The Slynx (New York Review Books Classics)

"The Slynx" is one of those works that kept circulating on the edge of my reading consciousness. People were always bringing it up in conversation as something that, of course, we'd all read. Except that I hadn't. So I finally decided to rectify this error and fill this lacuna in my reading knowledge.Let's get this out of the way right off the bat: "The Slynx" is weird. Not just a little weird, but full-on, what-is-this-madness, weird. It's a dystopian novel set several hundred years in the future, but it's dystopian scifi in the vein of Zamyatin's "The Cave," not "The Hunger Games" or all the other popular dystopian scifi pouring out of the US right now.Fans of popular Western dystopian fiction may thus find themselves left hanging. There's a plot, but it's not your standard triumphing-over-evil-and-adversity fare. In fact, pretty much everything about the story is ambiguous, often leaving the reader in doubt about what is happening and what has happened.But you don't read novels like "The Slynx" in order to find out what happens, although stuff *does* happen in the book. Instead, it's...well, it's not exactly an allegory, but it's sort of allegorical. Really what it is, though, is a commentary. "The Slynx" is a commentary about Russian and human society, about what is lost and what remains. It's also a powerful commentary about the dangers of losing civilization.The plot, such as it is, follows Benedikt, a healthy and handsome (which is a rarity) young man in a post-nuclear wasteland that was once Moscow. His mother was an Oldener, one of the people who survived the blast and became impervious to old age, living for hundreds of years until accident or poisoning carries them off.Along with the Oldeners, there are Degenerators, who also survived the blast but were somehow transformed into semi-human beasts of burden. One of the things the books leaves up to the reader's interpretation is how human the Degenerators are: at first they're presented as being basically equine, but they become more and more human as the book progresses. This tracks the way Benedikt experiences them: at first he sees them as non-human, but as he gets to know them, he interacts with them more and more on a human level. This does not, however, make him like them more. On the contrary, the Degenerators, like most of the other characters, are presented as both pitiable and dangerous. Once a Degenerator attains a position of power, he misuses it, in a long-running theme in Russian literature about the dangers of the oppressed suddenly coming to power. Readers of Dostoevsky will find themselves nodding along in these sections of the novel.The most notable aspect of the book is how Tolstaya combines elements of Russian history and Russian literature into a rich stew. The society of the Golubchiks--what those born after the blast are called--is a mixture of the worst aspects of Soviet and medieval Russian society, combining servile feudalism with heartless bureaucracy. Benedikt is a copy clerk, like Gogol's Akaky Akakiyevich; his job is copying out fragments of classical Russian literature, which the town leader is passing off as his own work. Benedikt is convinced by one of the Oldeners to carve a statue that is supposed to represent Pushkin, which leads to a number of jokes about how Pushkin is our everything. The spirits of Zamyatin and Bulgakov also infuse the text, along with many other Russian authors. The overall impression is one that a lover of Russian literature will enjoy getting submerged in; others may find it a bit confusing. The translation, however, is excellent, and there are notes that explain which works are being quoted.Tolstaya began "The Slynx" during Perestroika, and finished it at the beginning of the Putin era. It reflects, at a deep, dream-like, subconscious level, the fears, concerns, and warnings of that time. Russia's past contained much that could be discarded--but after the blast that swept away the past, it was the worst things that were being preserved, while art, culture, and basic decency were being forgotten or actively jettisoned. "The Slynx" is not an easy read, but it's an extremely interesting one, and one that reflects both the era that produced it, and the universal danger of sliding backwards into barbarism when society undergoes fundamental changes. It's a warning and a cry for help from post-Soviet Russia, but it's just as applicable to a crumbling America, or any other country staring into the potential holocaust of global warming.

Dystopian post-apocalyptic fiction is not a genre I would normally read, but I read this book as an assigned book group selection. It is very dark and very funny and very disturbing. One of the reasons I have always loved Russian literature is because it celebrates the resilience and beauty of the human spirit. This has elements of that celebration but also commemorates the scalier side of human nature ( that's a joke you will understand if you read the book). The redemptive message of the sustaining value of art keeps the reader afloat, barely, through an astonishing portrayal of life after the Blast.

Some of the names have been changed, but otherwise, yea - this is a story of the life of the amazon guy

The review from Publishers Weekly is wrong saying that the world described in The Slynx is the world of permanent winter. The reviewer obviously have not read the book.The book is a masterpiece of Russian language. I suppose it is equally hard to translate to English as to translate Shakespeare from English. Tolstaya's language is not a simple Russian, it is a colorful, rich literature language. Note that the book is written as if on behalf of Benedikt. And Tolstaya in a masterly fashion gives the prose a rural and still noble shade of Russia primordial. It's really enjoying.

