Serious Spiritual Trauma
I see that Ice by Vladimir Sorokin is now available in English. Unfortunately, The New York Times doesn't make it sound very appealing.
Sorokin, if you remember, is the notorious author of Goluboe Salo. While searching to see if that particular book had yet been translated, I came across this amusing paragraph in Владимир Сорокин:
" . . . On June 3, 49-year-old Muscovite Artem Magunyants complained to the Zamoskvorechie department of the Interior Ministry, that he found certain scenes in Sorokin's novel Goluboe Salo pornographic. He said he bought the book in a railway station forecourt, and started reading straight away. When he got to the passage in question--a scene involving an explicitly depicted sexual encounter between Stalin and Khrushchev--he suffered serious spiritual trauma. . . . "
Well, sure. A scene like that would cause anyone "serious spiritual trauma." Still, I see no need for a formal complaint. Psychological counseling to assist in removing the horrifying image from the mind's eye? Yes. But not a formal complaint.
Sorokin, if you remember, is the notorious author of Goluboe Salo. While searching to see if that particular book had yet been translated, I came across this amusing paragraph in Владимир Сорокин:
" . . . On June 3, 49-year-old Muscovite Artem Magunyants complained to the Zamoskvorechie department of the Interior Ministry, that he found certain scenes in Sorokin's novel Goluboe Salo pornographic. He said he bought the book in a railway station forecourt, and started reading straight away. When he got to the passage in question--a scene involving an explicitly depicted sexual encounter between Stalin and Khrushchev--he suffered serious spiritual trauma. . . . "
Well, sure. A scene like that would cause anyone "serious spiritual trauma." Still, I see no need for a formal complaint. Psychological counseling to assist in removing the horrifying image from the mind's eye? Yes. But not a formal complaint.