“Journey to Eleusis”: Pelevin and simulations

Pelevin is no longer just a writer. Meme man. Man-industry. For the last twenty years – since he completely abandoned publicity and went into the shadows – Pelevin has become less and less a person and more and more an industry. Still small, but stable. The next book comes out once a year and strictly at the end of summer or autumn. The time slot was chosen impeccably from a marketing point of view – social life is just restarting after the summer holidays, so the hungry audience is especially hungry for new intellectual impressions.

In any industry, a successful formula is immediately replicated by epigones. So it is with Pelevin, although no one else could successfully reproduce his formula – conspiracy theory plus Buddhism plus cynicism. But why delegate to others what you can do yourself? Pelevin did an excellent job of replicating himself on his own. “Journey to Eleusis” continues the trilogy begun by the books “Transhumanism Inc.” (2021) and KGBT+ (2022). Which, in turn, picks up the motifs of his trilogy Empire V (2006), Batman Apollo (2013) and iPhuck 10 (2017). And in both trilogies, the writer develops the findings of his first and most striking novels – such as “Chapaev and Emptiness” (1996) and “Generation P” (1999). Pelevin has long been a serial man. Our answer to Netflix. And it is logical that Kinopoisk is going to film his latest books.