The Sacred Book of the Werewolf: A Novel

A Russian speaking friend of mine recommended this book. He loved it and based on conversations we'd had he was sure I would love it as well. He had read the book in Russian. I bought this English translation the next day.I struggled to make sense of what was written. The sentence structure was abysmal and the word selection was somewhat odd. I often had to read a previous sentence a second time to determine what information the current sentence was trying to convey.When I complained to another Russian speaking friend the trouble I was having his comment was, "Yeah, you can't just translate Russian sentences to English sentences, it has to be rephrased or it won't make sense."Before purchasing this book I *highly* recommend reading the "Look Inside" feature which shows the first several pages. The problems I ran into are demonstrated there. If you can read the whole thing without a problem than your mind is more nimble than mine and you'll be okay.

Even if you don't ordinarily read science-fiction or novels with werewolves, you will still enjoy The Sacred Book of the Werewolf since Victor Pelevin grounds his novel in a fund of everyday reality and tells his tale in easy-to-follow linear narrative. True, the narrator is a 2000 year old female werefox in the body of a sleek, shapely gorgeous sixteen year old girl, but, still, there is enough human-like traits to identify with her desires and aspirations and conflicts. We follow our sly werefox , A Hu-Li by name, through a number of sexual encounters, frolicking adventures and emotionally charged relationships in Moscow 2005. What really adds a zesty flavor to this tale is the cross-species, supernatural qualities of several characters and how they transform and then interact with mere humans, or, in some cases, with other were-creatures, as per the below examples.A Hu-Li also has a fox's tail, which she describes as follows : "When a fox's tail increases in length, the ginger hairs on it grow thinker and longer. It's like a fountain when the pressure is increased several times over (I wouldn't draw any parallels with the male erection). The tail plays a special part in our lives, and not only because of its remarkable beauty. I didn't call it an antenna by chance. The tail is the organ that we use to spin our web of illusion." And what a web of illusion! Enough to scramble the minds of any man she meets, any man, that is, who is fully human.There are other magical, intuitive gifts that come along with being a werefox. A Hu-Li tells us about one such gift: "But thanks to our tail, we foxes find ourselves in a kind of sympathetic resonance with people's consciousness amplified when people take drugs. --- his consciousness was hurtling along some kind of orange tunnel filled with spectral forms that he skillfully avoided. The tunnel kept branching sideways and Mikhalich chose which way to turn. It was like a bobsleigh - Mikhalich was controlling his imaginary flight with minute turns of his feet and hands that were invisible to the eye, not even turns really, simply microscopic adjustments of the tension in the corresponding muscles." Such a description is an example of the clear, vivid language we find in Andrew Bromfield's translation.And here is a snippet from a section where A Hu-Li observes a special someone in her life metamorphosing into a full-fledged werewolf: "And then he sprouted fur all over him. The word `sprouted' isn't entirely appropriate here. It was more as if his tunic and trousers crumbled into fur - as if the shoulder straps and stripes were drawn in watercolour on a solid mass of wet hair that suddenly dried out and layered off into separate hairs." If you enjoy your literary fiction super-charged with such shape-shifting, you will love Victor Pelevin's spins of imagination and will gladly keep turning the novel's pages.All of this fictional ingenuity and inventiveness combined with social commentary, especially commentary on Russian history and society, along with a healthy amount of metaphysics and Eastern mysticism makes for one first-rate novel. One last note: If you enjoy listening to Audiobooks, Cassandra Campbell's breezy, saucy voice is pitch-perfect as Pelevin's frisky werefox.

The book is fine, but nothing AMAZING like so many people said. Lots of started and dropped story threads, and the characters are very bland. I felt like there was a good story that wanted to be told, but every time a fun and interesting plot point was being developed it was dropped and we were rushed on to a new one.**SPOILERS**Also, "LOVE?!" what a boring way to end the book.

One of the best examples of contemporary Russian literature. Highly recommended.

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf is an intricate and sometimes confusing story about the emotional and psychological history of Russia, as seen through the eyes of a shape-shifting creature living in Soviet Russia after World War II.

