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Ice Trilogy New York Review Books Classics Vladimir Sorokin Jamey Gambrell 9781590173862 Books

Download As PDF : Ice Trilogy New York Review Books Classics Vladimir Sorokin Jamey Gambrell 9781590173862 Books

Ice Trilogy New York Review Books Classics Vladimir Sorokin Jamey Gambrell 9781590173862 Books

Since I read a brief excerpt of Sorokin in translation in 1997, it has always been disgracefully hard to get hold of his writing. So I was ecstatic when Ice was translated and I wasn't disappointed. Ice is easy to read; most of it is a collection of first person narratives, the experience of the characters as they first come across the Ice and then as they develop from their original human status to being enlightened, and the consequent dehumanization of their perception of those around them. The core conceit - that in order to awaken the hearts of the chosen, one must beat their chest-plates with an Ice hammer until either the heart speaks its name or they, well, usually die - is a beautifully absurd combination of violence and the sacred, of totalitarianism and New Age. This tension is at the core of the book: the elevated, transcendent aims of the Ice cult (which are treated as objective fact) versus the grotesquely violent reality of their acts. The reader becomes detached from human suffering throughout until very much toward the end when human/"meat machine" protagonists are introduced. The book shifts focus, shifts narrator and voice, and with each shift carries the reader and his/her sympathies. Superbly written, fascinating, ugly and magnificent, it has a scope and vision that is beyond western contemporary literature. It has a lot more in common with film directors like Lynch and Jodorowsky than it does most printed matter these days. Highest recommendation.


Tags : Ice Trilogy (New York Review Books Classics) [Vladimir Sorokin, Jamey Gambrell] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A New York Review Books Original   In 1908, deep in Siberia, it fell to earth. THEIR ICE. A young man on a scientific expedition found it. It spoke to his heart,Vladimir Sorokin, Jamey Gambrell,Ice Trilogy (New York Review Books Classics),NYRB Classics,1590173864,Science Fiction - General,Brotherhoods,Brotherhoods;Fiction.,Extremists,Extremists;Fiction.,Sorokin, Vladimir,FICTION Dystopian,FICTION Literary,FICTION Occult & Supernatural,FICTION Science Fiction Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic,FICTION Science Fiction General,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-Science Fiction,GENERAL,General Adult,Literary,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),RUSSIAN NOVEL AND SHORT STORY,Russia,SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY,Science Fiction,United States,russian; science fiction; science fiction books; sci-fi; dystopian fiction; dystopia; post apocalyptic fiction; dystopian; fiction; fiction books; sci fi; apocalyptic fiction; sci fi books; sci fi book; paranormal; sci-fi books; science fiction and fantasy; paranormal books; books science fiction; science fiction novels; supernatural suspense novels; apocalyptic science fiction; science fiction and fanatsy books; paranormal fiction; russian literature; philosophy; 20th century; classic; german; translation; literary fiction,science fiction;dystopia;sci-fi;dystopian fiction;science fiction books;sci fi;science fiction and fantasy;apocalypse;sci-fi books;sci fi books;supernatural;paranormal;post apocalyptic fiction;apocalyptic fiction;demons;fiction;novels;fiction books;sci fi book;books fiction;paranormal books;dystopian books;books science fiction;dystopian;paranormal fiction;science fiction novels;russian;russian literature;philosophy;fantasy;alternate history;classic;war;literary fiction;translation;german,FICTION Dystopian,FICTION Literary,FICTION Occult & Supernatural,FICTION Science Fiction Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic,FICTION Science Fiction General,Literary,Fiction - General,Russian Novel And Short Story,Science Fiction And Fantasy,Fiction,Science Fiction,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Ice Trilogy New York Review Books Classics Vladimir Sorokin Jamey Gambrell 9781590173862 Books Reviews

