Bro

Ice Trilogy #2

by Vladimir Sorokin, Władimir Sorokin

Le 30 juin 1908 la météorite de la Toungouska tombe en Sibérie. Au même moment, naît Bro. Son enfance dorée est vite écourtée : la guerre, la désorganisation de la société, la révolution, provoquent la fuite puis l’anéantissement des siens. Le jeune garçon se retrouve seul à errer à travers la Russie durant quatre ans. Mais dans le chaos général, il bénéficie d’une mystérieuse protection et devient grand maître de la Confrérie de la lumière originelle.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Russia, Fantasy, Russian Literature, Contemporary, Literature

362 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Vladimir Sorokin (Владимир Сорокин, Vlagyimir Szorokin) was born in a small town outside of Moscow in 1955. He trained as an engineer at the Moscow Institute of Oil and Gas, but turned to art and writing, becoming a major presence in the Moscow underground of the 1980s. His work was banned in the Soviet Union, and his first novel, The Queue, was published by the famed émigré dissident Andrei Sinyavsky in France in 1983. In 1992, Sorokin’s Collected Stories was nominated for the Russian Booker Prize; in 1999, the publication of the controversial novel Blue Lard, which included a sex scene between clones of Stalin and Khrushchev, led to public demonstrations against the book and to demands that Sorokin be prosecuted as a pornographer; in 2001, he received the Andrei Biely Award for outstanding contributions to Russian literature. Sorokin is also the author of the screenplays for the movies Moscow, The Kopeck, and 4, and of the libretto for Leonid Desyatnikov’s Rosenthal’s Children, the first new opera to be commissioned by the Bolshoi Theater since the 1970s. He has written numerous plays and short stories, and his work has been translated throughout the world. Among his most recent books are Sugar Kremlin and Day of the Oprichnik. He lives in Moscow.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new underground comic book could be created based on this Vladimir Sorokin novel: BRO - Ice from the primordial light awakened his dormant heart. And now he seeks other blonde, blue-eyed brothers and sisters chosen by the light to have their hearts likewise awakened

Bro is the true Volume #1 of the author's Ice Trilogy. The title Bro is taken from the name of the novel’s protagonist following his awakening by the Primordial Light. Frequently, as is the case here, Bro is listed as Volume #2 since Vladimir Sorokin wrote this novel after Ice. However, it should be pointed out, Bro precedes Ice chronologically and Bro also provides the needed context for Ice. Therefore Bro most definitely should be read before Ice.

Bro is simply amazing - what starts off in the first few chapters as a work in the tradition of great Russian nineteenth century literature shifts briefly to Soviet-era Socialist Realist scientific exploration before shifting again, this time to the bulk of the novel: a combination new age Gnostic sacred text, science fiction thriller and the adventures of a comic book superhero. Whoa, baby - what a gripping read!

It all starts with Alexander Snegirev relating the facts of his early life: he was born on June 30, 1908 with a clasp of thunder (a critically important date as he discovers at age twenty), his stern, wealthy Russian businessman father and loving mother raised him along with his older brothers and sisters; how, at age ten, his childhood ended with an act of violence during the Russian Revolution that left him roaming from city to city for four years. He moves in with his poverty-stricken old aunt, attends school and finally astronomy lectures at university where he is given the opportunity to join a scientific expedition to unearth and scrutinize pieces of one of the largest meteors ever to reach our planet, the Tungus Meteorite that exploded in Siberia on the exact date of his birth.

Reflecting back on his past life, Alexander notes there was one thing that both frightened and attracted him in childhood, a recurring dream where he is at the base of an enormous mountain. In the dream his body begins to crumble and fall apart and then abruptly “my spine broke and I collapsed into wet pieces and fell backward. That's when I saw the summit. It shone WITH LIGHT. The light was so bright that I disappeared in it. This felt so awfully good that I woke up." Foreshadowing with a vengeance.

Out in Siberia on expedition, Alexander suddenly dreams his recurrent dream, only with a difference: he sees the Light departing and disappearing forever; he cries out to the Mountain not to die. Just at that moment he senses a shift in his heart, that something else lives in his heart connecting him to the Mountain. Thereafter Alexander experiences great joy and feels beckoned forward by an undefined presence.

Then one morning our protagonist sits before a fire and can see his carefree childhood, his tormented life resulting from loss of family and orphanhood, his teenage student years all appear before him as if gathered under glass - they harden and detach themselves from him forever, all instantly becoming the past. Oh, yes, a frequently reported feature of the mystical experience - one's prior conventional identity and concerns appear as colossal illusion to be blown away as if a mere soap bubble.

Not long thereafter Alexander runs away from all the others and their camp. Once alone in the forest he tastes the bliss of freedom: “The absolute silence of the world amazed me. The earthly world froze in front of me in the greatest calm. And for the first time in my life I felt distinctly the vile vulgarity of this world.”

Alexander presses on until he reaches an area covered with ice and is seized by ecstasy. He comes upon a particular mass of ice and moves out on the ice and falls, slamming his chest against the ice. “Then my heart began to resound from the blow of the Ice. And I immediately felt the entire MASS of the Ice. It was enormous. And the whole thing was vibrating, resonating in time with my heart. For me alone. My heart, which had been sleeping for all these twenty years inside my rib cage, awoke. It didn’t beat harder, but sort of jolted - at first it was painful, then it was sweet. And then quivering, it spoke. “Bro-bro-bro . . . Bro-bro-bro. Bro-bro-bro . . . I understood. This was my real name.”

