also seems like Sorokin is keen on throwing bits in for shock value, but it comes across as being an overplayed joke. The story is actually somewhat interesting, but the dialogue and prose are an albatross weighing down any merit the plot may have. Ill stick it out and see if it improves, but so far color me unimpressed.

[Eric]

I started reading some Sorokin stories once in Estonian translation, but soon gave up. I do rather fear that there is a case of typecast translation in the West, where most things written by Russian males must be about drink, drugs or murder. Vodka, latterday Dostoevskian ladylady choppings, and so on. It would be so nice to find male Russian authors who write about, for example, the countryside, about lives that don't necessarily involve bleak compulsory doses of alcoholism, bullying in the army, and other sick violence. I'm sure that such authors exist, it's just that Western publishers want more of the same sensation. They've sold all the GULag reminiscences, and need another sensational bandwagon to jump on.

[Daniel del Real]

I have Day of the Oprichnik waiting for me at my shelves. I bought it last December when Sorokin was in town. I think I'll read it this month and later will tell you what I think about.

[DB Cooper]

Originally Posted by Eric

I started reading some Sorokin stories once in Estonian translation, but soon gave up. I do rather fear that there is a case of typecast translation in the West, where most things written by Russian males must be about drink, drugs or murder. Vodka, latterday Dostoevskian ladylady choppings, and so on. It would be so nice to find male Russian authors who write about, for example, the countryside, about lives that don't necessarily involve bleak compulsory doses of alcoholism, bullying in the army, and other sick violence. I'm sure that such authors exist, it's just that Western publishers want more of the same sensation. They've sold all the GULag reminiscences, and need another sensational bandwagon to jump on.

I have to agree with you Eric. Im left wondering, since not many current Russian authors are translated into English, is this the best that the Russian literary scene has to offer? Im guessing no, and its unfortunate that Sorokin gets the most ink (at least in my area) of contemporary Russian authors. An acquaintance of mine recently read one of Sorokin's other novels, The Queue, and he wasnt very impressed either. According to him it is filled with the same clipped, terse dialogue that Ice is filled with, and at one point has a roll call of characters names being spoken, then the corresponding character answering "Here" that goes on for 26 (!) pages. I have to applaud the audacity of that, but at the end of the day thats all it is, something audacious. That seems to be Sorokins modus operandi, a Russian Houellebecq.

[learna]

Fazil Iskander ("Sandro of Chegem"- "Сандро из Чегема"), Vil Lipatov, Valentin Rasputin may be interesting for you. They are writers of the stable period when literature has such character that you wrote about.
But as for Fazil Iskander, everything will depend on the translation . The fact is that he is Abkhaz who writes in Russian creating a unic style with a delicate sense of humour and with wonderful Abkhaz tune.
As for poetry, to Robert Rozhdestvensky and Andrey Voznesensky I would add Rimma Kazakova and emphasize - Bulat Okudzhava ( he was a prose writer, as well).
As for the most current writers...
Maybe, essaies by Tolstaya will be interesting for you ( "Square"- "Квадрат", "Decals"(?) -"Переводные картинки" and "Перевод с австралийского" ). She indeed has a feeling of words. I can not say that I am a fan of Grishkovetz but try his "Dreadnoughts", "Shirt" and they say about "Asphalt" ("Асфальт", I have not read it). Now I read some finalists of Big Book,2009 and only yesterday finished a collection of short stories by Olga Slavnicova. I would mark a self-irony story "The Cherepanova Sisters". We can say about a style although then again vodka was she could not do without but it was funny. Yuzefovich and Prilepin are well spoken about.