Omon Ra chronicles
the space adventures of its title character, one Omon Krivomazov, whose policeman
father names him for the special
forces unit of Russian law and order; Omon’s older brother (deceased from
meningitis) was named Ovir, after the group that keeps track of visas and
residency registrations. Omon, however, dreams of the freedom of outer space instead
of earthly controls: as a child, he lives near the Kosmos movie theater and
enjoys films about pilots. He even pretends to be one in the play cottage
outside his building, and he makes friends with another boy who wants to fly.
Omon’s glorification of the space program has an almost spiritual feel to it: Omon thinks weightlessness must be the only true freedom and he sees no peace
and freedom on earth. Meaning Omon and his friend go to flight school, where
(of course!) propaganda and the religion of politics become important aspects of their lives and mission. A lieutenant-colonel speaks to the new cadets,
telling them, in Andrew Bromfield’s translation, “…we have to remember the responsibility
we bear on our shoulders, don’t we? And make no mistake about it, by the time
you get your diplomas and your ranks, you’ll be Real Men with a great big
capital M, the kind that exist only in the land of Soviets.” Lenin appears,
too, with two “major works on the moon—‘The Moon and Rebellion’ and ‘Advice
from an Outsider’.”
 |
| Truth is stranger than fiction: 1970 Soviet lunar rover. |
Since we’re in the land of Lenin and Soviets—as depicted by Pelevin,
who loves to twist what’s already far, far askew—the space program isn’t quite
what we might expect. ***Unless we already know the book’s secret! I will now
commence including details that might spoil Omon
Ra’s plot… That said, I knew the book’s secret but didn’t feel especially
sorry I did.*** When Omon and several others begin their training for a moon
mission, they’re stationed in an underground compound and told they’ll make the
ultimate sacrifice. Just as odd: Omon’s lunar rover is a low-tech piece of equipment
with a bicycle frame and “spy-hole lenses” that “distorted everything so badly
there was no way I could tell what was outside the thin steel wall of the hull.”
The fact that Omon lives to tell his story means something
goes wrong—well, right—and Omon, the guy whose lunar rover isn’t so different
from the bike he rode as a kid, doesn’t make it to the moon. But that doesn’t
mean he’s cheated out on a journey: he still has a flight of sorts, complete with
a supply of тушёнка (canned
meat) and radio conversations with his flight colleagues, who apparently die in
the early stages of the expedition.
The reason Omon Ra
worked for me is that Pelevin manages to combine risky satirical material—shooting
down the space program as a propagandistic fake that keeps people underground, in
the dark, away from that weightless freedom—with the solid structure I
mentioned earlier. Even if some of the book’s motifs, such as certain central
Moscow locations, felt a little heavy-handed, Pelevin shows decent self-control
with his material, even as he draws in the Tunguska event—how could
it not get a mention?—and fake hunting trips for VIPs. And, yes, even Pink
Floyd.
Level for Non-Native Speakers
of Russian: 2.0 or 2.5/5. The language in Omon Ra wasn’t as difficult as the inherent absurdities and
oddities, some of which felt a little inconsistent.
Up Next: That
list of translations, which I will have to finish for next week: yesterday I
started Dmitrii Bykov’s Ostromov, a
big, long book with small print that will take weeks. It hooks in nicely with
some of my other Petersburg reading. (Bely’s Petersburg has been set aside, at least for the duration of the
semester… it just doesn’t mix with the rather hurried pace of life right now…)
Disclosures: I
always enjoy speaking with translator Andrew Bromfield and publisher New
Directions.
Photo credit: NASA via Wikipedia.
This photo looked eerily similar to what I imagined as I read Omon Ra.
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