The Ice beneath him vibrates. He feels the Ice and himself hanging alone in the universe. His awakened heart begins to listen attentively to the Music of Eternal Harmony. Bro is told many things about the universe and his place within it, including: in the beginning there was only Primordial Light; The Light consists of 23,000 Light-bearing rays and he, Bro, is one of them; the Light’s mistake was creating this flawed, unstable, disharmonious Earth, leading to the greatest mistake - human beings; this huge piece of Heavenly Ice was sent to open the hearts of 23,000 Brothers and Sisters held hostage by the Earth to help them become 23,000 rays of Primordial Light once again; You, Bro, must find your Brothers and Sisters and come together in a great Circle.

Now that’s extreme! You can see why I said a comic book based on the novel would be fringe or underground. I wonder how many mainstream readers would swallow the place humans are assigned by the novel’s Primordial Light.

We can speculate as to why Vladimir Sorokin wrote this novel. Does he find our modern word disgusting? Is he writing in the same spirit when his countryman Alexander Solzhenitsyn stated: “The human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits, exemplified by the revolting invasion of commercialism, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music.”

Or is the author targeting religion? Although there’s next to nothing included about Christianity or any other religion, Bro does begin with two quotes, one from the Bible and this from Gregory Palamas, a great Saint within the Eastern Orthodox Church: “And so, brethren, let us lay aside works of darkness and turn to works of the light.”

Or many other possibilities. Such a bizarre, quizzical work but a work of tremendous imagination and philosophical depth. I can see why Vladimir Sorokin has many fans among young readers. I mean, having his protagonist refer to “ordinary” humans as meat machines and seeing World War II as a battle between the Land of Order and the Land of Ice is, if nothing else, unique - and that's understatement.


Vladimir Sorokin, Russian author born 1955

"Who sent you?"
I answered, "The Primordial Light. Which exists in you, in me, and in her. The Light. It lives in your heart, it wants to awaken. You have been asleep all your life and lived like everyone else. We have come to awaken your heart. it will wake up and speak in the language of the Light. And you will become happy. And you will realize who you are and why you came into this world." - Vladimir Sorokin, Bro

[Ernst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Der etwas schwächere Mittelteil der Eis-Trilogie. Meiner Meinung nach kann man diesen Teil auch auslassen, ich hab ihn erst als letzten Teil gelesen. Eis und 23000 hängen viel unmittelbarer zusammen, Bro liefert einen fiktiv-historischen Rückblick zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Kults.

[Squib · Rating 3 out of 5]

(English version) This is the second sci-fi trilogy I packed in my holiday suitcase. I was planning to spend my entire time reading but both trilogies were so disappointing, I only read the first book in each and then had to participate in seeing the sights. This meant queuing up for two hours to look at a waterfall full of two billion people. Queuing up to report pickpocketed iPhone to the Guardia Civil. Queuing up to see cave and watch hordes of people run their sticky fingers over ancient stalagmite formations until I wanted to slap them

I loved this book to begin with; Alexander's life in Basantsy and then Moscow, the whole Siberian meteorite expedition. But then Alexander goes into the swamp and the Ice speaks to him and explains that he part of the primordial light along with 22 999 other blond and blue eyed people, who must all be found and whacked in the heart with an ice hammer. After which, Earth (the universe's huge mistake) will finally be destroyed and things can get back to normal. If that sounds ridiculous, it reads even more ridiculous. It's a very silly and fiddly way to destroy a planet. There is also a lot of detail about the first chosen ones and how they go about detaining them and hammering them. So it's fairly laboured as well. There are many damming though accurate descriptions of humanity in which humans are referred to as meat machines. This phrase becomes quite clunky when it appears about 50 times on one page. Something went a bit wrong here somehow

[Ppeva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Úgy tűnik, Szorokin mindkét trilógiáját sikerül összevissza olvasnom. :) Ezt pont a középsővel kezdtem el (a másikat meg visszafelé).
Amikor több mint egy hónapja levettem a könyvtárban a polcról, még fogalmam se volt, hogy közben kölcsönkapok egy szibériai útikönyvet, és párhuzamosan bolyonghatok Krasznojarszkban és környékén Broval is, meg távutazóként is. Ez véletlenül még külön csavart adott a történetnek.
Egyébként a felénél egy kicsit visszaesett (volna) az érdeklődésem.

[Ainura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earthlings

After finishing Vladimir Sorokin’s novel Bro, which is a part of an Ice trilogy, I wanted to continue with other books in the series right away. This is a very interesting novel, which is at first narrated by Alexander Snegirev, who was born in Russia at the beginning of XX century. Alexander lived as an ordinary child with a big family inside a wealthy estate located in Ukraine. The difference between him and anyone else in the novel was his birthday, the exact day and time when a Tunguska meteorite fell on Earth. The Tunguska meteorite will become much more important for Bro than for Alexander. Bro is someone who Alexander turns into, whose story is the main focus of Bro (readers will be introduced to this new narrator a few chapters later).

Plot progression is accompanied by a flood of historical events: First World War, Russian revolution of 1917, creation of the Soviet Union, Second World War. If time period changes, the style of narrative, and the words in active use too change gradually. For example, if at the start Snegirev gives autobiographical details like a classical Russian novel would, later Bro and the surrounding people use phrases distinctive for Soviet era like “OGPU” and “tovarishch”, dialogues remind more of Socialist Realism (e.g. during Agranov’s talk to Bro and Fer). I would say that mood in the novel changes significantly. This was an outcome of the change in protagonist’s nature combined with the effect from alteration in style, that acts like a tool for temporal navigation as well (you can guess how much time passed by observing people’s manner of speaking; you can also be struck by how much change Bro’s narrative speech undergoes). I found it to be rather peculiar and distinguishing feature in Sorokin’s writing.

