Victor Pelevin

Why you should read Pelevin

Viktor Pelevin has been meeting with the most famous intellectual writers for many years. If we take into account the almost thirty years of belonging, then on his account there are not so many works. He usually takes his time with his problems, and the magazine publishes a book a year.

His work is based on a combination of Buddhist philosophy, social satire and a vivid description of the life of the most ordinary people. With rare exceptions, his works are not covered by others, and only minor mutual references can be seen in them.

But even on a general theme, each book by Pelevin is unique, and the form and presentation are greatly appreciated. Therefore, before starting to read, it is better to familiar

ize yourself with a guide to creative work.

Pelevin's prose, creating a mythologized and multi-layered picture of reality, is built on the interweaving of the fantastic and the real, the historical and the fictional. In the spirit of postmodernism, it abounds in hidden quotations, allusions, the game semantic clichés. Buddhist symbolism neighbors in it with occultism, European philosophy with mysticism, didacticism with parody, active presence of realities of modern culture with

Pelevin's works are characterized by the mixing of elements of different genres - adventure novel and parable, fairy tale and anecdote,pamphlet and utopia.

In a conversation with BOMB Magazine, Pelevin named Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita as an early influence on his reading, saying, "The effect of this book was really fantastic. This book was totally out of the Soviet world." Pelevin avoids, however, listing authors who have specifically influenced his writing, for he believes that "the only real Russian literary tradition is to write good books in a way nobody did before.