I actually read a review on this book from a magazine and thought to check it out. The first novel is really so unique and strange that you find yourself really drawn in and unable to stop reading. As I began to get through the second novel I started to think to myself, "What or who are they fighting and for what?". I am actually not sure why I continued on to read 23,000. Probably because all three came together and I felt as if I should just finish what I started. The end of the last novel, without ruining it in case you like this pseudo-existential stuff, is a complete let down. There is no resolution and it almost feels as if Sorokin woke up one day and literally said, "Ok, I'm going to finish this by lunch." If you can get the first novel by itself and somehow read the last 4 pages of 23,000, you'll have saved that part of your life you'll have lost reading what is in between and thank me.
Because you will find yourself flipping pages through endless dream sequences and peripheral transient characters in search of a plot. The besty is "Bro", after that move on. And "Bro" is good. After that is a balance between silly and nonsensical.

Yo, guys in the future If you want to take over Earth you might want to do more than a meteor in Siberia and "ice hammers". Seriously?
the epic story is best enjoyed as the full trilogy, I flew through the pages with an engaging story that really developed the characters throughout a very long period of time. overall, one of the best books i've ever read, If you're looking for something that's wildly outside the box, intensely relatable, and astoundingly well written, these books are for you.
It's an odd thing that most reviewers of Sorokin tend compare him to other writers, living or dead, as if somehow that would assign certain worth to his writing and rank him in terms of greatness. Ice trilogy is a highly entertaining, at times absolutely engrossing book and well worth a read. Sorokin's writing is first class, irrespective of what genre one ascribes his books to. Just don't expect it to be this or that and if you happen to find ( or not find) great insights in it, I'm sure Sorokin didn't mean it.
Psalm 14717

The ice gets cast forth like rice at a wedding in Vladimir Sorokin's dark, Russian fantasy, "Ice Trilogy". Sorokin's work is well-known in Russia and the subject of much controversy. One of his earlier books, Blue Lard, was the subject of a lawsuit brought by a Russian nationalist group claiming that his depiction of `intimate relations' between a clone of Stalin and a clone of Khrushchev was pornographic and defamed the Russian people. Not unexpectedly the suit resulted in a tremendous increase in sales. Similarly, in the newly-released Day of the Oprichnik A Novel, Sorokin looks at a futuristic Russia and sees a world where violence and brutality are the norm.

In an interview with Spiegel, the German magazine, Sorokin has stated that "[a]s a child I perceived violence as a sort of natural law. In the totalitarian Soviet Union, oppression held everything together. It was the sinister energy of our country. I had that sense by as early as kindergarten and grade school. Later on I wanted to understand why human beings are unable to do without violence. It's a mystery I haven't solved to this day. Yes, violence is my main theme." I think this bit of background is essential to any review of The Ice Trilogy.

Written as three separate volumes and sold as one book by NYRB, Ice Trilogy has an almost biblical story-line. Part 1, "Bro", starts off with what can be called the book's Genesis the Tunguska Event. On June 30, one of the largest meteorites ever to enter the earth's atmosphere struck down in the middle of Siberia. Scientists have estimated that the blast hit Siberia with the same force as a 15-megaton nuclear blast. At the same time, and not coincidentally, Alexander (Sasha) Snegirev, the trilogy's Adam, was born to a well-off family. Sasha's quiet idyllic childhood and his family are shattered by World War I, the Russian Revolution(s), and the subsequent Civil War. Abandoned and alone, Sasha makes his way through to University and from there he gets himself seconded to an expedition to Siberia to search for the site of the meteor crash. It is in Siberia that Sasha meets his destiny. The meteor is made of ice and Sasha hurls himself upon it and finds `salvation'. The ice speaks to him. Every planet in the universe is composed of 23,000 rays of light. The earth was a mistake and as the planet evolved the peace and harmony of the planet was ruined by humans. Sasha, now known to himself as Bro, hears the ice tell him to find the remaining 22,999 rays of light lying dormant in human bodies and wake them up. Once awake the 23,000 brothers and sisters together can return the earth to its original condition. One can only be woken by being struck in the heart by ice from the meteor. The rest of Bro sets up the beginnings of this organization of heart seekers.