Tunguska meteorite was an enigma for Soviet scientists, after USSR’s collapse it became an inspiration for conspiracy theories. According to Bro, it had a breakaway part in form of one big chunk of ice. The protagonist, after several traumatizing events in his life finds himself in the forests of Siberia together with an expedition group, feeling the need to find, touch and be one with this ice. In order for him to be the only one who gets to the precious ice, he sets the expedition group’s camp on fire and runs away. Like in Pelevin’s Generation «P», from this point onward Bro’s every action and decision seeds doubt in reader’s head and seems to carry double meanings. When dealing with an unreliable narrator, readers would be prepared to take the plot with a grain of salt, but detached, often very simplistic and indifferent voice of the narrator in Bro creates an impression of an absolute truth being told. Right to the end of the book it was really hard for me to classify what has happened as “real” or “fake”, because I could not figure out who was more sane in all of the story: ordinary people, who clearly are presented as the most cruel creations (Bro starts to call them “meat machines”) or members of the Brotherhood – a circle of people just like Bro, so overwhelmed with proximity and love felt for Ice that even humans’ lives become a trivial matter on the way towards their goal.

Bro’s estrangement from the concept of violence muffles the echo of war and suffering, in contrast to the plans of the Brotherhood to destroy the human race any earthly conflict begins to seem pointless and vain. Stalin is described in a few sentences; he is a megalomaniac, there is nothing more noteworthy about him. The same is said about Hitler, though Bro mentions “a desire to die in a most painful way.” Hence the two outstandingly bloodthirsty figures of the past century were entitled to a couple of paragraphs in a life of a man who lived through the World War they had led. This is a strange difference from the usual place that World War gets in literary works, because it is a highly tragic part of reality people still remember. In general, most of the reality is put under the prism of this detachment and attitude which shows carelessness, indifference to whatever is happening to human world. Thus author shows us the inhumane side of Bro’s character and looming threat of someone more powerful than humans overtaking our fate.

Amidst narration it is not easy to locate author’s voice. The reader absorbs the story through Bro’s point of view, and even keeping skeptical attitude toward this character does not reveal author’s true intentions clearly; what is Sorokin trying to say when the protagonist hates humans? Is it that Sorokin hates humans or that audience should, too? There is a fragment where Bro gives instructions on how to construct a perfect Ice hammer for brothers’ “heart awakening” (to have a membership in Brotherhood, you need your heart awakened. i.e. struck by a hammer in chest and realize your belonging to the Brotherhood). This way probably, purpose behind the novel would be Sorokin making fun of people who believe in mystery cults. Mystery cults can be large or small, regardless, through Brotherhood author shows the potential danger that the group of people firmly assured in one idea (e.g. they can believe in a smart conspiracy theory) can pose to the whole humanity.

In the final chapters Bro’s does not speak in usual understandable language, though he only speaks a little, he does not even “think” like a human anymore; for him, people slowly have turned into mere “meat machines”. Therefore, the readers can finally be liberated from the Bro-centered outlook and really look at what their cult of Ice and Light is turning into. On the other hand, towards the ending Bro can no longer be the protagonist of the next book, so I was curious as to who would become the new protagonist in the next book; would it be some kind of reincarnation in another time period, or would author choose someone else from the cult?

In conclusion, Bro provides food for thought to speculate about conspiracy theories. It will also be an entertaining novel for you if you are inclined to criticize human race, to contemplate proneness to doing mistakes and to focus on the cruel sides of existence and life. What I think Bro excels at is showing an unfamiliar angle of view on humanity and its past. This is good if you are trying to find out what is precious about being a human and growing up on Earth.

[Lance Schonberg]

Did not finish.

One of my reading goals this year is to get some international flavour into my book consumption. Bro was an attempt at a Russian flavour. I selected this as the first book in a trilogy by one of Russia’s most well-known authors of speculative fiction. He’s known for pushing boundaries and counterculture.

I may have selected the wrong book.

Since this is in translation, I gave this a lot longer than I would have before giving up on it, but it’s the kind of book that makes me want to carve my eyes out with a spoon until I remember that you can’t unread something. At best, you can hope to forget.

A couple of notes. First, the quality of the translation is good. It’s readable, but boring.

Second, this is technically the second book of a trilogy, as in it was published second, but chronologically comes first in the overall story arc. I suppose it’s possible I should have started with Ice instead, but I prefer to avoid the feeling of a prequel where I can.

Oh, and it’s written in first person. If that bothers you, there’s an extra reason to not read it.

Opens with telling a life story and long winded. A stays that way for half the book. By the time we get to the speculative fiction portion, I’ve pretty much completely lost interest. Only the accident of reading a pair of reviews that told me it took that long kept me at it.

But the first half of the story, a chronicle of growing up in a rich family in Russia during World War I and the years after, is probably told better elsewhere, and is actually pretty dull most of the time, filled with a lot of, “This happened, and then this happened, and then this happened.” Very few active scenes involved. Yes, there are some interesting tidbits on how things might have been for formerly rich people in the early days of the Soviet era, but again, I think these have been done better elsewhere.

Before the speculative piece gets brought in, the only hints we have that it’s going to be Fantasy are that our hero was born on the night of the Tunguska event, he’s really, really good at geometry, and daydreams in class.

But then suddenly, there’s magic ice.

No, really.

Our hero, a minor player on an expedition to find the Tunguska meteor, touches magic ice, wakes up into a new awareness, and the Ice explains to him that he’s actually one of 23,000 special beings. These beings go through the universe creating worlds, but they made a mistake on earth and created water. Water is bad and it trapped them into living over and over again in watery bodies. His name is Bro, hence the title of the book.

This is not the way things are supposed to be. He has to find the other 22,999 beings, wake them up, speak the 23 magic words 23 times, and then they’ll be set free, incidentally destroying Earth and killing everything on it.

And so he starts wandering around to find more of them to wake up by smacking them in the chest with the magic ice.

No, really.

He and the first of his siblings he wakes up, a sixteen-year-old runaway girl who the Ice christens Fer, quickly come to the conclusion that humans are basically talking furniture and can be dismissed as sentient beings.