Good

"The present text, which is also known under the title of 'A Hu-Li' is in fact a clumsy literary forgery".So begins "The Sacred Book of the Werewolf", in a faux 'Commentary by Experts', which goes on to describe the strange events surrounding the discovery of the present manuscript, and to place a rather official sounding stamp of worthlessness on the whole business. This short introduction was all I had time to read in the bookstore, but it set its claws in me, and I ordered the book through Amazon, prepared for a post-modern romp (or perhaps lope) through Russia and the mind of Victor Pelevin.I've been behind the Pelevin curve, apparently - it's only recently that I even heard of him. It was my Dad, over Thanksgiving, that clued me in by recounting the events in  Buddha's Little Finger , and had me laughing out loud while he did it. I decided I'd get out in front of the crowd with 'Werewolf', and catch up with the rest of Pelevin's catalog later.For a relatively short book, it's difficult to disect 'The Sacred Book of the Werewolf', as Pelevin has crammed a lot of thought in here. Perhaps the easiest to name, but not necessarily the easiest to digest, is his illustration of transcendence, and how the main character, A Hu-Li searches for an end to the world of woe as she comprehends it. But Pelevin is looking for other types of transcendence beside the personal. He's also urging Russia herself to rise out of its fallen status among nations, to leave off syphoning her life blood in the form of oil, and to tell the West to take a hike. Before that can happen though, the people will have to rise too, and find a way to interupt the parasitic feeding of the authorities (apparat, or upper rat), and business (oligarchy, or oil and gargle) on each other and on the natural resources of the country.I wonder though, if Pelevin's biggest gambit with this book is his argument against the usefulness of language - which could be a post-modern practical joke, or a truly frustrated author hemmed in by the limited effectiveness of words. For example, the name of the main character; she was named well before the Russian language even existed, but in time, A Hu-Li came to mean, more or less, 'So F***ing What'. As a reader, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take from this. Is Pelevin angry, defeated, or just having fun?Throughout the course of the book, there is a dedicated sniping at language and the inherent problems of approximations (words) standing in for the truths they so poorly represent. I agree with Pelevin in this case, and I think that using the framework of a novel to elicit the truths involved in a spiritual evolution that, by its very nature, cannot be defined is a bold undertaking. Except by the time we reach the last quarter of the novel, where the author gets to the heart of the matter, he must resort to extremely elliptical explanations. If we pay attention, we are rewarded with the key to transcendence, though I thought the _key_ somewhat cliched.This is a layered novel, with page after page of nuanced references that underpin Pelevin's viewpoints almost subconsciously, and support his arguments like the microscopic minutiae the police collect when preparing a murder case. That element of the writing is a rich vein, to be mined again and again. However, his characters are merely mouthpieces for the expository question and answer periods he has to use throughout the book to get his ideas across, or else they are impersonal archtypes and symbols. This is Pelevin's greatest flaw, and it undermines the novel's ability to communicate the unknowable by destroying the willfull suspension of disbelief. That's fatal for a book full of werewolves and werefoxes.One more note: The protagonist is prostitute that appears to be a young teen. Pelevin dips into this lifestyle too deeply in my opinion, and some of the details he brings up seem needless and tasteless to me. Perhaps they serve some ulterior purpose, but if so, I missed it the first time around. I nearly laid the book down in the beginning because of it, but I eventually stuck around because I was interested his explication of Buddhist teaching.I still am. Even though I thought this book had major flaws, I look forward to trying more by this challenging author."Finally, and above all, my dear friends, may there always be room in your lives for a song of joy!"

This book is like a chocolate trifle - enjoyable at every level, full of unexpected delights, but the deeper you delve, the richer and more rewarding it gets!Other reviewers have admirably summarised the plot, so I won't reiterate that, but the style perhaps needs a little more explanation. The setting is gritty, realistic post-Soviet Russia - a world where everyone is trying to make money however they can. And A-Hui does it by prostitution. However, since she is a millennia-old fox with illusion in her tail, she is able to perform the whole business with an air of admirable detachment. So whilst her clientele grind away, enmeshed in the illusions of their own desires, she has time to contemplate, and take the long view concerning the situation in which she finds herself.This is why this novel works so well. The literary allusions come thick and fast - I'm sure I haven't detected them all - but they are never essential to understanding the plot. Instead they represent hidden delicacies to be savoured when found. At one level, we have the protagonist's struggle to survive once a botched assignation leads to some rather special FSB operatives taking an interest in her activities, at another we have the foxes' search for the meaning of their existence - which leads the sisters into a wide range of unorthodox activities - cruelty, martyrdom, & tantric sex...Despite the extreme sleaziness of the world portrayed, the novel itself is never tawdry. It can be taken as an adventure of supernatural creatures in modern Russia, or a meditation on the purpose of existence - enjoy it at whatever level you wish. The philosophising is never forced; it is an integral part of the plot, and a natural character trait for a creature as ancient as A-Hui.And the reason that it works so well is the enigmatic nature of A-Hui herself. Her name described her vulpine nature before Russian was invented, yet in modern Russian it is an obscenity. She is an ancient prostitute, but she is a virgin, and the most naive of the sisters. The contradictions inherent in her personality allows the story to be seen from various viewpoints, correspnonding to her changing moods.The one thing this ISN'T, is a standard werewolf novel. Its Russian title is something more like "The Book of Transformations" - and it is the search for the super-werewolf - as much beyond werewolves as they are beyond humans - that is the basis of this book and the motivation of many of its characters.

This book is beautifully presented, the artwork on the cover should be enough to tempt any reader - although they say never judge a book by its cover - every individual is lured by different factors. I have been searching for this book for some time and with no success, However, I have discovered Amazon seems to keep the rare-reads one never seems to find in Book-stores (believe me I SPEND HOURS IN ONE)! As soon as this book arrived I was ecstatic. If you love magical realism, based on chaotic social order or just a critique of the past then this is the book to read. Wonderful book and I am so glad to be able to add it to my collection - finally! This book makes me feel as though life mustnt be taken to seriously, the animal-morphism includes aspects of an individuals inner animalism. Simpley fantastic and must be read with an open mind.

A strange and unique read. I've read it years ago and was absolutely bewitched by it. I moved since, and I had to have it again.

I love Pelevin, the reincarnation of Michael Bulgakov, Philip K Dick and very possibly Hunter S Thompson. This is his best full length novel; full of hilarity, humanity and transcendence. And foxes.

An unusual mix of supernatural, philosophy and social commentary. I was not sure what to expect when this was recommended to me, but I am glad I have it. :)