A Surreal Lampoon of Humanity’s Grand Delusions
Reviewed:
by Vladimir Sorokin
Translated by Max Lawton
NYRB Classics, 352 pp., $18.95 (paper)
Publication Date: 8/16/22
Woven into a tapestry of terror and drug-laced delirum, Sorokin’s Telluria draws readers into a caricatured future fueled by perennial desires and lust. Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin is notorious for his experimental style and outlandish—at times nauseating—stories. Originally published in 2013, Telluria delivers another audacious work that envelops nationalism, religious fanaticism, and carnal desire.
“They don’t want to remember, they dismiss our concerns, they say there’s no need to stir up the past, that we need to live in the present and move into the future like this joyful carnival crowd.”
The novel is set in a dystopian future after a series of ethnic and religious wars, where Russia has been partitioned and large segments of the population have become addicted to Tellurium—a next-generation drug that produces a hallucinogenic, euphoric high. Emanating from these surrealist foundations are fifty chapters, each presenting a distinct narrative with its own dialect, worldview, and style. Sorokin flows seamlessly between polemics against Russia’s historic despotism: “Russia was a frightening, antihumanist state at all times, but the monster was especially beastly during the twentieth century, when blood simply flowed like a river and human bones crunched in the dragon's snout,” and provocative reflections on psychoactive substances: “All famous narcotic substances have always led us down the garden path, substituting our desires for the desires of the substance, our will for its will, and our idea of pleasure for its idea of pleasure.” Seemingly emblematic of this era of humanity, this overpowering metallic substance is contained in a nail meticulously driven into the skull by a skilled carpenter, sending the recipient into a blissful dream state, a sexual escapade, or a visitation with a deceased relative. Denizens of these fragmented regions also use a device referred to as a ‘smartypants,’ employed in a prophetic manner that reflects humanity’s inseparable link to technology.
Rather than tell a linear, overarching narrative, instead Sorokin provides a panorama of a collapsed Russian world ruled by entropy and sensual pleasure. It’s a world where nationalistic expansion prevails, where citizens risk death for the rapture of a tellurium nail, and where gay lovers visit a Stalin-themed nation-state only to become victims of their lack of sycophancy. Despite being more reserved than his earlier works, Telluria still pushes boundaries with obscenities and hyperbolic events to drive home its ridicule of state-sponsored terror and egoism. Praise must also be given to translator Max Lawton for his creative attempt to render the unique dialects and irregular styles into English.
The novel has its lulls and indulgences but largely conveys the world of desperation and extremism that Sorokin fears for Russia’s future. It is a masterful blend of lampoon, absurd tales, fantasy, social realism, and dystopian fiction that thwarts any attempt to be summarized or categorized.
