Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Chicago Review Press (2016), 416 pages
Description
"The Doomed City is set in an experimental city whose sun gets switched on in the morning and switched off at night, bordered by an abyss on one side and an impossibly high wall on the other. Its inhabitants are people who were plucked from twentieth-century history at various times and places and left to govern themselves, advised by Mentors whose purpose seems inscrutable. Andrei Voronin, a young astronomer plucked from Leningrad in the 1950s, is a die-hard believer in the Experiment, even though his first job in the city is as a garbage collector. And as increasingly nightmarish scenarios begin to affect the city, he rises through the political hierarchy, with devastating effect" --
Media reviews
The brothers immerse themselves in a Kafkaesque exploration here, composing a text that is both unequivocally satirical and seriously philosophical. (...) Russian-Jewish masterpiece, whose publication in English constitutes a long-awaited event.
User reviews
LibraryThing member gbill
Written over 1967-1972 but not published until 1988, this underground novel from the Strugatsky brothers is powerful stuff. Written ostensibly as science fiction, with people taken from various countries and placed in a world which is conducting a mysterious Experiment, it is in reality a harsh
The novel’s protagonist, Andrei Voronin, starts off as a true believer in the Experiment and rotates through positions of being a garbage collector, police investigator, newspaper editor, and high-ranking government official, allowing the authors to satire the lying, corruption, torture, and censorship that took place in the Soviet Union. The chapter where he enters the red building himself, finds himself in a surreal environment, and plays chess with the ‘Grand Strategist’, with pieces being real people, is absolutely brilliant (and as an aside, I loved the use of the Queen’s Gambit opening).
We find other nations with representatives in the Experiment: an American who grows despondent under such conditions, a German from the 1940s who is ruthless in his rise to power, and a Chinese man who is content with living simply in the same job, which Voronin suspects is because he understands the “eternal futility” of resistance. It’s telling that the other main character, Izya, is a Jew who, despite his sloppy personal characteristics, seeks to preserve culture and turns out to be the most enlightened of all. I have to say though, the treatment of women characters was not so great, and I found it to be a shortcoming of the book.
The novel pretty bluntly ponders communism, and beyond the harsh conditions, takes the larger view: was its nature something akin to early Christianity in its brotherhood and the sharing of wealth, or, far from humble resignation, a rebellion/revolution? How was it supposed to deal with a stratification that would “inevitably arise”? Can it produce creative talent in a repressive environment that controls information and expression? And why go on with it after events have unfolded that were “unforeseen by any theory”?
One cannot help but see any authoritarian leader in the German character when he ascends to power after having waited for “some disturbance of the equilibrium, even if it is only temporary, in order to whip up passions so that the muddy waters of turmoil will raise them up”, as he exclaims “Hatred! Hatred will guide us! … I am sweeping the scum and the subhumans out of our City with a broom of iron!” The overtones of populist politics today are also eerily felt in those words.
The novel also asks the larger questions confronting mankind: what is the nature of the intellectual elite and the masses? Can man overcome what seems to be an inherent bent towards inhumanity towards his fellow man? And perhaps most importantly of all, in a meaningless world, what is the point of anything? I can’t help but believe that the Andrei and Izya’s conversation at the end represents the two sides of the authors own thoughts about that last question, and their ultimate conclusion, represented in Izya’s description of the arts and culture over the centuries, is uplifting.
The short afterword, written by Boris Strugatsky, is excellent, describing the conditions and very real fears the brothers had while writing the novel, without being melodramatic. It also explains the title comes from the painting of the same name by Nicholas Roerich. Lastly, it makes the point that it was not only the authors that had their worldview changed over time, but that “an entire generation traveled this path over the period from 1940 to 1985.” Indeed.
Just this quote, which seemed ominous to me in light of global warming:
“As soon as society has solved some problem that it has, it immediately comes face-to-face with a new problem of the same magnitude… no, of even greater magnitude. … And that, by the way, gives rise to an interesting little point. Eventually society will come face-to-face with problems of such complexity that it will be beyond mankind’s power to solve them. And then so-called progress will stop.”
