Sense

by Arslan Khasavov, Arch Tait (Translation)

SENSE is the name of the organization launched by a Narcissistic 20-year-old boy who wants to live for the sake of a lofty goal but is unable to fit into any socio-cultural framework. He yearns for glory and finally decides that the only way to win it is to stage a revolution.
SENSE paints an ironic picture of Russia’s political life today and shows to what limits an indifferent and hypocritical society can push a romantically-minded young person. It is about a young man’s rebellious search for identity and his attempts to find some sense in the chaos around him. In his attempts to find co-thinkers the protagonist meets ex-prisoners of Guantanamo, some National Bolsheviks, the Islamic Committee, and the Youth Union “Hurray!”

The protagonist, called Artur, is an idealist who wants to live for the sake of a lofty goal. Through the eyes of a person who is unable to fit into any socio-cultural framework because of his lameness, and against the background of the present-day political situation, the author shows the limits to which an indifferent and hypocritical society can push a romantically-minded and well-meaning young person.
He examines the world map and decides that Turkmenistan would be the best place for his revolutionary plan. He starts looking for followers prepared to die for a great cause and soon finds them among the members of present-day radical political organizations. He visits three such organizations: the National Bolsheviks, the Islamic Committee, and the Youth Union “Hurray!” He describes their gatherings vividly and with a strong dose of irony. He meets ex-prisoners of Guantanamo, who talk to him about the imminent battle of good and evil and the fight against the infidels. He witnesses the attack of Nashi-fighters on the National Bolsheviks. Finally he visits the office of the Kremlin-supported youth movement “Hurray!” where he is offered free use of all their facilities because “everything has been generously paid for.”
In the final part the hero muses over the goals of his movement as he finds on his desk a curious political program – which mysteriously materialized there -- called “Outlines of the Future State”. It starts with a chapter on “reform of public heating” suggesting that houses should be heated with human excrement. The other proposed reforms are in the same absurdist style: to decree that all people should walk about naked, to ban the family and education, etc. Finally Artur drafts 136 young people and leads them to the Karakum Desert. For all of them it makes no difference what they are fighting for – the main thing is to break away from their bleak everyday existence and find glory.

250 pages, Paperback

First published June 12, 2012

About the author

Arslan Khasavov, a Kumyk by nationality born in 1988, spent his childhood in Turkmenistan. He graduated from Asia and Africa Institute in Moscow in 2010 and spent a year at Damask University. He also took a degree from the Moscow Literary Institute. In 2008, his novel Sense, nominated for the Debut Prize, merited a special commendation of the jury, and in 2009 his short story collection One More Chance for Glory was again singled out by the Debut jury. The same year the book was a finalist of the “Faculty” Prize and the Astafyev Prize. His next novel: Paradise under the Shade of Swords, describes an ordinary country boy who is gradually drawn into a Jihad war.
Arslan contributes to major periodicals and also writes columns on the Northern Caucasus for the BBC Russian Service.
His work first appeared in English in the 2010 Glas anthology Squaring the Circle which toured the UK and US in 2011.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the debut novel by Khasavov—a young journalist in Moscow who is of Kumyk ethnic origin and studied Asian history at Moscow State University prior to embarking on his journalistic career. This novel is also deeply informed by Khasavov's experiences and by what young Chechens and Dagestanis experience in contemporary Moscow. The author offers a sweeping, nuanced, portrait of current Russian youth culture and provides entertaining characters who are in many ways painted with bold enough colors to seem at once as cartoons but also very real, tangible, people. Clearly, there are social issues that Khasavov wants to explore but he never does so at expense of the novel being markedly entertaining and engrosssing.

While some characters and their actions seem larger than life and even absurd, the very real pulse of Moscow's contemporary youth culture is in these pages and I'd recommend this novel not only to those interested in Russia, but also in world youth cultures and how young people in a very different society than that of the US or UK find their identities.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a powerful novel that says, or tries to say, a great deal about Russia and were it was at and about its future, and its young people and their need for heroes etc. The problem for mew was while I don't deny its sincerity and won't question those who say the author asks important questions for me the book was a failure. I could not to get into it. It didn't flow, I couldn't appreciate what he was trying to do or say. I've no doubt others will feel different. Maybe it is a failure of translation and that I am way out of the age range of those who could be influenced or feel an identity with this book.

[!Tæmbuŝu]

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