Part 2, "Ice" is also born in violence. This volume was released independently in 2007 and, in the interests of brevity; the reviews there provide a decent summary of this volume. See Ice (New York Review Books Classics). Part 3, 23,000, takes us to the possible fulfillment of the heart-seekers' mission of releasing the light.

I was entranced by the book for a number of reasons. Bro surprised me in that it is mostly set out as a straight-forward narrative. This is very unlike Sorokin's other work and I sometimes wondered if this were the same Sorokin. Bro is a bit slow to develop and this may disappoint some who like their `fantasy' to start off in high gear and stay that way. However, once Sorokin sets up his structure, and it takes most of Bro to do so, the book takes off in classic Sorokin fashion.

Volume 2, Ice, goes back to my original notion that there are biblical overtones to this trilogy. You can see Sorokin taking us through this particular looking glass darkly. Like many sects, religions, ideologies, and so on the heart seekers motives are pure. They speak of seeing the light and speaking the language of the heart. They speak of a utopian destiny in which all the sins of the earth, of humanity, are subject to a great cleansing. But at the same time we read with some horror (a horror brought on by a sense of familiarity) at how these seekers of light seek go about achieving their brand of nirvana. Driving ice stakes into the heart of every blond haired blue eyed person they can get their hands on, even though they know only one in millions is part of the 23,000 they are studiously unconcerned for who gets hurt. The fact that these truth seekers are quintessential Aryans is disturbing to say the least. Taking on upper-level positions with the KGB and SS allows them to operate with impunity while they go ahead with their divine mission even though this means they participate in all the horrors known to the world as the Gulag and the Holocaust. Seeing non-heart-speaking humans as merely `meat-machines' not worthy of consideration completes this picture. There is no analysis or question of the ends justifying the means. There is just "the ends". There is no earthly morality, just a divined and total amorality. Sorokin paints a very grim picture of the heart seekers and in so doing paints a pretty grim and I would say pretty accurate picture of those who see salvation (be it through Marx or Jesus etc.) and care not a whit about the totalitarian temptations that drive them to brutal violence. Walt Kelly's character Pogo is famed for saying "we have met the enemy and he is us". Sorokin's Ice Trilogy takes this concept to its outer limits.

I've seen some reviews that compare Sorokin to Gogol and others to French-author Michel Houellebecq. I think that the comparison to Houellebecq is the more apt. They each do an excellent job of painting a grim picture of individuals and societies as an example of both moral and physical decay. Sorokin manages to explore these issues while at the same time telling a pretty exciting story that stands on its own as a well-written piece of fantasy. Grim though the undertones or message may be the story is far from dull. It was gripping and engaging.

The Ice Trilogy comes in at just under 700 pages. It didn't feel that long to me. It was well worth the investment and well worth reading. L. Fleisig
Since I read a brief excerpt of Sorokin in translation in 1997, it has always been disgracefully hard to get hold of his writing. So I was ecstatic when Ice was translated and I wasn't disappointed. Ice is easy to read; most of it is a collection of first person narratives, the experience of the characters as they first come across the Ice and then as they develop from their original human status to being enlightened, and the consequent dehumanization of their perception of those around them. The core conceit - that in order to awaken the hearts of the chosen, one must beat their chest-plates with an Ice hammer until either the heart speaks its name or they, well, usually die - is a beautifully absurd combination of violence and the sacred, of totalitarianism and New Age. This tension is at the core of the book the elevated, transcendent aims of the Ice cult (which are treated as objective fact) versus the grotesquely violent reality of their acts. The reader becomes detached from human suffering throughout until very much toward the end when human/"meat machine" protagonists are introduced. The book shifts focus, shifts narrator and voice, and with each shift carries the reader and his/her sympathies. Superbly written, fascinating, ugly and magnificent, it has a scope and vision that is beyond western contemporary literature. It has a lot more in common with film directors like Lynch and Jodorowsky than it does most printed matter these days. Highest recommendation.