"Russian Flowers of Evil" by Viktor Erofeev, summary

This book is a collection of landmark texts from Russian prose of the late twentieth century, published in 1997. Here, Russian literature radically rejects classical humanism and faith in humanity. The prose delves into the elements of destruction, absurdity, and the physical underbelly. The compiler sought to convey the agonizing crisis of Russian thought that gave rise to the aesthetics of outrage and shock.

Camp experience and social absurdity

In Varlam Shalamov’s story "Typhus Quarantine," prisoner Andreyev is held in an overcrowded transit camp. To avoid being sent to certain death in the Kolyma gold mines, he skillfully feigns illness, hides from his supervisor, and bides his time. Andreyev spots Captain Schneider, a former Comintern figure who now obligingly treads on the heels of criminal underworld figures. Andreyev’s risky ploys work: posing as a valuable tanner, he is assigned to easier work on a local assignment, successfully escaping a quick death.

Andrey Sinyavsky’s "The Golden Lace" is built on a meaningless dialogue reeling off standard textbook phrases. Anonymous interlocutors exchange short, absurd remarks about boots, eagles, silver chandeliers, and golden laces. The plot here completely loses its usual logic, revealing the frightening deadness of official language and the impossibility of normal human communication.

In his short story "Lyudochka," Viktor Astafyev describes the merciless tragedy of a timid village girl. Arriving in a small town, she works as a hairdresser’s apprentice and takes refuge with the stern Gavrilovna. Lyudochka accidentally stumbles upon the filthy, abandoned park of Vepëvërze, where she is brutally raped by a hardened criminal named Strekach. Unable to find protection from either her indifferent mother or her landlady, the broken Lyudochka hangs herself with an old rope. Her stepfather silently leaves the house at the wake, finds Strekach, brutally beats him, and disgustingly throws him into a fetid sewer.

In Yuri Mamleev’s "The Notebook of an Individualist," the hero Sasha pathologically torments his wife Zina with endless conversations about death, reveling in her primal fear. He converses with a mysterious otherworldly visitor, Yuri Arkadyevich, who preaches mystical solipsism. The hero finds supreme pleasure in visiting Moscow’s filthy cemeteries. Sasha runs after coffins and falls into a demented stupor, deliriously delighted in the fact that he is alive and others are dead.

The battle for life and compromises

In his text "With a Bag," Friedrich Gorenshteyn depicts old Avdotyushka, who wages a daily, brutal battle in grocery lines. At the store, an intellectual butcher loudly reads Pushkin’s poems to the ferocious line. Later, Avdotyushka is knocked down by enraged customers, breaking her bones, and ends up in a hospital bed. She shares a room with the intellectual Fishelevich, who reads aloud from a book about delicious food. Suddenly, a parcel of apples and gingerbread arrives for her from the rough, tattooed assistant Terentiy.

A journalist from Sergei Dovlatov’s "Compromise No. 5" searches a Tallinn maternity hospital for the perfect baby to take the honorable place of being the city’s 400,000th resident. For ideological reasons, the editor of "Turonki" rejects an Ethiopian child and the son of a Jewish man, Boris Shtein. The choice falls on the son of a hard-drinking worker named Kuzin. The journalist bribes the father for twenty-five rubles to name his son by the ancient name of Lembit, after which the two get drunk on Cuban rum in the empty "Cosmos" restaurant.

Venedikt Erofeev’s character ("Vasily Rozanov Through the Eyes of an Eccentric"), on the verge of suicide with three pistols, borrows hemlock poison and three volumes of the reactionary philosopher Rozanov from his pharmacist friend Pavlik. Reading Rozanov’s caustic, paradoxical, yet immensely sincere lines cures him of his dark despair. At dawn, he goes outside, feeling a strange spiritual relief under the flickering signs of the zodiac.

Illusions, attractions and fear

In Valery Popov’s "Tiger’s Love," the protagonist asks an old acquaintance, Phil, now a prominent construction boss, to fix his broken apartment door. Phil drags the protagonist through the ruins of the building, forcing him to load scarce toilets and wallpaper for a kindergarten. Ultimately, Phil cynically pockets the protagonist’s money, leaving with his recalcitrant secretary, Irina, to drink vodka. The protagonist’s repairs are done by completely different workers for half the price.

In his essay "Anxious Doll," Sasha Sokolov lyrically likens himself to a moth safely released from a straitjacket. The text is filled with complex language, intertwining reality with dreams, and the writer’s work is compared to that of a powerless morgue technician. The protagonist discourses at length on the limitations of human freedom and the difficult love for one’s native language, calling upon the heavens to preserve the restless creators in their grim yet sublime flight over the abyss.

Evgeny Kharitonov’s character ("Oven") tells the story of a man obsessed with the beauty of a young swimmer named Misha. He spends hours wandering around the boy’s dacha, learning to play the guitar for the sake of a quick chat, and meeting his simple-minded friend Sergei and haughty sister Olga. All secret hopes for a rapprochement are dashed in an instant: the family suddenly packs up and leaves for the city, leaving him alone with the empty dacha in the pouring autumn rain.