After they find and wake their next brother, Eb, I’m pretty much done with the book. It’s already devolved into a lot of, “We’re so great and we're so happy we’re going to free our people and gee won’t it be nice to be rid of these bodies when that happens. Humans, who cares? They aren’t real people, anyway.”

Actually, I was done long before that, but I kept trying, for some reason, probably a concern about cultural prejudice. I can’t say that part of my dislike of this book isn’t because I don’t have the right cultural lens, but even if it is, I still don’t like this book. I feel like it’s probably going to make a tremendously blunt statement about how we’re all just cogs in a machine and more or less treat each other that way anyway. Or maybe that seeing and treating each other like things is bad.

[Sandra Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing a review on the Russian version of the book, because I read it in Russian, but also because I couldn't find the English version of this book, separately from the trilogy to which it belongs. The trilogy is available in a single volume as The Ice Trilogy. Anyway, with this book, I don't think it will make all that much difference whether the translation is good or bad.

The wonderful thing about this book is that it's both truly bizarre and incredibly convincing. It begins very much in the mode of a Russian memoir - childhood days before the Revolution, the narrator's soft-hearted mother and strict father, first love at the age of nine, the usual sentimentality attached to landscape - and goes on in that lyrical/realist vein for roughly the first half of the book. Then it takes a sharp left turn... [SPOILER ALERT]

...as the narrator discovers that he is actually part of a primordial God Figure whose mission is to wake all the other 23,000 people who constitute the rays of light from which the Creator God was composed. You awaken these people by hitting them in the chest with a hammer made from ice harvested from a meteorite that struck the Earth in the wilds of Siberia. It's that simple. Once all the people are awakened, they will join hands and destroy the universe. Then they'll make a much better universe, since this one was obviously a stupid mistake.

Once this mission is discovered, the book becomes incredibly repetitive. The god-people seek their own unawakened people and awaken them, and then go on and seek other unawakened god-people. From here on, most of the interest of the book consists in seeing the history of the early-mid 20th century (Stalinism, the rise of Hitler, the Holocaust) through the eyes of the god-people. To them, human beings are "meat machines" with no more importance than plants. So the concentration camps are basically very convenient, because large groups of people are collected in one place, which makes seeking the unawakened gods among them very easy.

Basically your experience of this book will depend on the degree to which you can identify with the god-people. On the one hand, the experiences are rendered so powerfully that you tend to get drawn in; on the other hand, the god-people lose all personality, once awakened. Their lives center around moments of incommunicable bliss, they have no sense of humor, and all they do is collect money/god-people for the cause - very much like actual devotees of actual cults. So sometimes you identify with them, and it becomes a simple fantasy about meeting the "real people" who will truly understand you (if you have any such fantasies). And then sometimes it's just an experience of trudging through Auschwitz with these somewhat dreary automatons who constitute God. This part of the experience will feel eerily familiar to anyone who's ever read much about God that was written by people who really believe in God.

[Clara]

