Igor
Savelyev’s short novel Терешкова летит на Марс
(Mission to Mars in Amanda
Love Darragh’s upcoming translation from Glas) takes a dim view of the
generation that was in its early twenties during the final moments of December
31, 2006, when Mission to Mars opens.
The first sentence in the book is “Путин
замолчал.”—“Putin fell silent.” Now that Putin has finished his New
Year’s Eve address, there are shots of the Kremlin, then the Russian anthem plays and “2007” flashes on the TV
screen.
Mission to Mars
focuses on Pasha, an unfocused, unmotivated guy whose very focused, very
motivated girlfriend, Natasha, has just moved from provincial Russia to
Pittsburgh. Pasha’s the guy who chose the vaguely named “social-humanitarian”
department of the pedagogical institute for his higher education: the
department is best known for a deficit of males and low admission standards. Pasha’s
two best friends are a guy from another city who moved away from some juvenile
crime problems and an aspiring writer.
Pasha manages to find himself a job at the airline ARTavia,
where Max, a distant relative, works. The airline focuses on вип-клиенты, VIP clients, flying them to
Moscow (and only Moscow!) on planes that are all business class. The best part
of ARTavia, however, is that it promises no crashes: Max says their liners just
can’t, won’t, wouldn’t crash. Ever. ARTavia even holds regular meetings with
clients to pound that into their heads like a mantra. Almost literally: it’s interesting
to see how Savelyev portrays corporate promises and loyal clients almost like a
cult. Pasha, however, learns certain truths about ARTavia and, with a little
help from his afore-mentioned friends—and Olga, a young woman whose wealthy parents
signed her up for ARTavia—reveals it to the public.
Their handiwork is, as might be expected, not very handy.
And things end up badly, very, very badly, between Pasha and Olga, whose
company Pasha had been enjoying in Natasha’s absence. It’s
not enough to call Pasha’s behavior loutish and disappointing: his absolute
lack of feeling and mercy made his rating dive from relatively harmless directionlessness
and dumbheadery to real, multileveled cruelty. (I don’t want to say too much,
particularly because the book is coming out in translation.)
 |
| Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova |
Savelyev consistently portrays Pasha as someone who respects
people who are goal-oriented—e.g. Natasha, who’s primarily a distant presence—but Pasha just is what he is, writes
Savelyev, complete with failures, ups, and downs. It doesn’t make for a very hopeful picture. It’s telling that the figure in the book with
the biggest goals isn’t a fictional character: she’s cosmonaut Valentina
Tereshkova who, despite being 70 years old, says she’d like to fly to Mars.
Tereshkova, by the way, really
did say that in an interview with a reporter, even answering a question
about UFOs by saying she hasn’t seen any but might if she were to fly to Mars.
Mission to Mars
reads fairly easily and Savelyev does a nice job placing his characters within a
social, personal, and mental stagnation that feels constructed specially for an aimless, hopeless character like Pasha. And his friends.
Details like an escalator lady in Moscow and a reference to Twin Peaks add another layer to Pasha’s
reality and unreality. The novel is funny at times but it’s also very bleak, so I felt myself wincing
more than once at quietly sad details of lives and life… and the feeling of
being trapped, something Savelyev describes with substantial success.
Up Next: Evgenii
Vodolazkin’s Laurus, which I’m still
enjoying.
Disclaimers: I’ve
met, briefly, Igor Savelyev several times at book fairs and events and am
working on translations for publisher Glas.
Photo of Valentina Tereshkova in 1969, from RIA Novosti, Creative
Commons.
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