Day of the Oprichnik: A Novel
Vladimir Sorokin, Jamey Gambrell
Language: English
Pages: 208
ISBN: 0374533105
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
One of The Telegraph's Best Fiction Books 2011
Moscow, 2028. A scream, a moan, and a death rattle slowly pull Andrei Danilovich Komiaga out of his drunken stupor. But wait―that's just his ring tone. So begins another day in the life of an oprichnik, one of the czar's most trusted courtiers―and one of the country's most feared men.
In this new New Russia, where futuristic technology and the draconian codes of Ivan the Terrible are in perfect synergy, Komiaga will attend extravagant parties, partake in brutal executions, and consume an arsenal of drugs. He will rape and pillage, and he will be moved to tears by the sweetly sung songs of his homeland.
Vladimir Sorokin has imagined a near future both too disturbing to contemplate and too realistic to dismiss. But like all of his best work, Sorokin's new novel explodes with invention and dark humor. A startling, relentless portrait of a troubled and troubling empire, Day of the Oprichnik is at once a richly imagined vision of the future and a razor-sharp diagnosis of a country in crisis.
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Six-decked ship. A massive vessel floating east, it does, From a wily country, from the godless land. Bearing vile and filthy goods, Carrying godless people, Subversive letters and seditious documents, Bearing delights demonical, Bringing pleasures satanical, Conveying decaying whore-swans Like a whirlwind we attack that ship, we do, Scorching and burning it from seven heads, From seven heads and seven mouths, We burn, we obliterate the godless filth within, We gorge on decaying.
Shka Ivanov—a well-known executioner of the Moscow intelligentsia—stands on the wooden platform. On Mondays he always does the flogging here. The people know him and respect him. Shka Ivanov is big, stocky, has white skin, a broad chest, curly hair, and wears round eyeglasses. He reads the sentence in a booming voice. I listen with half an ear, and look around at the crowd. As far as I can figure out, some junior clerk, Danilkov, from the Literary Chamber is to be flogged for “criminal.
Departmentals; Shelet had meetings in the Ambassadorial Department. Yerokha flew to Urengoi to deal with white gas; Pravda arranged surveillance and set fire to the apartment of someone in disgrace. I’m the only one with a profit: “Here, Batya, Kozlova bought a half-deal. Twenty-five hundred.” Batya takes the purse, shakes it, unties it, counts out ten gold pieces, and gives me my due. He sums up the day: “In the black.” Other oprichnik days are “festive,” “wealthy,” “hot,” “disbursed,”.
He screams with fury and indignation. How much anger that bastard has stored up. The knives of the remaining youngsters fly into him. And all of them hit their target. They know how to aim knives, those lads. We old-timers prefer to use our knives closer up. The count no longer wails; he’s wheezing, tossing and turning in the water. He looks like a sea mine. “There’s ‘everything will be returned’ for you.” Batya grins, taking a glass from the tray and sipping it. A convulsion passes through.
His pinkie. “We’ve had our steam bath. Upstairs! Everyone—upstairs!” The grandfather clock strikes 02:30. We’re sitting in the tiled drawing room. After midnight Batya has kept only five of us: Potyka, Vosk, Baldokhai, Yerokha, and me. After the wet stuff our Batya had a hankering for coke with vodka. We sit at a round table of red granite. There’s a dish with stripes of white, candles, and a carafe of vodka. Yerokha warms the dish with the candle, drying the coke from below. Batya’s already.