Путь Сорокина, пародия или пропаганда?
Путь Бро — роман, о Бро (Александр Снегирев), который основал Братство Света и начал поиски своих братьев и сестер с «спящими сердцами». Сам Бро пробудился во время экспедиции к месту падения Тунгусского метеорита от соприкосновения со Льдом. Позже Бро пробудил сестру Фер, с которой продолжил свои поиски остальных светловолосых и голубоглазых братьев и сестер. На своем пути Бро и Фер встречают много людей, получают способности, находят слова и создают оружие для пробуждения спящих сердец – молот из Льда. Роман с элементами sci-fi Владимира Сорокина о Братстве Света не только отражает развитие теорий конспираций в постмодернизме, затрагивая идеи оккультизма, расизма и мирового заговора, но и кажется своеобразной автобиографией, так как основывается на собственной жизни Сорокина.
Путь Сорокина
Владимир Сорокин написал приквел, объясняющий историю создания Братства Света, в 2005 году и опубликовал его в издательстве «Захаров». Сорокин считается одним из самых важных представителей постмодернизма в русской литературе, на ряду с такими авторами как Пелевин и Мамлеев. История его литературных работ во многом может показаться вызывающей и противоречивой, так как Сорокин часто сталкивался с непониманием и неприятием его творчества, публикуя свои работы. Его работы были не раз подвержены критике молодежной организацией «Идущие вместе» через множество изощренных способов (акции и протесты против писателя). Однако большинство книг писателя были изданы как заграницей, так и у себя на родине и имело большой успех среди читателей.
Читая роман Путь Бро, важно знать биографию Сорокина, так как именно его собственный жизненный путь пронизывает историю Бро от начала и до самого конца. Детство и юность Сорокина отзываются в первых главах романа, описывающих жизнь Бро до его пробуждения. Бро родился в богатой и интеллигентной семье и провел большинство своего времени в дорогах между Басанцами на Украине, имениями в других местах России и квартирой в Санкт-Петербурге. В свою очередь, детство Сорокина также прошло в разъездах. Пробуждение Бро в какой-то мере напоминает то, как Сорокин начал свою деятельность писателя с падения на батарею в детстве и последующими видениями. В какой-то мере, Бро тоже падает на Лед, пробуждается, видит видения и начинает свою миссию.
Даже само построение романа является отражением его жизни. Так же, как и в некоторых других работах, Сорокин начинает повествование с классического литературного стиля, который со временем (примерно в середине) меняется на абсолютно иной по звучанию и восприятию стиль. К примеру, если сначала Сорокин описывает жизнь Александра Снегирева используя слова присущие 1900-ым годам (имения, попечение, гувернантка, матушка, три сестрицы, шалопай, усадьба и т.д.), то после пробуждения язык повествования насыщается терминами и с��овами близкими к оккультизму и религии Братства Света (братья и сестры, сердце, Лед, Свет, земное бытие, вечность, мясные машины, мы, и т.д.).
Пропаганда оккультизма и теорий конспирации
Путь Бро (как и вся трилогия) очевидно тесно связан с оккультизмом, являясь ярким примером, доказывающим исследования Биргит Менцель в ее работе «Возрождение оккультизма в современной России и его влияние на литературу». Менцель приводит множество идей и доказательств из современной русской литературы, показывающие распространённость и сильное влияние оккультизма. Бро и его братство, состоящее из людей с исконно-славянской внешностью, следуют описанию неопаганизма Менцель. Роман так же вращается вокруг идеологии космизма, описывая падение и поиски космического тела (Льда и по совместительству Тунгусского метеорита). Сорокин посвящает метеоритному отделу и рутинным сборам к экспедиции целую главу, тем самым слегка раскрывая интерес русской академической интеллигенции к космосу и его секретам. Сорокин в своем романе создал целую оккультную идеологию с деталями, которые не все могут учесть и увидеть. Это наводит на мысль о том, что Сорокин был весьма заинтересован и имел большие познания в этой сфере. Возможно и связывал свою жизнь (так как Бро отображает жизнь Сорокина) с подобными идеями. Весь роман в целом, как отмечает Менцель, может быть интерпретирован как серьезная оккультная мифология или как «пародия постсоветской политической идеологии оккультизма». В любом случае есть надежда, что Сорокин в своей трилогии высмеивает идеологии постсоветского человека, иначе эта работа станет одним большим, заводящим в заблуждения, вопросом.
Путь Бро одновременно вбирает в себя гностицизм и кабалистику, завязывая обе традиции в одну большую теорию конспирации об иудаизме и масонстве. Марина Аптекман в своей работе «Каббала, Иудо-масонский миф, и постсоветский литературный дискурс: от политического инструмента до виртуальной пародии» сопоставляет Бро и Лед с Адамом Кадмоном, существом единственно наполненным божественным светом и знающим секреты божественного мира, а историю Бро Аптекман связывает с тиккуном (процесс исправления мира). Связь Братсва Света с Иудо-Масонами подтверждается и в том, как Сорокин разрушает привычную концепцию националистической русской идентичности, связанную с христианством. Аптекман выделяет сцену, где члены братства во время очередного пробуждения выбрасывают крест с груди новоиспеченной сестры в грязь, показывая тем самым отторжение христианства. Простыми словами, Сорокин показывает, как Братство Света отбрасывает христианство (одно из самых важных идентификаторов русского человека). И вновь непонятно, зачем Сорокин привносит все эти детали в свой роман.
Даже если Сорокин задумывал роман как пародию всем возможным и невозможным идеологиям на просторах России, роману Путь Бро будто не хватает более явных особенностей пародии. Читая роман, возникает много вопросов, о том какой смысл у истории Бро. Отсутствие сатиры и саркастичных ноток в тексте наводят на мысль, что роман по своей сути пропагандирует кабалистику и даже немного славянский расизм. Возможно Сорокин пытался перенасытить роман странностями оккультизма и бессмысленностью действий или отсутствием здравого смысла вовсе, чтобы высмеять идеологии. Однако проследить в романе высмеивание абсолютно невозможно из-за отсутствия хотя бы малейшего намека на несерьезность истории.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever woken up with a hammer on your chest? No? Really?

Then, you missed a lot. Vladimir Sorokin, a provocative postmodern Russian writer, tells us about this particular way of waking people out of deep sleep in his novel Bro. Deep sleep in which they are living their lives.
The emergence of all these sleeping people, «amoebas» as Sorokin calls them, starts with a notion of 23,000 rays, one of which turns out to be the protagonist of this story, Alexander Snegirev. Or can be simply called Sasha. Or maybe Bro? And, no, it is not a split personality. It is awareness. Realization of who you actually are.

So, who is Sasha or Bro? Sasha, who grew up in a wealthy family in Ukraine, begins his sleepy way by facing Russian civil war as a 10-year-old boy and ends up participating in Kulik’s expedition set off for the investigation of Tungus meteorite. By incorporating this popular event, Sorokin very gently sets a new conspiracy theory theme and atmosphere for the reader, as the fall of «meteorite» sometimes is seen as a part of a certain machination, along with provoking some thoughts regarding what is next in the plot, as if preparing the ground for the reader’s further perception of the story. Indeed, here we go: the more we read, the more we can observe a specially designed system and multi-stage plan connected to this particular event. Sorokin continues his narration by bringing the reader to the history of Tungus meteorite, which thereafter turns out as a huge piece of ice that was specially fell to the Earth to save all 23 000 rays that had become humans. So, right after finding out the secret of Tungus meteorite, Sasha starts his mission on finding all his brothers and sisters scattered around the world and on reviving their hearts, after which there appears a large group of people calling themselves «Brotherhood of the Light». I do not know how do you define conspiracy theory, but this story definitely reminds me of that.

You might question how does Sasha define who exactly his brothers or sisters. Sorokin puts it simply: all members of brotherhood have a similar appearance, more precisely, blue eyes and blond hair. What a pureblood! What a beautiful Aryan racial identity! Honestly, exactly at this point, I start wondering whether Sasha has a third name - Hitler? Interestingly, the division of people in the novel into enlightened ones and «meat machines», who are the rest of the people who are not children of the Light, might seem quite racist and fascist from the first sight. And, indeed, it is connected to both concepts. However, Sorokin provides readers with a mediator, Sasha, who gives you the precise explanation of all their actions, so that all their deeds, either noble or cruel, become clear and reasonable enough for the reader.