Eduard Limonov’s character ("The Night Souper") wanders aimlessly through New York City at night. Rejected by a haughty jazz singer, he buys pork and a bottle of port. He settles down under a huge pine tree in Central Park. Suddenly, a silent madman emerges from the darkness with a huge cleaver. A primal instinct for self-preservation compels the hero to slowly and calmly leave the park, escaping certain death at the hands of a mad minotaur.

The Irony of Fate and the Death of Form

In Vyacheslav P’etsukh’s "The Central-Yermolaev War," a ridiculous quarrel between Papa Carlo and Pyotr Yermolaev over a lottery motorcycle leads to a bloody brawl between two villages. Molotov cocktails are thrown, an old pool table in the village hall burns, and teenagers brutally torture livestock specialist Ablyazov with red-hot pliers. The senseless feud only ends after a frightening solar eclipse, which frightens the hooligans into making peace.

Nina, from Tatyana Tolstaya’s story "The Poet and the Muse," takes in the impoverished janitor-poet Grishunya. She harshly drives away his boisterous bohemian friends, the strange Tungus, and the mad artist Lizaveta, forcing Grishunya to write sober poems for the influential functionary Makushkin. The spineless poet takes his revenge in a peculiar way: he sells his skeleton to the Academy of Sciences for sixty rubles. Nina is forced to come to terms with the fact that her husband’s ashes have finally become state property.

Evgeny Popov ("How They Ate a Rooster") paints a colorful portrait of former prisoner Nikolai Yefimych and his deaf wife, Elena. On New Year’s Eve, the hard-drinking husband diligently sharpens a bearing ring into a knife at the factory, intending to brutally stab his wife for her stinginess. Returning home, he finds vodka and a boiled rooster on the table, which his wife had long and persistently hidden. The couple drinks themselves into oblivion and reconciles forever.

Anatoly Gavrilov ("The Story of Major Siminkov") drily describes the precipitous fall of an impeccable army officer. A brilliant major with a silver cigarette case loses a secret package. In a fit of official paranoia, he personally descends to the bottom of a fetid cesspool, wearing a silver suit and gas mask. The paper found in the sewage turns out to be a routine instruction manual for a soldier’s potato peeler, but the unfortunate officer loses his mind forever and resigns.

Cruelty, madness and the end of an empire

Vladimir Sorokin’s "Factory Committee Meeting" begins as a routine investigation into the misdeeds of a drunken milling machine operator named Piskunov. Simakova, Zvyagintseva, and Khokhlov read boring shop reports. Suddenly, a policeman enters with a cello case and begins bellowing nonsensical words. The factory committee members rip off the clothes of a cleaning lady, ram five metal pipes into her body, and busily stuff the wounds with grave worms. This frantic action culminates in Zvyagintseva shooting herself in the mouth.

Dmitry Prigov introduces strict conceptual lists into his book. "The Game of Ranks" sets strict rules for absurd hierarchical advancement through the reading of cliched texts about Pushkin and Gorky. "Description of Objects" methodically dissects an egg, a pillow, a scythe, and a wheel, mercilessly denying their historical interpretations. "Reckons with Life" meticulously calculates the spiritual pleasures of food and conversation in Copenhagen and London museums in precise monetary terms.

Lev Rubinstein masterfully exploits the strict format of a library card index. The text of "Mama Washed the Frame" consists of eighty-three fragmentary phrases and brief recollections of a dead grandmother, strange neighbors, and boyhood fears. The work "Six-Winged Seraphim" coldly records one hundred and three lines of unnamed characters, creating a dense, palpable hum of overheard everyday dialogues, devoid of beginning or end.

Hallucinations and insights

In Yulia Kisina’s story "Flight of a Dove over the Mud of Phobia," a girl named Peggy suffers from severe psychedelic episodes. She imagines a frozen salt sea, an endless museum of dead dwarfs in Sweden, and a ridiculous conversation with a young Hitler about a dead mouse. While in a trance, she commits brutal crimes with terrifying consistency. Ultimately, the court sentences Peggy to death by firing squad.

Igor Yarkevich ("Solzhenitsyn, or the Voice from the Underground") gives the floor to an envious and pathetic masturbator. Petya Blyudsky’s character desperately dreams of becoming Alexander Solzhenitsyn, to achieve literary fame, the nation’s boundless sympathy, and the passionate love of women. In reality, he remains forever trapped in his gray nothingness, next to his broken watch and cold tea.

Viktor Pelevin ("The Crystal World") sets the action in frigid Petrograd on the eve of the October armed uprising. The cadets Nikolai and Yuri guard the dark Shpalernaya Street. Using pure cocaine and ephedrine from ampoules, they discuss Spengler’s texts and the mystical protection of the old world. By letting the cunning worker Eino Reichja pass with his yellow lemonade cart, they unknowingly allow the Bolshevik leader Lenin to pass safely.

The anthology concludes with Viktor Erofeev’s "The Power of the Execution Ground." It’s an aggressive mosaic of memories of a Soviet childhood in Paris, encounters with tall Tanya and Katya, fights with hooligans, and the torment of physicality. The text captures a cold hostility toward the harsh reality of Moscow. The city is presented as a vast, feminine mechanism of oppression, draining a person’s capacity for free thought.