Strange, bleak, dark, pick your own adjective. Pelevin portrays the USSR and it's Soviet system as a big scam, one in which the only thing that mattered to the government was the public relations view presented to the West, the theory that Marxism MUST triumph through any means, and the historical inevitability of that triumph. While it has to be admitted that there is something behind this view, it's obvious that his is not the typical attitude of the ex-Soviet towards the system, and in the end this book comes across as more typical of the National Review and it's adjuncts on the Right such as the Murdoch empire than it does as literature. The title character's rebellion and assertion of his individualism is just too little too late to counter the caricature portrayal of the USSR in all it's one-dimensionality. In the end, Omon Ra just reads like a far right wing wish fulfillment fantasy, and that's fine if that is what you're looking for, but if you value moral complexity, realism and suspension of the West-centric view of the USSR, skip this one.

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