The literary tool the author uses for these purposes is estrangement. He puts it in a way as if the protagonist of the story has a completely different view on certain things in comparison with «normal people». There are given Sasha’s two stories right in the beginning in order to immediately show readers what they are going to deal with during the whole book. The scene with fight can be a great example of this kind of tool: «Mesmerized, I watched the fight, not understanding the meaning of what was happening. The people in the ravine were doing something very important. It was hard for them to do it. But they were really trying. They tried so hard so they almost cried. They groaned, swore, and shouted. It was as though they were giving one another something with their fists. It was interesting and frightening». From here, it can be seen how a simple common fight is portrayed through the eyes of little Sasha as something completely unknown for him, which can be explained by his childishness. But, the more understandable view of his sister, though she is also a child, contradicts the fact that children’s perception of the fight might be completely different than that of the adults’.

Such alienation from the real world and understanding what others do not understand and otherwise can be explained by the presence of the «occult» in the novel. Occult is defined by involvement of a bunch of people, who are children of the Light here, into «experience of higher, ultimate divine knowledge and consciousness». This kind of perspective on the situation somehow gives justifications and valid reasons for their actions in a sense that they probably know what they are doing, considering the fact that readers are automatically in the same group as those enlightened.

A lot of parallels with the real world and the general theme of the novel - all of those lead to the one great arena, where people also feel quite powerful, enlightened and as if they are completely aware what they are doing. And this is politics. With this perspective, the deeds of all children of the Light including Bro begin to reveal itself in an absolutely different manner. Killing people who interfere and distract from the main goal and hammering down innocent people become very similar to Stalinist repressions and Hitler’s fascist policy. It is even more supported by the fact that some features of brotherhood’s ideology in the book corresponds to some of the criteria of fascism made by philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco such as fear of difference, the cult of tradition, newspeak, and others are definitely evidence of fascist politics.

Overall, «Bro» can be considered as a multi-layered novel due to the possibility of being diversely interpreted by different people and perspectives. There lies the strong connection with spiritualism and high resemblance with the policy of two great dictators of XX century under the accompaniment of excellent use of literary tools that only make the whole story even more sophisticated and mysterious.

[Zarina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The difference between fiction and reality?
Fiction has to make sense.
-Tom Clancy
Bro: Fiction or Reality?
The first novel in the Vladimir Sorokin’s series The Ice Trilogy is the science fiction novel called Bro. Vladimir Sorokin is a popular postmodern writer, who was nominated for various awards, including Andrey Belyi’s award, “NOS” and others. The Ice Trilogy includes three novels: Bro, Ice and 23000, where Ice was published first in 2002 and
Bro was published as a prequel in 2004. The science fiction novel Bro describes the story of Alexander, who was born on 30th of June in 1908, the day when Tunguska meteorite struck the earth. Alexander later finds that his name is Bro and he is a member of Brotherhood of the light that aims to destroy the existing nasty earth and re-establish the correct order in the universe.
While I was reading this novel, the first question that came into my mind was: Is that Fiction or Reality? Actually, this Tunguska event is taken from history, and even the expedition led by Leonid Kulik in 1927 was real. Also, it is proven that the meteorite remnants were not found. From this, we can observe that the fiction is based on real event, and this makes a sense. Nevertheless, I think that Sorokin interestingly develops this story. He includes the elements of the occult in the novel. The occult elements are expressed through the characters of selected 23,000 brothers and sisters, but why did Sorokin include it? Sorokin might deal with the occult in his novel because this topic was quite popular in 1990-2000s. This was a period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and people with the strong communist ideologies were lost in their beliefs. Major conspiracy theories, esoteric stories, and other occult topics were majorly spread among post-Soviet individuals. So, possibly Sorokin wanted to expand this real Tunguska event as an exaggerated occult event with a lot of secrets in it.
Looking at the occult in the novel, it could be found that it has links with various types of myths. Firstly, Sorokin engages with the idea of cosmological myths. The relation to cosmological myths is expressed through 23000 selected people, who came to restore the universe. He states: “Hearts led us. 23,000 people - a tiny drop in the ocean of people, but the ice lying here pulled many of us.” So the idea is related to the cosmic myth by number 23000, which is the exact number of initial lights that can restore the cosmic harmony in the world. Secondly, the esoteric theme is related to the characteristics of those 23000 selected people. Ice is cold and soulless, and Sorokin describes those 23,000 having a similar appearance to ice and with no emotions. In the novel, he describes them having “blond hair and blue eyes” which is described as a characteristic of ice. The point of being soulless can be mentioned in Sorokin’s writing style, short and inanimate sentences which do not attract readers’ attention. Generally, it is described as those people are born from the ice, which represents an additional element of occult persist in Sorokin’s novel. Finally, another esoteric topic that is covered in this novel is related to the Masonic ideas. In the late 90s, the conspiracy theory about masonic group became very popular. It is thought that people from masonic group rule the world and deceive people, but how it is related to Sorokin’s novel Bro? The Masonic idea is represented through 23000 people who are described as unique, who came to destroy the world and restore cosmic harmony. Those 23000 are like masons who are able to do this because they rule the world. As well as masons that are accepted to be more powerful than others, those selected 23000 brothers and sister who also position themselves being higher than others. This position is represented when these people call others “meat machines” or “printing machines”. It is stated that: “We could only eat fresh fruits and berries”, while others eating meat, drinking alcohol and living nasty life cause misbalance the harmony in the world. So, there were various scenes in the novel directly associated with the occult, but why did he do that? I think he mixes the elements of both, reality and occult to finally end with a parody of currently existing world.
Parody of the existing world expressed through the real facts and occult general description of the novel, but the style of the work is another interesting thing to discuss. While I was reading Bro, I mentioned that Sorokin uses in the novel short sentences that do not attempt to affect the reader emotionally. For me, the writing style seemed to be unusual in terms of simplicity, and this could be defined by the following facts. Firstly, Sorokin in this novel used a lot of numbers: 23000, 666, 230 and others. One of such statements was: “There were 5 of us who woke up with heart, 22995 remained.” One of the main questions that came into my mind was: why did he use so many numbers? Possibly, Sorokin used numbers because they have no emotions, and the nature of the 23000 selected characters was best described with this unemotional numbers. Additionally, an interesting element in the novel were the names of those who woke up with heart. For example, Fer, Ep, Ig and etc. These names are very short. Basically, almost all names that exist on our earth have meaning, and each name has its own history. I think that in this case, Sorokin attempted to use a set of letters that cannot have any meaning. So, I think Sorokin uses these elements to truly represent the unemotional and harsh nature of 23000 people.
Generally, I think that the perception of this novel differs over time. This is also related to the level of belief or skepticism in an individual. As a skeptic person I found in this novel too much parody to our world and people, but generally, I liked the way the author transfers the image of the characters. Overall, I would recommend this novel for others, because this fiction generally makes sense in terms of mixing elements of reality and the occult in it.

