Summary Generation P Pelevin

VO Pelevin
Generation P
“You, Vavan, do not look for symbolic meanings in all, but you will find it.” – With these words Fareykin refers to the main character of the book Tatarsky. Or, most likely, this author turns to the critic, anticipating the exposure of the idea. And I did not heed the warning, I began to search and found.
It was difficult to find – too much camouflage, designed to disguise the main content of the novel. Well, nothing, I got used to it. The plot of any Pelevin’s work is always abundantly flavored with a variety of grotesque turns, strewn with intricate notions, exotic sketches. Here they are also enough, and some of them can even be mistaken for the main content of the plot. It seems, here it is, the key of the entire composition. But no, not that! Take at least the “Spanish collection of paintings.” Put almost to the very end, this scene suggests that Pelevin devoted the whole book to one task: to draw

a modern portrait of the consumer society. Immediately a parallel emerges with the “One-Dimensional Man” Herbert Marcuse. Paper with seals – instead of paintings and sculptures.
Perhaps, “GENERATION P” could be taken for the domestic version of “One-Dimensional Man”, and Pelevin – for today’s Russian Herbert Marcuse. And reactions to the book, sort of like, confirm the conjecture. The reading public recognized themselves. That is why some people are enraptured by this novel – they found out. Therefore, others express a sharp rejection – also learned. Yes, one could accept, but do not do it.
I can assure you: Pelevin is not Marcuse. And its readers are not rational to the bones of Western eggheads, but… well, you yourself know who. Pelevin’s image of the current tele-computer society should be seen only as a separate lateral twist of the plot, and not as the main idea. Analyzing any Pelevin’s books, one always follows the principle: look for the archetype! So I have to proceed to deep excavations.
What is the symbolic meaning, which archetype is laid here as a cornerstone? Despite the fundamental differences between composition and language, I see a parallel between “Aumont Ra” and “GENERATION P”. There the main character searches for the true essence, rushes through life, soars up, falls to the bottom and, in the end, finds himself. Comprehension of the Self is the main archetypal foundation of “Omon Ra”. Something similar is found here.
Until the very last chapter, I was wondering what was used as this very cornerstone, as the basis of the composition. On the title of the chapter, I came across as if on a dark wall in the night: “The Golden Room”. I wanted to shout: “Well, of course, as I did not guess before?!” Chugo is such an unexpected I saw in the title “Golden Room”
To explain intelligently, I need a little digression with an example from our real life. Any normal person (and an abnormal one, all the more) most firmly digests ideas that he does not consciously swallow, but attains directly, unconsciously. Talented works of art work almost exclusively unconsciously. Masters working in the field of literature, painting, cinema, in order to be understood, should use symbolic images. Art is distinguished from the crafts precisely because it speaks the same language in which one receives messages from the personal unconscious in dreams. Through the same channels, believers receive messages from God. I will give for example several symbols connected in a single system.
I will not intentionally refer to some ancient Egyptian papyri or to Greek mythology. All the main archetypes were meaningful even in ancient times and are described in the legends of each of the great nations. And refer to those layers of culture, of course you need. However, I will now describe the vision of the modern twelve-year-old girl. This is not an ordinary dream. KG Jung called such dreams a great dream. It is great by a single system of fundamental symbols. You will see that the archaic symbolism is also alive today, like five thousand years ago, that it is capable of affecting the human psyche.
So, a girl of twelve years sees a dream in which four (four) children, two girls and two boys, ride on one board with wheels (skate). The board is divided into two equal halves – blue and red. During the skating, the dream character, a girl associated with an ego dreaming with herself, meets with a young man (known as a rock musician), and at the end of the night comes to a grandmother dressed in a yellow (gold) dress and with an orange shade on her head. Grandmother pronounces a dreaming instruction, setting as an example to her one of the four initial characters of sleep. But the dreaming ego comes into dispute and leaves sleep in opposition to the grandmother.
I had to describe the dream in brief. His symbolism is as follows. Four guys are four hypostases of the dreamer, four functions of her psyche (as well as four directions of the world, four seasons, four evangelists, etc.). The blue board (skate) is the dreaming intellect (the male origin is Jan). Let me remind you: two boys were riding on it. The red board is her feeling (female Yin). Two girls were riding on it. The later emerging rock musician is an animus, that is, the male half of the soul is a dreamer. With an animus in the future, she will unconsciously compare the men in her life as she grows up. And grandmother – this is the most important, the central symbol of the dream, – Self, which forms the essence of the human personality (and not at all ego!). The figure of the color of the sun is at the same time the central symbol, around which there is a whole unconscious mental activity, and a symbol of God. In a strongly differentiated psyche, with the developed religiosity of thinking (not of religion, but of religiosity, as a psychological property inherent in every normal human being), the symbol of the Self and God merge into something one. In a weakly differentiated psyche, there is no association with God.
I will not go even deeper into explaining the system of symbols with which the unconscious person operates. I return to the work of Pelevin.
Each Pelevin’s work is somewhat akin to a literary exercise. He takes another archetype and builds a composition around him. In the story “Mittelshpil” (see below), the relationship between the eternal universal principles of Yang and Yin is being worked out. In the book “Chapaev and Emptiness” (see below), the quaternary is taken as the basis of the structure of the book – there is a calculation of the personality of the psychiatrist. The approach to comprehension by the person of the Self is found in “Aumont Ra” (see below).
