Clones of great writers writhe in the agonizing process of scripting, the Bolshoi Theater is flooded to the ceiling with sewage, Stalin and Khrushchev are lovers, the history of the 20th century is turned inside out.
In Vladimir Sorokin's most provocative novel, which cemented his title as a classic of postmodernism, all idols are cast down—they become participants in an unbridled carnival where the high and the low, fantasy and reality, past and future are intermingled.
However, one sacred relic remains untrampled: by destroying familiar notions of the norm and turning everything upside down, Sorokin here too proclaims the sacred status of literature. The novel's protagonist is a literary myth; it changes, but its fundamental role in culture remains unchanged.