[Nina Levit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Хорошая идея, но стилистически исполнение не дотягивает, по моему мнению. Много ненужных отступлений, а от словосочетания "мясные машины" рябит в глазах. Но Сорокина очень люблю. За глубину. Из этой трилогии Лёд понравился больше.

[Texasshole · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I'm technically reading 'The Ice Trilogy,' but I'll be damned if I'm gonna get cheated out of individual books in my reading challenge just because the US edition is all in one volume.

[Zhaniya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading “Bro” was a fascinating experience for me, though there were boring moments in the book. The book itself is interesting not because of the plot, but because of the message, it has to the audience. “Bro” is a science fiction novel and the part of the “Ice Trilogy” which includes also “Ice” and “23000”. In the center of the novel, there is a story about Alexander, from the rich family in the beginning of the 20th century. The revolution in 1917 makes his family escape to Warsaw, where he loses almost all his family, and then the real story begins. The beginning is written as it is the part of completely another story, so different the language and plot become later. The first part is written in a style of the classical writer of the 19th-20th century, such as Chekhov. What is interesting is that the style switched so sharply into the science fiction or fantasy. The language is simple and the children may read this book. However, the audience is more for the adults, as we can draw parallels between the protagonist “Bro” and Hitler, as well as all the movement of the brothers, could be assumed as fascism in its sense. Apart from the connection to Nazi Germany, there is also a link to the religion, souls, creation of myths, violence, and disappointment with society. Sorokin also mentions afterlife of the brothers. As a postmodern writer, Sorokin writes in an ironic style, making “styob” (mocking) of all these concepts. The publication of “Bro” was an important literature event in Russia, as Sorokin is famous for his “Hearts of Four” (1991), “Ice Trilogy” (2002, 2004, and 2005) and “Day of the Oprichnik” (2006). Sorokin received many awards as “Narodnyi Buker” in 2010, “Liberty” in 2005, and international Gorkiy prize in 2010.
Considering Sorokin’s other novels, such as “Day of the Oprichnik”, “Bro” seems to be very different, as if it was written by another author. The differences are seen in the plot, meaning, the time of the events, and many other features. But after reading these two absolutely different novels I noticed that Sorokin has very beautiful language, he can write in the style of the classical writers of 90s, and in both novels, the names given to the characters were strange and short. For instance, in “Bro” the names are Bro, Ig, Fer. It is very interesting and possibly was made for the association of the Brothers of the Light with something alien to the ordinary world. Also, the name of the protagonist – Bro, is made for associating him with the first of the brothers, literally. I also should mention that I read Russian version of the book, so the translated version in English could be different.
Sorokin writes very in a very extraordinary way, he has something that will excite the reader, and that would make the reader wish to know the end. As Sorokin himself likes to mention in his interviews, he does not like ordinary, usual and boring lifestyle. The view on the routine lifestyle of human individuals is present in “Bro”, where the author describes people as the “meat machines” and the mistake of the Universe. Sorokin makes audience to view the world from the perspective of brothers of the Light. Firstly, the behavior of the protagonist seems to be right. However, after analyzing the theme deeper, I understood that there is something tricky about the brothers of the Light. There is a strong accent on dehumanization of both ordinary people and the brothers. The idea is deep and rich of thoughts, but in the book, the events are happening too fast. Because of the author’s rush to make a conclusion in the book, it becomes boring to read the part where “Bro” searches his brothers and sisters.
Overall, this science fiction novel is the one which needs attention from the readers. It will gauge the interest of the audience with its ideas about the dissatisfaction with society, and division of people, dehumanization, and many other themes. In my opinion one should not just read this book, but analyze the meaning and the message it has to the audience.

[David Goldman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow. There are a few novels that I just don’t know what to make of. But this is one of them. The novel starts out as a fairly standard coming-of-age story. A young boy named Alexander grows up with a well-off family in Ukraine. The family goes from being successful merchants to rich during WWI, and then to poverty once the Russian Revolution occurs. His family is killed, and Alexander is forced to wonder about Russia and the Revolution as it takes hold.

The protagonist ends up living with an aunt in Moscow and attending college there. His aunt ends up being arrested, at which point the protagonist abandons the apartment they were living in and has already dropped out of college. The protagonist decides to go on an expedition to find the Tungus meteorite, which happened to strike Earth the same day he was born. And then start getting weird.

During this expedition, the protagonist abandons the group and makes a spiritual connection with the meteorite, which he describes as "Ice". The Ice tells the protagonist that he is a member of the Brotherhood of the Light, his name is Bro, and he must go out into the world and find the rest of 23,000 members. They become incorporated into both Soviet and German leadership, proving cutting irony on both governments.