Slow to start the plot, this novel is occasionally confusing, and probably 100 pages too long. The post apocalyptic tableau is misleading; this is an overwrought Russian fable. It's best classified in the post-modernist, semi-fabulist genre. I suspect some of its appeal was lost in translation, but I also suspect the Translator may have saved the book by her superb rendering of Russian colloquialisms into English. The ending is a disappointment. There are some redeeming qualities. Several laugh out loud moments of Russian humor and irony. I liked the novel plot device of "Olden-Timers" who survived "The Blast", were mutated and apparently immortalized. The descriptions of "golubchiks" muddling through winter hardship were simultaneously comical and horrendous. Other NYRB books I have read have been outstanding. This book was mediocre.

This is a witty story in spite of its dark theme, but you really need to have a good background knowledge of Russian lit, history, and politics to get the jokes/references. I usually pass on the books I enjoy to friends, but I fear that few of them would see the humor here.

Tolstaya is an amazing novelist. I've never read any of her poetry, but I want to after reading this. I hope she writes more novels in the future. The vocabulary she creates is interesting and hilarious. This book gives insight to the origins of politics and art. It is profoundly thought provoking and enlightening. You owe it to yourself to read this book.

I read this book as a possible addition to a college course I'll be teaching soon. I really tried to give it a chance, but it's just a really boring . . . I can't say story because there is none. It's like sitting on a log with some old geezer while he tells you random anecdotes about an otherwise forgettable person in his village. The allure (I suppose) is that it takes place in a dystopian world sometime after "the blast," an apocalyptic event. Unfortunately, the world Tolstaya describes is pretty unimaginative. A little bit of Zamyatin-like narration in "We", presenting a fragmentary picture, and a lot of Gogolesque narrative unreliability, but not very well done.

In the end I am pleased I persevered with this book and got it finished: in fact the final hundred or so pages were a joy to read. The opening two-thirds though, was rather heavy going: as we are repeatedly confronted with the everyday idiocy of post-apocalyptic life without much to chew on except the endless mice that make up the staple of a golubchik's food and commerce. Perhaps that is the point?Later some bigger themes do become apparent and it even becomes something of a page turner, but it's hard work to get to that point.The translation is excellent (in the sense that one does not feel one is reading a book written in another language) and the paperback edition is marvelously presented.

Exceptional vision, style, content, and exceptional translation. Even the cover (of the NYRB edition) is spot on.Although set in a dystopian future, this is very much about the present day, just as it is very much about art, life, human relationships, and our perceptions of the world. Yet it never once becomes a lecture. Delivered almost as if being told on a winter's evening by the fire to a group of friends, this work manages to be serious and comic at the same time, manages to be realistic and fantastical, creates a world that has one foot in fairy tale and one foot in the world of the Gulags. And it does it seamlessly, with wit, joy, and consummate skill.For anyone tired of the bilge that passes for literature these days in English speaking countries, I would heartily recommend this.

My new favourite book of all time! An incredibly engaging story, though I have to admit I couldn't tear through it. I had to have pauses and think about what I'd read. It's a brilliant blend of humour, drama and thinly veiled criticism of a certain way of life. The protagonist is well-fleshed and an intriguing character, and who makes me smile whenever I think of him, though there's an excellent cast to get to know along the way.Hats off to the translator too, it must've been difficult to capture the essence of this book from its Russian and recreate it in English. Obviously I can't comment on the original text, but this is a great and almost unheard-of rarity.

Post-apocalyptic fiction is rarely funny but this novel is quite a treat. It's both amusing and frightening, with cynical and distrustful characters, an inventive take on dystopian literature. Set in Moscow (now called Fyodor-Kuzmichsk) around 200 years after the Blast it's a primitive society of `oldeners' or the survivors born before the event and `consequences' people with deformities born after the Blast. It's the society where books and freethinking have been outlawed since the Blast, people catch mice which form staple food and a currency, half-human, four-legged Degenenerators are used to pull sleighs and almost everybody is afraid of the monster the Slynx. The novel revolves around the life of an ordinary citizen Benedikt whose job is to hand-copy the works of the current leader/dictator Fyodor Kuzmich Glorybe. On the spur of the moment Benedikt proposes to beautiful Olenka and his life transforms when he finds out his father-in-law has a room full of books. Kudos to James Gambrell, the translator.

This book is packed full of the most marvellously funny vigniettes about human interaction ...... they are just so believable .They are also a platform for the emergence of very clever metaphors for how totalitarianism keeps things in check , yet at the same time breeds resentment and insurrection on a minute scale............. very very clever.