false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg 76022 17 At one point in the hallucinatory trip that is <I>Buddha's Little Finger</I>, the protagonist regains consciousness in a cold-water bath, with a large, naked man prodding him awake and cheerfully acknowledging that the situation "might seem quite unbearably loathsome. Inexpressibly, inhumanly monstrous and absurd. Entirely incompatible with life." That would be an understatement. Yet Victor Pelevin, who's already produced such post-perestroika gems as <I>Omon Ra</I> and <I>The Life of Insects</I>, gets plenty of comic mileage out of Pyotr Voyd's dilemma. He also puts identity, reality, and existence up for grabs, and toys with time and continuity much as Italo Calvino did in his exhilarating <I>If on a Winter's Night a Traveler</I>.<p> A poet from St. Petersburg, Pelevin's hero finds himself caught in a temporal tug of war: on one hand, he's walking a tightrope between Reds and Whites during the Russian Revolution, and on the other, he's floating in and out of the bizarre world of a psychiatric hospital in 1990s Moscow. The revolutionary era does offer Pyotr the occasional boost. His commander, the sly and intellectually provocative comrade Chapaev, tells him that he is a "man of decisive character and at the same time you have a subtle appreciation of the essential nature of events. People like you are in great demand."<p> That's not the sense he gets in the hospital, however, where he passes the time kneading lumps of Plasticene and sketching busts of Aristotle. Sharing a room and "turbo-Jungian" therapy sessions with three other nutters, Pyotr is all too easily submerged in their intricate fantasies. Sound complicated? Well, Pelevin offers up these parallel lives in such a kaleidoscopic jumble that it's sometimes easy to get lost. Yet those readers willing to follow the hero in his travails--to make, as it were, a leap into the Voyd--will encounter a hilarious, disturbing, and wildly inventive exploration of reality. <I>--S. Ketchum</I> 94755 book 1997 Buddha's Little Finger total:244|5:104|4:79|3:35|2:14|1:12| 244 981 465 23 1424105 0571194060 9780571194063 8 2 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183481791m/1424105.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1424105.The_Clay_Machine_Gun 1 0 false Wed Oct 14 17:27:45 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 14 17:28:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 2 0 false Tue Jun 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 21 00:17:51 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 21 00:40:20 -0700 2009 more...]]> 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 1 2 false Thu Jan 29 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 17:35:19 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 19:35:41 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1424105 0571194060 9780571194063 8 2 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183481791m/1424105.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1424105.The_Clay_Machine_Gun 5 0 false Fri Aug 16 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Mon Sep 07 05:53:28 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 10 04:12:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 3 0 false Fri Dec 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 24 19:37:49 -0800 2009 Tue Dec 15 04:42:55 -0800 2009
"The same old
women were perched motionless on the benches; above
them, beyond the black latticework of the branches, there was
the same grey sky, like an old, worn mattress drooping down
towards the earth under the weight of a sleeping God...

......more...]]> 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 5 1 false Mon Jun 09 13:35:34 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 09 13:36:09 -0700 2008 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 3 0 false Sat Jan 31 07:57:10 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 31 07:58:16 -0800 2009 580893 5702703448 9785702703442 40 1 4.02 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/580893._ 0 0 false Sun Jul 13 06:57:23 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 13 06:57:23 -0700 2008 more...]]> 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 5 0 false Wed Mar 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 04 22:04:59 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 04 22:08:48 -0800 2009 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 5 0 false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 03 08:35:43 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 03 08:37:56 -0800 2009 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 0 0 false Thu Mar 19 12:23:19 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 19 12:23:36 -0700 2009 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 3 0 false Wed Feb 18 22:12:18 -0800 2009 Mon Aug 10 22:56:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 98298 0571201261 9780571201266 23 4 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255328303m/98298.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98298.The_Clay_Machine_Gun 2 0 false Sun Jul 13 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Feb 06 01:25:06 -0800 2008 Sun Jul 13 17:07:22 -0700 2008
Despite the more logical and obvious outcome of the story, I enjoyed the, perhaps more expected, uncertainty.

Very insig...more...]]> 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 4 0 false Tue Sep 09 19:13:39 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 09 19:23:28 -0700 2008 more...]]> 98298 0571201261 9780571201266 23 4 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255328303m/98298.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98298.The_Clay_Machine_Gun 5 0 false Sat May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Mon Jul 02 13:53:53 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 02 13:56:16 -0700 2007 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 1 0 false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 05 11:52:36 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 21 21:10:10 -0700 2008
I don't want to work that hard in my free time. I was just reading along, and it went from a Russian Revolution story, to dreams, as far as I could tell. I couldn't see the connection.

I couldn't be bothered to sort it out.]]> 98298 0571201261 9780571201266 23 4 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255328303m/98298.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98298.The_Clay_Machine_Gun 5 0 false Wed Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Mon May 28 19:32:20 -0700 2007 Tue May 29 04:46:06 -0700 2007 925261 0670891681 9780670891689 7 1 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179507217m/925261.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/925261.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 3 0 false Thu Nov 29 19:37:28 -0800 2007 Thu Nov 29 19:37:28 -0800 2007 98298 0571201261 9780571201266 23 4 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255328303m/98298.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98298.The_Clay_Machine_Gun 5 0 false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed May 30 12:26:51 -0700 2007 Wed May 30 12:31:28 -0700 2007 76022 0141002328 9780141002323 144 13 4.02 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170888497m/76022.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76022.Buddha_s_Little_Finger 3 0 false Wed Nov 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Aug 12 03:54:50 -0700 2009 Wed Nov 04 06:33:15 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=76022