The Clay Machine-Gun - Pelevin BOTM,8/2020

[Kristel]

August BOTM, The Clay Machine-Gun also known as Buddha's Little Finger discussion thread. Discussion leader Pip.
Reviews go here; https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Pip]

Before you start:
Pelevin described his book as “The first novel in world literature to take place in an absolute void”. Be warned! The title of the book in Russian is Chapaev/Pustota. Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, or Chapayev, really was a pop culture staple of the Soviet era. He defected to the Reds during the 1918-19 civil war. Dimitri Furmanov wrote a novel titled Chapaev in 1923 which presented him as a communist saint. In 1934 a movie by the Vasiliev brothers was a favourite of Stalin’s . Two of the characters were his adjutant Petka and his machine-gunner Anka, as is mentioned in the preface. He really did drown in the Ural river, while trying to escape. Pustota means void in Russian. So the first person narrator is Pyotr Pustota, or Peter Void. This may or may not help you to understand the book.

The Clay Machine Gun has been described as being in the tradition of Russian literature of the fantastic and grotesque such as written by Gogol and Bulgarov. Have you read anything by these authors or anything else by Pelevin?

Questions once you have read the book:

1. When did you realise that the book is set in two different time periods? DId the anachronisms unsettle you?
2. What might these two periods have in common?
3. My favourite quote takes place on page 56. “His left eye was half-closed in a way that expressed an absolutely clear and at the same time immeasurably complex range of feelings, including a strictly proportional mixture of passion for life, strength,a healthy love for children, moral support for the American automobile industry in its difficult struggle with the Japanese, a
cknowledgement of the rights of sexual minorities, a slightly ironical attitude towards feminism and the calm assurance tha democracy and Judaeo-Christian values would eventually conquer all evil in this world.
But his right eye was quite different.” what is yours?
4. What does Inner Mongolia represent?
5. What might the invisible elephants on page 233 represent?
6. What do you make of Kolyan’s description of religion and comparison of Stalin to God on pages 256-7 and the Christian allusions on page 261.
7. Do you have any questions of your own to add?

[Pip]

I will start:
This is my first Pelevin. I remember that The Life of Insects was a BOTM some years ago and the only copy I could find was too expensive to buy online. I found what I believe is the only copy of The Clay Machine Gun in the University of Canterbury Library and they kindly lent it to me for $10. I have read Dead Souls by Gogol and enjoyed it but The Master and Marguerita I slogged through for another book group years ago and hated it. I am thinking that perhaps now I have more tolerance to the fantastic and grotesque and should, perhaps (when I have read everything else I want to read) try it again.

[Gail]

I read this, my first and only Pelevin, in 2018. I would never have read it but it popped up on my Random list and after struggling with some of the psychiatric hospital scenes, I ultimately found it wonderfully inventive and a rather delightful little Buddhist puzzle with heavy Russian nihilistic overtones. I may have read it again for this BOTM but my library is not yet sharing with the university and college libraries and I can not get a copy of the book.

[Tatiana]

Thank you so much for pointing out Russian title! English name puzzled me as I couldn't match it to any Pelevin's works I have heard of. I quickly googled it and it didn't help. Now when I now what the title is I can join group read. I tried to read this book a few years ago and hated it. Maybe this time around I'll do better.

[Amanda]

I finished this book over a week ago, and I’m not sure exactly I feel about it lol. I have read a decent amount of Golgol and Bulgarov and can see how this fits into that tradition, but I like their work more than I did this one. I also read Life of Insects by Pelevin, which I also liked more than this one.

1. I didn’t realize until the first segment with what I guess was a delusion in the form of a TV movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger in it. It was suuuuper confused and then googled the premise and then it made sense.

2. Huge changes in Russian cultural and political life?

3. That’s pretty funny, and kind of encapsulates the joke of what get called “enlightened centrism” ironically on the internet. I like that one too. I might go back and see what else was in there, but nothing especially sticks out to me from memory.

4. I got that this played into the idea of “the void” demonstrated by the protagonist’s last name and the original title. It’s kind of like inner peace, and a higher plane of being, somewhat reflecting the idea of Nirvana.

5. It’s the reward for the soldiers who are first able to see emptiness.

6. It was…interesting I guess. But to be honest this book was so widely odd and convoluted I feel like I missed what it was actually trying to say and if it endorsed its characters viewpoints or not.

7. Uhhh, I guess what was the overarching point of this book? Like what was Pelevin trying to say/achieve? I feel like that is something I missed to a certain extent and am curious about other people’s thoughts.

[Diane]

I read this a few months ago and liked it, although I can't say I completely "got it". It is a strange and kind of trippy book. It seemed very different to me from his other list book, The Life of Insects.