Science Fiction Book Review Victor Pelevin Omon Ra

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1992 – Faber & Faber – Spoiler alerts A quite dark satire from Russia that manages to combine political commentary, satire science fiction, horror and comedy seamlessly. Omon Krivomazov spends his childhood dreaming of being a cosmonaut, and a great flying ace. After he finishes his schooling he joins the military space academy and the horror starts. Instead of space training as we might expect, Omon is given endless lectures on the need for State heroes, and he need to sacrifice yourself for the Communist cause. Heroism is moved from being the act of an exceptional individual, willing to throw himself on a grenade to save his friends, to being a reflex, brainwashing induced unthinking noble but vacuous sacrifice, eroding all self-worth to the higher cause. Omon has to study the (true) exploit of a WW2 fighter pilot, Alexey Maresyev, who lost his feet when his plane crashed after being shot down. Over three weeks, he dragged himself home, but had to have his legs amputated. He demanded and gained the right to fly fighter plane again, becoming a Russian Douglas Barder (a famous British pilot with a similar story). Oman and his fellow trainees are then sent to a hospital to have their feet amputated, to make them more like Maresyev but fortunately Omon and a few of the men are spared from this at the last minute for another mysterious mission. Omon, beginning to compare himself to the Egyptian Sun God, Ra (hence the title), meets another hero, a man who worked with his son as gamekeepers for a Soviet hunting lodge. After a few tragic hunting accidents killed hunters, it was decided to turn men into pretend bears, and the father and son had to test out bullet proof bear outfits before running round in the woods for hunters to take shots at them. All went well until the hunt was arranged for the visit of President Roosevelt, who,, puzzled that a bear he shot at close range didn’t fall over and die, finished it off with his knife, leaving the grief stricken father watching the President proudly stand on his dying son for trophy photographs. What a hero! The sense of fakery and sham runs through the book. Pelevin claims Russia has no real nuclear bombs and few serviceable planes, flying what little they have close to the border to impress Americans watching from across the Iron Curtain. Finally, Omon is given a seeming suicide mission to the Dark Side Of The Moon, with a team who must manually separate the various rocket stages, and die in the process. Omon’s bicycle-powered lunar-rover uniform amounts to a woollen coat and tampons shoved up his nostrils. How long before he realizes the whole thing is just for show? Funny and scary, with the boy who wants to be a genuine hero having his dreams crushed by senseless political demands to turn him into a different kind of hero, modelled on those of the past. Written in the Gorbachov era that finally ended the Soviet stranglehold on Eastern Europe, or the book may never have been allowed into print. Arthur Chappell