In “GENERATION? P ‘” the author went further than “Omona Ra”. Let’s just say: now is not a hero, but the author went further and transformed the Self into its logical consequence. And the logical consequence of the Self, as I have tried to explain above, is, not too much, God. True, Pelevin somewhat softened – not God himself, but the husband of the goddess Ishtar. But this changes little. The hero throughout the narrative drifts somewhere, creates commercials, then begins to create through the powerful computer of presidents and deputies, and in the end turns out to be the creator of the destinies of all people, that is, almost God, receiving the baton in his hands – a mobile phone with a single button on the panel. Tatarsky’s involvement in the divine is hinted by the author, when in the commercial the character cries: “It was steeper near Kandahar!” The reader will involuntarily think: “
As we see, thanks to the abundantly scattered text on the text, the reader gets a feeling of depth from reading the work. I would not compare this feeling with that which occurs when reading “The Brothers Karamazov” or “Anna Karenina.” In no case! Pelevin has archetypal symbols placed in the text too rationally, prudently. Sharp corners of the symbols bulge outward. However, Pelevin’s works, in particular “GENERATION P”, look not only advantageous in comparison with soulless mass hand-made articles in the soft cover, but also with attempts of a number of modern conscientious authors who try to understand the meaning of life. What can you do? – Pelevin better understood the symbolic structure of the universe.
Before going from the deep analysis to the composition, I would like to dwell on two particular points, namely: the use of English phrases and pieces of boring text in italics.
What did I initially dislike about the new novel? Constant English inclusions in the text. And the name GENERATION “P” instead of the Generation “P” seemed unjustifiably non-Russian, yet literature is something Russian. However, after thinking about it at leisure, I understood the possible interpretation of the frequent use of English phrases. In traditional scientific articles, in Western Europe and with us, it is customary to use Latinisms. Some son of an academician writes an article on nuclear physics, and he himself thinks about how to go somewhere else, for example, to Japan. He thinks so and automatically inserts into his mind the phrase: Ubi bene, ibi patria. Without explanation and translation, of course. Or another scientist who decided to privatize and commercialize his research site, deduces in the text of the article a different phrase: Homo homini lupus est. But Latin was the language of the Middle Ages, and now a new era was born, television and computer. Here is a new Latin Pelevin sprinkles on GENERATION “P”. Yes, Latin of the new era is English. That’s why these phrases importingly glance at the text. They reveal in the reader, so to speak, the main sign of education. But the question hangs in the air: what should readers do that have never learned English and are not going to start studying, for example, me? I prefer the old Latin. But the question hangs in the air: what should readers do that have never learned English and are not going to start studying, for example, me? I prefer the old Latin. But the question hangs in the air: what should readers do that have never learned English and are not going to start studying, for example, me? I prefer the old Latin.
Certain places in the novel are thoughtfully boring. But they also contain a deep, deep-seated bomb, meaning. Or so: the design is buried. You can dig it out, but it’s difficult. When reading, for example, philosophizing Che Guevara there is an interesting feeling: emptiness gives birth to thought. However, where is Che and Pelevin? It is possible to take any more or less coherent text with clever and paradoxical turns, but without sense, without any consciously laid substance. Read this text should be at least ten minutes, so that attention, tired with a complete lack of meaning, could turn off and begin to freely wander the unknown paths. That’s when the main effect comes from quasi-philosophical reasoning. The reader from the unconscious emerges his own thought, which, starting from the concrete turns of speech of the previous coherent text, and therefore will have novelty. This thought belongs to the reader, but the author of the text also made his invisible contribution to her birth. This effect can be called posmodernism, it is possible and post-culturism, – not in the name of the matter. The main achievement of the author of this text is that new thoughts arose. Otherwise, he wrote simply nonsense. However, in a certain psychological state, any more or less intellectually developed reader is capable of generating new thoughts from reading decisively any text. Here is an analogy with viewing images like “The Magic Eye”. Among seemingly absolutely meaningless mottles of the pattern, after ten minutes of observation you discover a geometric figure, or suddenly a skeleton. This effect can be called posmodernism, it is possible and post-culturism, – not in the name of the matter. The main achievement of the author of this text is that new thoughts arose. Otherwise, he wrote simply nonsense. However, in a certain psychological state, any more or less intellectually developed reader is capable of generating new thoughts from reading decisively any text. Here is an analogy with viewing images like “The Magic Eye”. Among seemingly absolutely meaningless mottles of the pattern, after ten minutes of observation you discover a geometric figure, or suddenly a skeleton. This effect can be called posmodernism, it is possible and post-culturism, – not in the name of the matter. The main achievement of the author of this text is that new thoughts arose. Otherwise, he wrote simply nonsense. However, in a certain psychological state, any more or less intellectually developed reader is capable of generating new thoughts from reading decisively any text. Here is an analogy with viewing images like “The Magic Eye”. Among seemingly absolutely meaningless mottles of the pattern, after ten minutes of observation you discover a geometric figure, or suddenly a skeleton. in a certain psychological state, any more or less intellectually developed reader is capable of generating new thoughts from reading decisively any text. Here is an analogy with viewing images like “The Magic Eye”. Among seemingly absolutely meaningless mottles of the pattern, after ten minutes of observation you discover a geometric figure, or suddenly a skeleton. in a certain psychological state, any more or less intellectually developed reader is capable of generating new thoughts from reading decisively any text. Here is an analogy with viewing images like “The Magic Eye”. Among seemingly absolutely meaningless mottles of the pattern, after ten minutes of observation you discover a geometric figure, or suddenly a skeleton.
But is there any merit of the author that from his delirium, the reader gave birth to his own delirium? Did he put a certain hidden image in the pattern? Apparently, he pawned. Once again, I note that the latest conclusions concern only those places in the book that Pelevin selected in italics. The rest of the places are heavily stuffed with author’s ideas or freshly borrowed from somewhere.
About Pelevin’s abuse of obscene words, I probably will not say anything. Let it remain on the conscience of the author.