February 5, 2010

Russians do write good sci-fi

Posted in Movies&Books, Uncategorized tagged russian sci-fi, strugatski, waves extinguish the wind at 12:14 am by ancienttrails

Going to a bookshop from time to time is not always a waste of time, as opposed to browsing electronic bookshops. It reminded me of an old highschool (yes, that old! ) goal I had after seeing the “Stalker” of Tarkovski and finding out that it was inspired by a novel of Arkadi & Boris Strugatski, or the “Strugatski brothers” as they are also called. My reasoning at that time was something along the lines “Ok, I don’t understand a thing of this film…therefore a) maybe the book will help and/or b) what have the Strugatski brothers written there so that it turned into this film I do not get…” (yes, I was very optimistic). At that time I couldn’t find any of their books though, I remember even trying the public library but everything was always already lent. Anyway, this is not a post about the Stalker (though one will come soon), so I return to the initial story. Seeing the name of my favourite Russians on the new cover of a book, I bought it and read it (or, more properly, devoured it ).

The Waves Extinguish the Wind (a.k.a The Time Wanderers) is a sort of an X-file written as a memoire but also as a documented case-study which remains in the archives. I loved it immediately for many reasons, but here are a few of them: (a) this kind of writing forces the reader to have an active role, to feel like a detective who discovers dusty manuscripts and tries to put together the facts, (b) it conveys authenticity to the story and (c) it reminded me of an old project I had.

The wiki page describes in a few paragraphs the plot of the book…but in my opinion there is no plot in this book, or at least, it is much more subtle than what appears to be the plot. I would dare say the plot is not the story of Toivo Glumov, but the tiny un-developed plots of the characters surrounding him: his friend and boss Kammerer, his wife and his mother (the latter being barely mentioned), the young Kir and the old lady, the sourcerer, and even the un-told story of the past activities of Toivo in other worlds (which he himself admits hating).

As in all good sci-fi, Strugatski play here almost constantly with the change of paradigm and the intensity of the psychological reactions of humankind is impressive, as well as the technicality of such analysis. The good and the bad are reduced to their relative value at cosmic levels (from the perspective of a race), and the level of development of the humankind both in terms of physical potential (see the fukamisation procedure) and psychological perception are also questioned. Toivo may not prevent becoming what he is, and it doesn’t matter that much if there have been internal of external causes that led to this end (dilemma suggested by the wiki page).

Our perception remains limited to the extent of the current knowledge, and certain boundaries may not be removed. However, one cannot refrain from reflecting upon at least two main questions: “What course is humankind taking?” and “What responses may I give, as an individual, to the chanllenges of the universe?”…but there are so many others.

I guess it’s time to stop now, ’cause I already feel like reading the book again

Permalink