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critique of the Soviet Union, which they prophetically knew was tottering towards its inevitable end. This is a world where among other things, the sun is switched on and off by unseen masters, troops of riotous baboons descend on the inhabitants, and a mysterious red building suddenly appears and those who enter it may never be seen again. The novel’s protagonist, Andrei Voronin, starts off as a true believer in the Experiment and rotates through positions of being a garbage collector, police investigator, newspaper editor, and high-ranking government official, allowing the authors to satire the lying, corruption, torture, and censorship that took place in the Soviet Union. The chapter where he enters the red building himself, finds himself in a surreal environment, and plays chess with the ‘Grand Strategist’, with pieces being real people, is absolutely brilliant (and as an aside, I loved the use of the Queen’s Gambit opening).
We find other nations with representatives in the Experiment: an American who grows despondent under such conditions, a German from the 1940s who is ruthless in his rise to power, and a Chinese man who is content with living simply in the same job, which Voronin suspects is because he understands the “eternal futility” of resistance. It’s telling that the other main character, Izya, is a Jew who, despite his sloppy personal characteristics, seeks to preserve culture and turns out to be the most enlightened of all. I have to say though, the treatment of women characters was not so great, and I found it to be a shortcoming of the book.
The novel pretty bluntly ponders communism, and beyond the harsh conditions, takes the larger view: was its nature something akin to early Christianity in its brotherhood and the sharing of wealth, or, far from humble resignation, a rebellion/revolution? How was it supposed to deal with a stratification that would “inevitably arise”? Can it produce creative talent in a repressive environment that controls information and expression? And why go on with it after events have unfolded that were “unforeseen by any theory”?
One cannot help but see any authoritarian leader in the German character when he ascends to power after having waited for “some disturbance of the equilibrium, even if it is only temporary, in order to whip up passions so that the muddy waters of turmoil will raise them up”, as he exclaims “Hatred! Hatred will guide us! … I am sweeping the scum and the subhumans out of our City with a broom of iron!” The overtones of populist politics today are also eerily felt in those words.
The novel also asks the larger questions confronting mankind: what is the nature of the intellectual elite and the masses? Can man overcome what seems to be an inherent bent towards inhumanity towards his fellow man? And perhaps most importantly of all, in a meaningless world, what is the point of anything? I can’t help but believe that the Andrei and Izya’s conversation at the end represents the two sides of the authors own thoughts about that last question, and their ultimate conclusion, represented in Izya’s description of the arts and culture over the centuries, is uplifting.
The short afterword, written by Boris Strugatsky, is excellent, describing the conditions and very real fears the brothers had while writing the novel, without being melodramatic. It also explains the title comes from the painting of the same name by Nicholas Roerich. Lastly, it makes the point that it was not only the authors that had their worldview changed over time, but that “an entire generation traveled this path over the period from 1940 to 1985.” Indeed.
Just this quote, which seemed ominous to me in light of global warming:
“As soon as society has solved some problem that it has, it immediately comes face-to-face with a new problem of the same magnitude… no, of even greater magnitude. … And that, by the way, gives rise to an interesting little point. Eventually society will come face-to-face with problems of such complexity that it will be beyond mankind’s power to solve them. And then so-called progress will stop.”
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LibraryThing member richardderus
I'll say this about the Strugatsky Brothers: They had *fearless* imaginations, tempered by fearful souls that quailed before publishing this nihilistic, absurdist, deeply subversive book in Soviet Russia. Completed in 1972, shelved until 1989, and published in a professional English translation
Voronin, our astronomer-turned-state-official, is an ideal. He is every system's beloved child, the True Believer who makes excuses and finds reasons instead of asking, "...the fuck...? Are they kidding with this?" As experience teaches him to question, he sidesteps. He changes his beliefs without batting an eyelash, a clue to his essential hollowness. For all that he is an eager participant in all the City's shifts of philosophical direction, the reason he can do so remains unexamined: He's complicit in the acts of the State, not driven by a desire to enact a Vision. His lack of an inner compass is rather amusing given that almost the entire novel is an internal monologue. I myownself found this a delightful twist, enjoying the musings of a centerless man as irony. Others might find that conceit wearing.
