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Oct 06, 2008

Michael rated it:

Viktor Pelevin has given us a delightful critique of modern Russia inside a love story, which is inside a fairy tale, which is inside a meditation on the Tao, or perhaps it is the meditation on the Tao that is inside the fairy tale, which is inside the love story contained in a critique of modern Russia. Whichever way the elements of this magical narrative nest, the matruschka-doll nature of the novel is appropriate to the subject. What that subject may be is a bit harder to describe, since wh More...

4 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

I am an equal opportunity kind of girl. I can't help it. I was raised in the US and I am not so oblivious to my own socio-political biases that I don't notice that how I believe in opportunity, the possibility of justice from the courts, and that the church and state must be separate things for freedom of ideas to survive. See, I sound like an American. I may be more aware of my belief system that others are though. My grandfather, one of the Bolsheviks who left before Stalin came to power, sat More...

5 comments like (16 people liked it)

Jan 06, 2009

Cameron rated it:

Every so often while reading the burgeoning urban fantasy genre, I long for a more literary text. Though I thoroughly enjoy my escapist and predictable werewolf yarns, the yearning for something with more weight often assails me at the novel's completion. Attesting to Pelevin's reputation as one of Russia's leading contemporary novelists, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf provides that density of subject and verbage. Knowing this is a translation, I am amazed at the translator's adept handling More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2009

Becca rated it:

Not sure how a book about a werefox prostitute in post-Soviet Russia manages to be boring, but this novel managed to do just that. Color me seriously disappointed.

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2008

Trickey rated it:

Although this book was translated from the original Russian, there is certainly nothing lost in both language and social context. Pelevin makes references to cultures all over the world in a seamless and elegant manner which only enhances the large ideas he is trying to convey. Definitely not a traditional "story" in any sense, more of a diary construction with the reader as confidant. At times the enlightenment theory is just as confusing as if it was coming from a zen master, but the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 14, 2010

Tim rated it:

Two cautions. Waterstones put this on their horror shelf - it isn't a horror novel and it adds nothing consequential to the werewolf genre. It might just slip into the dark fantasy category but only at a stretch. It should sit nowhere else but under general fiction.

The second is the claim on the dust jacket that it is 'very funny' or 'outrageously funny'. It is not - in English. It can be mildly amusing at times but I think you have to be a post-Soviet Russian to get this book.
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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 29, 2010

Peter rated it:

If I was judging this book on pure imagination and the content of its ideas, it would receive a much higher ranking. Unfortunately, I am judging it as a novel. And as a novel, it was hit-and-miss. Sometimes Pelevin can coast for chapters on his premise (a two-thousand-year-old Chinese werefox in the body of a teenage prostitute), but as I got deeper into the book, I wanted a stronger narrative and less philosophical digression to keep me locked in. The protagonist was well done and even set up w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 12, 2009

Kat rated it:

This book's beginning is very promising and highly original. A werewolf does make an appearance eventually, but the main heroine is a werefox and werefoxes are a very interesting, hitherto unknown (to me) breed. The translation seems excellent, with lots of word play rendered v. deftly in English. There is a compelling love story, and a lot of imaginative sex scenes (and I do mean imaginative!! Let me just allude to the importance of the tail in a werefox's life in general and sexual passion in More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jun 14, 2011

David rated it:

This began rather well but petered out into facile observations (literary, historical, scientific, social) and endless, endless lists. At the beginning I'd rather high hopes for the book but the heavy handed name-dropping and the following, turgid, explanations of the theory, which infantilizes the reader, became too much to over-look.

Also, the book was thinly plotted. This left me wondering what Pelevin was attempting with the book more than a literary character analysis. If the More...

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Sep 19, 2010

Hubert rated it:

A clever premise: a were-fox (A Hu-li) disguises herself as a prostitute and has lived for 2000 years by feeding off of the energy of men. Somewhere along the way, the were-fox meets a werewolf (doubled as an SB officer), Alexander, and eventually discovers love. The story is heavily allegorical, and tends to comment critically on Western culure, capitalism, and contemporary society in the morass of the post-Communist period. The relationship between A and Alexander serves as a vehicle towards d More...

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Jan 04, 2009

Stacie rated it:

A love story that formulates into a personal velocity. A book told from the female, were-fox perspective. A unique supernatural world developed with strong philosophical exploration.

