"Generation P" by Victor Pelevin, summary Automatic translate

Viktor Pelevin’s novel was published in 1999. This book is a satirical chronicle of post-Soviet reality, where the collapse of the old ideology has given way to the dictatorship of consumerism and media manipulation. The text is replete with advertising slogans, drug-induced hallucinations, and Sumerian mythology, all seamlessly intertwined in the protagonist’s distorted consciousness.

The work received widespread acclaim and was successfully adapted into a film by director Viktor Ginzburg. A film of the same name was released in 2011, brilliantly bringing Pelevin’s complex philosophical satire to the silver screen.

The beginning of the journey

Vavilen Tatarsky belongs to the generation of the 1970s that carefreely chose Pepsi. Initially, he studied at the Literary Institute, translated poetry, and dreamed of dedicating his life to poetry. The disappearance of Soviet power shattered his faith in eternity. Disillusioned, Vavilen took a job as a salesman at a kiosk owned by a Chechen named Gusein. Some time later, Tatarsky met his former classmate, Sergei Morkovin, who introduced him to the world of advertising. The business model of the era of primitive accumulation of capital was simple: businessmen took out loans, bought expensive SUVs, and commissioned pointless videos. Vavilen began writing scripts for them.

His first success came with a concept for the Lefortovo confectionery factory, with the slogan "Calm Among Storms." Soon, a client was found strangled by a telephone cord with a Nocturne cake in his mouth. Tatarsky quickly became a sought-after copywriter. Former taxi driver Dmitry Pugin commissioned him to adapt Western brands for a local audience. Vavilen developed a pseudo-Slavic idea for "Sprite" and the slogan "Smoke of the Fatherland" for "Parliament" cigarettes. Seeking inspiration, he pulled out an old "Tihamat-2" folder. It contained scientific articles on Babylonian deities, the husband of the goddess Ishtar, and the deadly mysteries of the ancient ziggurat.

Fly agarics and perfumes

A chance encounter with his school friend Andrei Gireyev leads Tatarsky to the village of Rastorguevo near Moscow. Gireyev treats him to dried fly agaric mushrooms. The drug induces a powerful psychedelic experience. Tatarsky feels his words disintegrate into inarticulate syllables, as if in a Babylonian confusion of tongues. Walking through the forest, he stumbles upon a frozen military construction site. Climbing the spiral ramp of an unfinished tower, he finds an empty pack of Parliament bills, a Cuban coin, and a pencil sharpener. These items seem to him to be the correct answers to the three riddles of the goddess Ishtar.

After killing Pugin, street muggers take his money, leaving only a cardboard folder with scripts. Vavilen goes to work for Vladimir Khanin, the head of an advertising agency, who explains the cynical laws of business and hires Tatarsky as a creator. Vavilen’s colleagues are Seryozha, who copies the standards of Western magazines, and Malyuta, an aggressive adherent of Russian patriotism. Trying to unravel social mechanisms, Tatarsky buys a bottle of LSD from a casual acquaintance and uses a Ouija board: the summoned spirit of Che Guevara dictates a philosophical treatise on Identicalism to him.

According to Che Guevara’s text, television constantly emits oral, anal, and repressive wow-impulses. People have gradually become obedient cells of a parasitic organism — ouranus. Modern man is completely deprived of his own personality. He has been replaced by a virtual subject, Homo Zapiens, who exists only while watching television. Man believes he is consuming goods, but in reality, the process of consumption is devouring him. The fires of commerce destroy human nature, leaving only a false shell.

Institute of Beekeeping

Crime boss Vovchik Maloy demands Tatarsky come up with a national Russian idea to introduce to the global market, but Vavilen suffers a crushing failure. Soon, Vovchik is incinerated by a Shmel grenade launcher, and Khanin immediately sends his employees on leave. Morkovin brings Tatarsky to the Interbank Committee on Information Technology. The office of this powerful committee is located in the pompous Stalin-era building of the former Institute of Beekeeping.

There, Vavilen discovers a terrifying state secret. Politicians and government officials, including the president and oligarchs, turn out to be ordinary 3D digital models. Videos featuring them are rendered on massive servers by specialized programmers, and their speeches are written by television copywriters. American intelligence agencies tightly control this process, remotely lowering the clock speed of computers due to the slightest political disagreement. The public blindly believes the news, unaware of the deception.

The committee is headed by Leonid Azadovsky, a portly man snorting cocaine straight from a Persian carpet. He transfers Tatarsky to the secret kompromat department. Vavilen writes a script in which virtual Berezovsky and Raduyev divide Russia up by playing Monopoly. Due to a technical oversight by designer Semyon Velin, General Lebed appears on screen with the wrong brand of cigarettes. Azadovsky is furious. To hide the error from Western clients, Tatarsky proposes faking an assassination attempt on Lebed. Vavilen’s own white Mercedes is used for the fake report.

The Golden Room

Working on the committee leads to constant nervous tension. Azadovsky takes his subordinates to a dingy Rastorguev pub for a break. There, a chance shootout with bandits ensues. Escaping the bullets, Tatarsky returns to the forest to see Gireyev, eats fly agarics, and heads to the abandoned tower. A sirruf, a winged dog-dragon guarding the boundaries of worlds, appears to him. Sirruf explains that the world has become an incinerator, and people are burning alive in the unquenchable fire of consumption.

Soon, Tatarsky is summoned to an underground bunker beneath Ostankino Pond. The room is lined with stone and decorated with notarial certificates that replace paintings by great masters — an expression of monetarist minimalism. Azadovsky prepares for a secret ritual. He gives Vavilen a golden mask and an ancient sheepskin skirt. In the altar room stands a cube with a crystal eye. As Azadovsky kneels, Malyuta and his colleague Sasha Blo suddenly strangle him with a nylon jump rope.

Television analyst Farsuk Seyful-Farseikin calmly explains what’s happening to a stunned Tatarsky. The Society of Gardeners, which secretly rules the world, has chosen him as the new earthly husband of the goddess Ishtar. Azadovsky’s body is taken away in a green plastic ball, and Vavilen is placed in a 3D scanner chair and his face is digitalized. It turns out that previous leaders also underwent this bloody rite, sacrificing their earthly lives on the altar of the omnipresent television illusion.

From that moment on, Tatarsky became both the supreme regent and a digital image. His 3D replica appears in countless music videos for beer, shampoo, and cigarettes, continuously generating a television reality. Vavilen’s personality completely dissolves into the information space. He attains eternity, but not the one he sincerely dreamed of in his youth. Now he controls the deception himself, having forever lost his humanity.