Alexander Pelevin’s Четверо (The Four), a finalist for this year’s National
Bestseller Award, is something of a wonder. Before I get into the why, I’ll say
that I knew next to nothing about the book before reading it and am glad I picked
it up with so few preconceived notions. I won’t include big plot spoilers in
this post, but I will mention a few of the motifs that I picked up in my one reading.
(I realized as I read through my post that I didn’t even get around to one of
the big ones. Consolation: that means I won’t spoil it!) Those motifs only
partially decoded the novel for me, but even so, I’m glad I didn’t know about
them before reading. You have been warned!
So, what makes The Four a wonder? Pelevin writes three
story lines from what I consider three distinct genres – futuristic science fiction,
retro noirish detective story, and modern-day psychiatric drama – to compose a
novel where one of the key glues (and clues) is “Гость на коне” (“Guest on a Horse”), a poem by
Alexander Vvedensky. (Four horsemen of the apocalypse, coincidence or not?) The
sea is another form of glue, and this sea is often very elemental, even a sort of
primeval goo from ages ago, a living being unto itself. I will say no more.
The first chapter opens in 2154, on a space ship hurtling to
the planet Proxima Centaur b, located in a solar system that is (of course!) far,
far away from ours. Four astronauts have just come out of eighty-seven years of
stasis and it’s time to prepare for landing and research on Proxima Centaur b.
The spaceship’s operating system, Aurora, is essentially a super-advanced Siri
or Alexa: she’s friendly, seems to know everything, and knows Bowie’s “Space
Oddity” in many languages; she’ll recite some Gumilev poetry, too. Shortly after the ship’s commander, Lazarev,
refuses Aurora’s generous offer to sing “Space Oddity” in English, Pelevin
whisks the reader back to 1938, to Crimea, where a certain Vvedensky ((!) I
wrote “such a marked name!” in the margin), a Leningrader, has arrived to
investigate a murder; strange scenes and grisly situations, including murder
victims with metal stars on them, will follow. I particularly liked an
unusually worldly character named Kramer, who has lived overseas, shows a scholarly
bent, and feeds both Vvedensky and many feral cats. When we’re zapped forward
to 2017, a psychiatrist, Khromov, is working with a patient who claims to
communicate with a woman from another planet. (Three guesses where it is…)
Khromov has his own issues and would love to just spend some quiet time at New
Year’s with his wife and daughter, who seem close to perfect.
Twin Peaks was apparently an inspiration for Pelevin
and the Twin Peaks connection does fit with certain aspects of the
novel: NatsBest jury reviewer
Vasily Avchenko notes, for example, the things-aren’t-always-as-the-seem
element. As a long-time fan of Twin Peaks who enjoyed The Four,
speaking in the broadest terms, it’s safe to say both endeared themselves to me
through their oddness, twisted hominess, smartness, and otherworldliness. They’re
stylish and easy to take in but filled with layers of meaning and enigmas that take
multiple viewings/readings to sort. Of course that’s fun. And of course I’m missing
a zillion references, not just from Twin Peaks. There’s lots from 2001 (I’ve never seen it, though
I grilled my husband about HAL) and even, apparently, Aelita, which I read in my pre-blog
life (there was such a time!) but don’t remember well.
Thinking back to the atmosphere(s) in The Four got me
pondering (yet again) (sub)genres like speculative fiction, slipstream fiction,
and new weird, largely because they tend to bend. This brought back Dmitry
Olshansky’s NatsBest
review, which I’ll summarize as calling The Four interesting but unsuccessful;
he reads it as a B-movie sort of thriller with some artsy moments thanks to the
Vvedensky and Gumilev bits. I would argue (for starters) that Pelevin’s ability
to lift his wonderfully pulpy-sounding material by working the poetry – plus
references to classic science fiction books and films – into not one but three
plotlines goes well beyond the demands of a b thriller. Even better, Pelevin
does all that without making me feel manipulated. To the contrary: I found The
Four pretty stimulating and am still flipping through it to pick up on humor,
ruminate on genre questions, and track motif mentions and starts of idea threads
that I missed because I was so caught up in the plots. And then Pelevin’s play with
time – the stasis years are an existential time warp unto themselves, plus the
three plots link up – reminded me of, among others, Vodolazkin, who also
mentions a plethora of cats in Crimea. (Cats!) Finally, I have to agree with another
NatsBest reviewer, Natasha
Romanova, that The Four’s Crimean detective track recalls Lev
Ovalov’s Major Pronin novels, which I enjoyed three of in my pre-blog life.
I’ll close by saying that a kind friend with a big suitcase brought
me another Pelevin novel that I’ll read soon. My recent contemplation of how I read
has shown me that I’m more oriented on authors’ worldviews than ever before – books
and stories by Alexei Salnikov and Evgenia Nekrasova, which are also about
weird places and hidden aspects of the universe(s), are exhibits A and B – so
I’m planning to read that (and perhaps Pelevin’s debut novel, too) before returning
to The Four. Beyond wanting to decipher more of the novel as a whole, I want
very much to be in that spaceship again with Lazarev, so far from home and trying
not to think about Earth. (Ah, floaty existential moments!) Perhaps that’s why
he balks when Aurora goes haywire for a bit and recites “Guest on a Horse,” a
poem whose last sentence, in Eugene Ostashevsky’s translation
for New York Review Books, is “I forgot about existence,/ I again/ contemplated/
the distance.”
Disclaimers and Disclosures: Huge thanks to the very kind colleague
who brought me a copy of Четверо.
(He brought me another NatsBest finalist, too, Alexander Etoev’s Я буду всегда с тобой (I’ll
Always Be With You), though I’ve set that one aside, at least for now, after
seventy-five pages. It just couldn’t hold my attention after The Four.) Thank you to New York Review Books for sending me, several years ago, a copy
of An Invitation for Me to Think, a selection of poems by Alexander
Vvedensky translated by Eugene Ostashevsky and Matvei Yankelevich. Ostashevsky’s
introduction has been useful since the Vvedensky is clearly a key to The
Four. Vvedensky and his бессмыслица (Ostashevsky suggests meaningless, absurdity, and
nonsense as translations), which I know so painfully little about, are sucking
me in.
Up Next: Evgenia Nekrasova’s Kalechina-Malechina
and stories about more weird worlds.
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