What I liked....
Fantastic lines like "...a man's weak spot is the fantasies that fill his mind." So much of this story made me stop and really focus on the meaning of what was being transcribed. The philosophical points of view can be followed easily with this main character. I can argue w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 05, 2009

Sarah rated it:

I admit I enjoyed this book overall. The story was interesting though I feel it was kind of awkwardly written, possibly because the story was really secondary and I'm not used to reading that kind of fiction. It might only appeal to people who are into Eastern philosophy already and have done some previous reading on it. The stuff Pelevin talks about is pretty much right out of almost every single book I've read on Taoism and Buddhism, but he obviously understands it or he wouldn't have been More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 02, 2011

Candace added it

either i loved this book or i really REALLY hated the one i read before it. the narrator's voice was very well crafted, giving off just the right blend of modern street-savvy with the experience of living for thousands of years. another reviewer wrote that pelevin was one of a bright new generation of russian writers, but one of the things i loved about the book was the flavor of "old" russian and the old russians (nabokov, tolstoy, etc.) scattered throughout, mainly as seen through a More...

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Jul 27, 2011

Dave rated it:

Hilarious and much in the style of a Michael Bulgakov novel but entirely contemporary. wonderful read, I loved every minute of it.

The book starts as a curious work of Russian style magical realism but, once the basic premises have been accepted, launches head-first into some deeply philosophical dialogue about perception, reality and the state of the world.

It would be easy to be put off by this but the book is simply too much fun to put down. Readers who are familiar with some basic cognitive More...

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Aug 22, 2010

Greg rated it:

Victor Pelevin has been one of those writers that has been calling out to me for years now. I see his books at work, and some of them I think, "I should buy this someday", and others look like books that would irritate me. And over the years the idea that his books will irritate me had been winning out over getting enjoyment out of his books.

I don't know what I really expected from his books. Maybe a Russian Douglas Coupland mixed with Chuck Palanhuick? Look at this c More...

12 comments like (12 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2009

Jason rated it:

In modern Moscow, a werefox prostitute falls in love with a werewolf FSB (formerly KGB) agent, and seeks enlightenment through philosophy and Buddhism. Sexy and smart, and full of Nabokovian turns of phrase. Just as the fox's tail spins a glamour on her clients, Pelevin's wordplay ensorcells the reader, and a satire of contemporary Russia transmutes into a profound exploration of the very notion of existence itself.

The only quibble I had at all was a minor one, that of the werefox no More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 18, 2009

Alex rated it:

A Hu-Li is a two thousand year old Chinese werefox and a 15 year old virgin prostitute in today's Moscow. Her name also transliterates into the equivalent of "Who gives a f--k" in Russian and she's both entertained and upset about this. This book is about, in no particular order, sex, transcendence, love, transformation, Russia now, fairy tales, Russia then, oil politics... but most of all transcendence. Its weird, its funny, its sad, its shallow at times and philosophical at others. I More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 15, 2009

Eden rated it:

Ok, I've finally had enough of this book. Finished it about 3/4 of the way though, so perhaps the ending is so spectacular as to make the whole thing worthwhile... but I doubt it.

In brief, this is a modern book by a Russian author, translated into Engligh, who tells the tale of a 2000+ year old fictional were-fox prostitute living in modern day Russia.

Unfortunately the actual plot line - magical were-fox type creature who is basically a normal looking woman with an adju More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 12, 2011

Stacey rated it:

This is a novel that has a fantastic beginning, but ends up meandering into a long-winded philosophical debate. I never read this kind of book, but I randomly picked it up in the library after the blurb gave me the illusion that it was going to be an exciting love story between two were-creatures.

However I did genuinely enjoy reading the story. It had moments where the main character would start waffling on about 'what is truth', but then again I did eventually become rather interes More...

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Apr 06, 2010

Jacqie rated it:

This one made me laugh a couple of times. The conceit of an immortal werefox who feeds of the psycic energy of her johns while reading a magazine is a pretty funny one. And being immortal, our heroine has many droll observations on life and culture. Then she meets up with a werewolf! Their relationship is also pretty humorous, and somewhat touching as well.

Unfortunately, this little idea is really just a cover for the author to expound upon his philosophies about the environment More...