The rest of this volume features Alexander, now Bro, searching for these brothers and sisters. The description of their activities reads like the document from a cult. But it seems clear that the ICE children are products of something special. They don’t eat, can communicate telepathically, sense the other brothers and sisters, and Bro and Fer can read the minds and histories of normal humans.

The world painted by Bro is bleak. By the end, Bro is describing humans, exclusively, as meat machines who work and die simply to produce more meat to be consumed. This is a not-so-subset description of exhaustion capitalism where labor has become the totality of our descriptions. Bro’s description of the Germans as the “order meat machines” who develop mechanical machines, drop mechanic eggs on other meat machines is both highly sarcastic and chilling. Yet, it is hard to sympathize with the ICE brothers and sisters who frequently turn to violence and whose intent is to destroy humanity, not to reform. By the novel’s end, after WWII, the ICE brotherhood has grown and grown rich, and spread throughout the world.

The novel’s fantastic, first-person style does lend the reader to believe they are in the head of a crazy person— who might not be crazy. By the end, Bro and Fred are increasingly removed from humanity, resulting in descriptions that are unnerving. I will probably try the second volume, ICE, which appears to be written in a completely different style. I’ll reserve judgement on V. 1 until then.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just awful. About 80 interesting pages of a Russian childhood, then 180 pages of that thing your teacher used to tell you about where you "describe [something] as if you were describing it to an alien that had never seen it." If you've ever wanted to read about Hitler described as "a meat machine that spoke loudly and furiously" like you're reading a book written from the perspective of a fucking dog, look no further. If I could give it less than one star I would because it's an insane waste of time.

Oh and there's no conflict. Anywhere at all ever in the book. Just insane that this piece of shit even got published.

[Nikolay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Der Abschnitt über die Fleischmaschinen war großartig! Hier und da eingestreute Perlen der Umgangssprache begeistern einfach. Nichtsdestotrotz würde ich „Bro Weg“ nicht empfehlen, wenn man mit Sorokin noch nicht vertraut ist. Darüber hinaus entzieht sich mir der Sinn des Buches als eigenständiges Werk.

Aber im Großen und Ganzen bin ich absolut zufrieden mit meinem „Bro Weg“ – dem Weg durch die Bücher des vielleicht faszinierendsten zeitgenössischen russischen Autors.

[Bodies_upon_the_gears · Rating 3 out of 5]

Der Abschnitt über die Fleischmaschinen war großartig! Hier und da eingestreute Perlen der Umgangssprache begeistern einfach. Nichtsdestotrotz würde ich „Bro Weg“ nicht empfehlen, wenn man mit Sorokin noch nicht vertraut ist. Darüber hinaus entzieht sich mir der Sinn des Buches als eigenständiges Werk.

Aber im Großen und Ganzen bin ich absolut zufrieden mit meinem „Bro Weg“ – dem Weg durch die Bücher des vielleicht faszinierendsten zeitgenössischen russischen Autors.

[Leif · Rating 3 out of 5]

Science Fiction autobiography of a man who becomes a seer for some apocalyptic brotherhood that worships a substance they call "Ice" which arrived during the Tunguska event.

Interesting enough for me to read the "next" book in the trilogy.

[Sam Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was fine but there wasn’t much of an arc or a conflict. I liked the intro, and the writing itself. Interesting read and I’m excited to see where the story goes, I’ve got higher hopes for the next two books. I liked Telluria way more.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ну я подсел и хочу дочитать трилогию.

[Egor Belikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Совершенно не сорокинский текст, вау. Кроме той черты героев, которая заставляет их слишком часто гадить под себя (не метафорически).

[Владимир Мартьянов · Rating 4 out of 5]

Сюжет неплох, но непонятно что же хотел сказать автор? Если я верно понял его намерения - это все уже давно избито и банально

[Ksenia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Не поняла книгу

[Sergey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Написано хороши�� языком, но не особо интересно.

[Alex K · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too misanthropic, no any charming idea

[JerseyDevil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this book until he gets to the Ice. It’s still good after that point but it gets a little repetitive

[Vel Veeter]

So what is this book about? Great question! No clue!
Well, not entirely true: so we have our narrator and protagonist born (I think) on the night of the Tugunska Event, in which a meteorite crashed in the far-flung parts of the Siberia, and according to the book at least, I'd have to fact-check, did not actually impact, but created a forced that flattened millions of trees in the vicinity. Years later, our protagonist is uprooted as his family is killed during the Russian Revolution. When he's a little older he joins an expedition to the scene of the meteor and the space ice (or affected ice) has some sort of transformative effect (especially if you hurtle a giant chunk of it into someone's chest) and a new cult is formed as a result. Are they heightened beings? Have they really been reborn? Hard to tell as of yet.

This novel is bizarre, especially for how no-nonsense so much of the prose is here. The beginning of it reminds me so much of Speak, Memory, where Nabokov loves being rich and living a rich cozy life, that it feels like a reference, but also Nabokov's book is great in part because of how well it catalogued a fairly typical aristocratic life. Regardless, we'll see what happens in the sequels.

[Anna P (whatIreallyRead) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second book wasn't as bad as the first one. At least it was readable. At least it had a straight narrative and the language was better.

But it was pretty pointless. What we read here is a prequel to the first book that is completely unnecessary. Everything we get here is an expanded version of what was already revealed about these events and characters in the first book. It wasn't interesting or good, just readable. Some pretty straightforward speculative historical fiction.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Middle volume of The Ice trilogy Vladimir Sorokin. It all comes to blue-eyed blonds, their true names and icy hammers. For fans.

[Francisco · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too mystical for my taste, although the author does show at times great, even poetical, craft to tell the story and to convey deep feelings. The plot rises early to a hysterical climax, then falters into repetitiveness. Somewhat disturbed by the racial profiling ;)