The things I found wearing were the astoundingly sexist and anti-Semitic attitudes of the characters (and, I suspect, the authors as well). There are horrible words used in connection with the two women I can recall at all...they might indeed have been the only two women mentioned, for I can summon no other woman to mind...and Katzman's presence in stereotypical fashion was not obviously played for ironic effect.
Given my track record for objecting to these facets of other older books, why am I giving this one the Full Five? Because, my friends, the story of a city between an unscalable wall and an endless abyss recommends itself to me as a parable for all of human life, and the awful attitudes of the PoV character are part and parcel of the falling, failing world that the Strugatskys were lampooning, dissecting, parodying, itemizing. These facets seem to me, even though I suspect and believe they were presented unironically, to be so much of a piece with the Experiment being ridiculed that I could easily make them objects of fun. Nonetheless they are there and merit mention lest an unsuspecting reader trip over them and feel blindsided.
Boris Strugatsky, in his Afterword, says it all and best:
How to live in conditions of ideological vacuum? How and what for? In my opinion this question remains highly relevant even today—which is why City, despite being so vehemently politicized and so categorically of its own time, potentially remains of interest to the present-day reader—provided that this reader has any interest at all in problems of this kind.
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only in 2016, this stateless satirical look at the amoral roots of True Belief in a System reads as well in 45's Amurruhkuh as it did in Brezhnev's USSR.Voronin, our astronomer-turned-state-official, is an ideal. He is every system's beloved child, the True Believer who makes excuses and finds reasons instead of asking, "...the fuck...? Are they kidding with this?" As experience teaches him to question, he sidesteps. He changes his beliefs without batting an eyelash, a clue to his essential hollowness. For all that he is an eager participant in all the City's shifts of philosophical direction, the reason he can do so remains unexamined: He's complicit in the acts of the State, not driven by a desire to enact a Vision. His lack of an inner compass is rather amusing given that almost the entire novel is an internal monologue. I myownself found this a delightful twist, enjoying the musings of a centerless man as irony. Others might find that conceit wearing.
The things I found wearing were the astoundingly sexist and anti-Semitic attitudes of the characters (and, I suspect, the authors as well). There are horrible words used in connection with the two women I can recall at all...they might indeed have been the only two women mentioned, for I can summon no other woman to mind...and Katzman's presence in stereotypical fashion was not obviously played for ironic effect.
Given my track record for objecting to these facets of other older books, why am I giving this one the Full Five? Because, my friends, the story of a city between an unscalable wall and an endless abyss recommends itself to me as a parable for all of human life, and the awful attitudes of the PoV character are part and parcel of the falling, failing world that the Strugatskys were lampooning, dissecting, parodying, itemizing. These facets seem to me, even though I suspect and believe they were presented unironically, to be so much of a piece with the Experiment being ridiculed that I could easily make them objects of fun. Nonetheless they are there and merit mention lest an unsuspecting reader trip over them and feel blindsided.
Boris Strugatsky, in his Afterword, says it all and best:
How to live in conditions of ideological vacuum? How and what for? In my opinion this question remains highly relevant even today—which is why City, despite being so vehemently politicized and so categorically of its own time, potentially remains of interest to the present-day reader—provided that this reader has any interest at all in problems of this kind.
Show Less
LibraryThing member otikhonova
I think I can say it is one of the best Strugatsky brothers books.
LibraryThing member sarcher
Fantastic. I struggled with the first two sections (probably because there were cultural aspects of the work I'm unfamiliar with). There is a postscript where the authors discuss why it couldn't be circulated when it was originally written.
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2016 (English Translation)
1989
Physical description
416 p.; 5.5 inches
ISBN
1613749937 / 9781613749937