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Jun 05, 2011

Nigel rated it:

The manner in which I read this book is also the most fitting description I can give. A relentless, feverish, migraine inducing musing on the nature of life, the universe and our place in it, (or the none existence of all the former). but foremost an exploration of love and lust as partly a hypnotic deception but also as a real power and something central and to the "human" experience(yes, the novel is about actual werewolves) and on the incompleteness of life without it. It is not how More...

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Jan 19, 2009

Meave rated it:

It wasn't the book I was expecting, specifically it is much more A Story About a Mystical Fox Demon Who Becomes Involved with a Werewolf, Who Is Actually More of a Supporting Player in the Fox Demon's Life, but it was still interesting enough to make me want to finish it. I liked the fox demon. I wish it hadn't been written by a man; there were details that clearly said "A MAN WROTE THIS" and that gave me icky feelings when hearing them say that, if you will.

Still, it's a c More...

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Jan 19, 2009

Ian rated it:

This fantastic tale (in part about a fantastic tail) is an engaging window into Eastern attitudes towards the uneasy conflation of post-Socialist bureaucracy and Western-style capitalism that has characterized Russia for the past two decades. Pelevin's characters inhabit a sort of neverland that exists in the overlap of reality and allegory, and through them he explores various belief systems and coping mechanisms. While this could easily result in less character depth, however, Pelevin's prim More...

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Jul 21, 2011

Maxine rated it:

Never judge a book by its cover – or its title! When I saw this on the Guardian’s 1000 Books on Twitter I just had to get it from the library. Whilst it was entertaining, a lot of it also went over my head. Perhaps if I read more philosophy and Russian literature/history I would have appreciated it a bit more.

On the surface it’s a love story between a were-fox and a were-wolf, it’s very unusual and in places quite funny, but it’s not a horror novel which I was expecting and it’s not More...

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Feb 24, 2011

Memphis rated it:

The best kind of books for me are the kind that can keep you interested no matter what is going on in the story. Victor Pelevin is one of the best at doing this. A fox that acts as a high end prostitute sure. A Russian army general who turns(transforms) into a werewolf on a dime. Yeck yeah! A wolf-dog on dopamine howling at a skull to get oil. For Sure!! A long discussion on what it all means and how we should live our lives. Why not! I didn't understand everything that the characters talked abo More...

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Jul 13, 2009

Anna rated it:

From Lay RA, where I blog my attempt, as a nonlibrarian, to teach myself readers' advisory. http://lay-ra.blogspot.com/2009/07/pacin...

I just started listening to The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin on audio. It's fiction, translated from Russian. Its plot has the guise of urban fantasy (supernatural foxes and werewolves), but not the pace. A. Huli, the main character, slowly reveals herself to be a fox, alive for thousands of years, with the ability to create illusory r More...

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Mar 13, 2009

Mikolaj rated it:

This book came highly recommended, on both subject and objective metrics, and it was a moderately enjoyable read. I can't say I flew through it, but it wasn't a struggle.

It turns out that this is simply because I'm a cultural barbarian. My mother, whose spoken English does not approach fluency, finds it utterly delightful. I think this may be due to my over-exposure to fantasy - the flights of fancy in this book are subdued by comparison to my usual intake of literature, and therefor More...

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Dec 02, 2008

Lori rated it:

Once you get past the risque beginning, this book blossoms into an interesting werefox tale full of mysticism and philosophy. The main character is an ancient creature who looks like a teenage girl. Her fox's tail can hypnotize humans and mystical creatures alike, and from the encounters she soaks up their energy as her sustenance. If you don't like mysticism or philosophy, you probably won't like the book. There is an awful lot of philosophy discourse in here that I had to accept that I wouldn' More...

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Dec 08, 2008

Veach rated it:

The world works in a mysterious and incomprehensible fashion. Wishing to protect frogs from children's cruelty, adults tell children not to crush them because that will make it rain - and the result is that it rains all summer because the children crush frogs one after another. And sometimes it happens that you try with all your might to explain the truth to someone else, and suddenly you understand it yourself. (pg 316)

...the American film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen...g More...

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Jun 19, 2010

Mathieu rated it:

Prostitution, magic, Taoist hunters, were-creatures, and the power of the self; perversion, murder, espionage, and seduction. Everything is rolled into one profound and hilarious unity in this wonderful new book by Russia's foremost satirist. All the scathing humor and downright antics back right up against the philosophical musings of the main characters that also act as brilliant foils to modern society in metropolitan Russia, and the rest of the world for that matter. Another touching informa More...

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