Victor Pelevin’s novel “Journey to Eleusis” has been published

Victor Pelevin has published his third novel in a row, the action of which takes place in the world of “Transhumanism Inc.”, where rich citizens, after death, continue to live in banks as long as they have enough money, and others envy them and are looking for an opportunity to get their own bank. True, for the heroes of “Journey to Eleusis” these problems are irrelevant: one is provided with both a bank and an income that allows him to pay for it, while the other, due to the electronic-digital nature, does not need anything like that. But something still worries the living dead man and his undead companion. I watched how they solved their problems Mikhail Prorokov.

The aging Roman emperor wants to make a pilgrimage to Eleusis – the place of the most mysterious mysteries in the world known to him, the truth of which is revealed to those who pass through them and a chance for immortality is given. The head of the security service of a powerful international corporation suspects that the emperor’s true goals are somewhat different and wants to monitor his pilgrimage. The first needs a reliable companion, the second needs a dedicated employee who can be entrusted with this extremely delicate matter. It is reasonable to assume that their chosen one will be the same person.

It is easy to notice that in “Journey to Eleusis” “Transhumanism Inc.” meets “The Invincible Sun” (where, as the reader may remember, half of the chapters took place at the court of either Caracalla or Heliogabalus). In addition, at some point, vampires from “Empire V” infiltrate the system of his characters, and the preface (and later it turns out that it’s not the only one) is written on behalf of the neural network Porfiry – previously Porfiry Petrovich, the hero of “IPhuck 10”. In general, while those fans of the master who valued the pre-jar Pelevin more were waiting for him to return from the virtual world to a slightly less virtual one, he began to invite his favorite heroes there – if the series continues, the brains of the fox A Khuli, Chapaev, may appear in the neighboring jars , or even Babylen of Tatar himself.

However, unlike the first “Transhumanism”, the plot in “Journey to Eleusis” is not rubber-stamp, that is, unbranched and, in general, corresponding to the title. So his conflicts more or less boil down to the confrontation between the corporation and Porfiry (aka the emperor in Ancient Rome, more precisely, in a simulation created by Transhumanism Inc. to amuse bored bankers and accept bets on gladiator fights). And the setting is either antiquity generated by algorithms, or the office of the head of the security service, Admiral-Bishop Lomas, where the hero of the novel named Marcus receives instructions before his next dive into the simulation (the office itself is also simulated, but the reader should not worry about this).

In terms of texture, antiquity undoubtedly has an advantage over the cabinet, and after a tiring day’s march, not only Falernian, but ordinary sour Greek wine can give a head start to the expensive cognac that Lomas treats Marcus with. Towards the middle of the novel, Marcus even admits that he likes being a Hellene more and more: “It’s about the emotional background. Everything seems strong and young. Promising and fresh.” Lomas agrees with the junior in rank: “Look at the decanter. Almost the same can be seen on a Roman fresco. But now all concepts, words and images have become two thousand years older. They have been drilled by many already faded minds…” There is a feeling that the author agrees with them, and the world of jars in this case is valuable to him precisely because of the opportunity to easily transfer the action to Rome. This is to some extent evidenced by the usual “two thousand years”, although this cannot be called an anachronism: the heroes live several centuries later than us (“206 Green Power”, as stated in the first “Transhumanism”), but also Ancient Rome in the simulation – also times of decline.

In general, having created, as already mentioned in the review of the novel before last, a fairly tolerable version of the future (and the point is not even in the possibility of personal immortality, but in the general situation of a fragile, but world, a certain patriarchy and partial tolerance, where many unpleasant tendencies have disappeared into the sand present), Pelevin nevertheless decided to look for a truly golden age in the previous centuries – and the ancient Roman freshness outweighed in his eyes all the wars, conspiracies, executions and deaths in the arena amid the screams of the crowd. The degree of his enthusiasm can be judged by those five pages where Porfiry reveals to Marcus the secrets of ancient cooking: not everything is appetizing (“Of course, you need to add vinegar so that the blood does not clot. Some argue that to raise their battle rage, the Spartans added Persian blood to this soup “), but everything is marked by that same freshness and genuine author’s interest.

What distinguishes the new novel from the previous one? When reading “KGBT+,” I couldn’t help but feel that the author was a little cramped in the role of a young talent grimacing on stage, sending his texts, which were not brilliant (for those who closely follow Pelevin’s work) with novelty, directly into the brains of the audience. Porfiry, as was known back in IPhuck 10, is not only an investigator, but also a writer, or rather, he is programmed to perform both functions simultaneously: he creates texts during the investigation process. Even more precisely, its texts are the essence of the investigation. In this image, the author clearly feels more comfortable, and the works of Porfiry included in the novel – about carnal love, about drinking wine, about Pink Floyd, whose concert the emperor also had the opportunity to attend, twice – differ from Salavat-Kay’s interludes in their wit and simplicity. And he rewards the hero according to his deserts: if Kay eventually went into rest, Porfiry, on the contrary, regains consciousness (it seems that this already happened to him in IPhuck 10, but repetition is the mother of learning).

And at the same time, at the end of the novel, the author and the hero respond to the prediction of a can specialist in Russian literature, with whom Marcus consults at the beginning of his mission (“The algorithm will drag us to heaven, jumping over the steps… Rodion Raskolnikov’s long road to heavenly Siberia to the singing of mobilized old women “). Porfiry, however, asks not to do this (apparently, valuing his formidable image), but his request is ignored, and in the last lines of “Travel to Eleusis” the lines of the song “Beautiful Far Away” sound familiar from childhood. True, it is sung by girls, not old women. And in Latin.